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The Ethereal Ascent

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  The Ethereal Ascent The air in the room is violently still, creating a heavy pressure. She has long stopped looking at the clock, realising that time here is not a sequence but a weight. The waiting room has fractured; the mundane reality of plastic chairs and linoleum flooring splinters into a jagged, stained-glass fever dream. High-pitched frequencies of burning red and sickly blues vibrate as if hardened walls, echoing the frantic noise of a mind that has run out of distractions. Every sharp edge of colour feels like a spiritual siege, a sensory reminder that her momentum has been forcibly halted. There is no use in pacing. There is no use in resisting the authoritative hand of the "in-between." To survive this stall, she must stop fighting the current and become part of the stagnant water. She looks out, as if just awakened, and does the only thing left to recollect. She breathes. She waits. She waits for the shards to align once more. Be Creative and Innovative wit...
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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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