A techie’s view

With Thanks To …
My thanks go to Mary-Kay Goindi (twitter: @MaryKayG) and Tom Whitby (Ning: http://edupln.ning.com , twitter : @tomwhitby) for prompting this post.
The exchange of tweets that led to this post is:

MaryKayG: “Teaching should be about uncovering rather than covering so that the outcome is learning rather than remembering.” 12-Nov-2009, 20:12
philhart: “.@MaryKayG You pose [...]

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Motive
My motive for this post is to share with other ESL teachers what I learned from teaching a group of Arabic-speaking learners.
Classroom Observations
Work with the monolingual group experienced all the usual risks and benefits of them being monolingual. I won’t bore you with repeating the details, as I expect that you are already well-acquainted with [...]

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With Thanks To …
My thanks go to Mark Weston (web site: http://www.linkedin.com/in/westonmark, twitter @ShiftParadigm) for prompting this post.
His original tweet was “RT@djmath Teaching is not rocket science. It is…far more complex, demanding work than rocket sci. Richard Elmore, Harvard via @kdwashburn“, and it made me ponder my own practice as a teacher. He then went [...]

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Introduction
This post is a personal reflection on the way that learning seems to have changed since I was a child, and focuses on the impact that Web 2.0 has had on the way I learn.
Schooling, Old Style
As a child, my school experiences were typical of the time. I see today’s children also having those same [...]

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My Thanks …
My thanks go to Chad Sansing (web site: http://classroots.org, twitter: @chadsansing ) for prompting this post.
His tweet was “what would make school relevant? what would happen school divs were portflios? what if we standardized authenticity?”
For people less acquainted with school divisions (like me!) he went on to explain “what if schl systems purposefully [...]

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My Thanks …
My thanks go to Tomaz Lasic (blog: http://human.edublogs.org , twitter: http://twitter.com/lasic) for prompting this post.
“I Have Had Kids Tell Me …”
Tomaz’s original tweet was “I’ve had kids tell me I suck as teacher because ‘I don’t teach them anything’ (i.e. tell them the ‘right’ answer). Think sunshine!” which set me to thinking very [...]

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OR: Memories of being a Computer Numbskull
The title of this post was chosen as a reminder to myself of the impact of information technology on my own reality in perhaps much the same way as it may have just had upon you, dear reader. It was this: “What on earth is going on?”
Having been in [...]

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Introduction
The twittersphere is buzzing with how to use Web 2.0 in places of learning. I nearly wrote “in the classroom”, and that is perhaps symptomatic of this issue in educational institutions today. “A place of learning” was once synonymous with an educational institution, but this is manifestly untrue today. I justify this assertion later in [...]

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Thanks To …
My thanks go to Andrew Forgrave (@aforgrave on twitter) for his thoughtful post on the Obama Speech controversy. His post has prompted my post, which offers my own thoughts on some of the issues that he offers.
Background
Andrew’s has the advantage of coming from the USA’s next door neighbour. He is far more in [...]

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Background
I have been vaguely aware for decades of people being proud of their innumeracy. A recent experience brought this awareness into sharp relief, and this post explores my thoughts on the subject of innumeracy.
What is Innumeracy?
It can be slightly difficult to define innumeracy in terms of mathematical content (”Can you add up two numbers in [...]

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