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Showing posts from August, 2014

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The Puppet Master

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  Puppet Master The narrow, high-walled passage swallowed the sound of my boot scraping a broken cobblestone, the echo sharp in the dry air. Above, a sliver of unforgiving sunlight cut down, carving deep shadows where the damp, mossy scent of the gully was now replaced by the smell of dust and ancient stone. I paused, looking not just at my gloved hand—the leather scuffed from my descent, but at what was attached to it. Thin, nearly invisible lines, like high-tensile wires , stretched from the articulated cuff on my wrist and disappeared into the air above the path. I tracked them with my eyes until they converged on a small, stone figure standing motionless in the centre of the walkway. It was a crude marionette , barely a foot tall, carved from the same pale, cracked stone as the surrounding walls. Dressed in a simple tunic, its blank, oval face held a radiating sense of expectant waiting. Its arms were held out, palms up. I held the strings. Yet, the feeling was not one of cont...
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Love of Learning Skills

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Schools are responsible to endeavouring students a love of and the skills to participate in lifelong learning. Our students need to view schooling as a continuum rather that a series of disconnected adjuncts and to learn socially acceptable learning behaviours to participate within the globalised digital economy. Our learning services need to remain open, connected with society, embrace transformation of behaviour , as well as entice, excite and engage learning. Bill Clinton highlights the important role of schools in developing a lifetime love of learning - ‘ Your brain is a gift and we now know that people well into their late 60s and 70s can form new neural networks’ ‘by learning something new’ (Clinton YouTube video 2014)    It is important that educational leaders make sense of what a job-hopping career and extended life spans actually substantiate, how T-12 schooling dovetails within lifelong learning and how eLearning can embrace a life of self-transfor...
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Australian cultural celebrations

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39 years ago today, Gough Whitlam made history by giving land back to Vincent Lingiari and the Gurindji people -- an iconic symbol of reconciliation and the achievements of the land rights movement.  This is a great day for Australia to celebrate. I think this day and this image of Whitlam and Lingiari is as important as any national day Australians celebrates (despite the picture's overtones symbolising the white commander and the black controlled).  There are not many of these types of cultural artefacts  which are outwardly promoted and celebrated as a nation. I believe this day is more important to the Australian cultural fabric than the external war campaigns Australia celebrates (why has the military machine taken over our cultural celebrations? $$ reason to buy more and more war hardware and to increase Australian Federal budget percentage). Australia readily celebrates the colonial past and empire heritage). Why can't this cultural activ...
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The GREAT DEBATE - why not have both?

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The ambitions to enable innovative programs ‘requires a forward-looking, creative, and open-minded seeking of technology, not for its own sake, but for the sake of advancing student learning and understanding' (AACTE 2008) ------------------------------------------------------------------------- The great debate 0365 vs Google Apps for Education.  Why not both? Don't believe that it cannot be done.  One-off sponsorship You Tube
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Lifelong Learning

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Life-long Learning - Transformational eLearning ‘ The concept of getting and holding a job in one industry for decades is outmoded, a byproduct of the industrial mindset ’ ( Tom Peters June 2014) . It is important to view school based eLearning within the continuum of lifelong learning. In other words, eLearning structures should be considered within a life-long adventure and a natural part of personal transformation rather than a segmented fix satisfying the needs of a specific period of time. Presently, eLearning services are overwhelmingly rooted to the industrial mindset which is primarily focussed on content and assessment. Whilst, content and assessment remain important elements they should no longer be perceived as a finite identifier of a good eLearning service. Learning is far more complex. To enable lifelong learning skills, contemporary eLearning systems need to address disconnection, work conditions and behavioural learning skills. Disconnection : The m...
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Behavioural Change and Improved Learning

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(This discussion paper is contextual to Australian schools.) The relationship between behavioral change and improved learning is a deeply rooted process of schooling. As structures go, classrooms contain a largely sized body of people within smallish size rooms, students are legislated to compulsory attend, and are regulated by the powers of a solitary instructor/manager.  For an individual child to successfully learn in this controlled space classroom behavior must be acquired. The child learns this behavior in the classroom itself. Classroom behaviour is a learning discipline in itself. It is difficult for a child to learn within a classroom if the child doesn’t subscribe to classroom rules. Schools are ‘disciplinary institutions’.   Australian schooling is  similar to the descriptions formed by Foucault.  In reference to Foucault  this discussion concerns the relationship between power, knowledge and future social positioning.  This discussion i...
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