Author: admin

So 2015 is going to be a new beginning for a lot of reasons, some of which I’ll write about and some of which I am not going to. One of the biggest is that I’ll no longer be in the classroom: instead, I’ll be working as a union organiser for the Independent Education Union,…

So, as the song goes, another year is just about over, and a new one is soon to begin. Or something like that. I like this time of year because it gives you a chance to actually stop and reflect about what you’ve achieved – something that you don’t often get a chance to do…

So, I finally got around to going and seeing Interstellar on the weekend – blame a cancelled flight to Brisbane, in addition to the cancellation of the first test at the ‘Gabba for that little opportunity. I don’t know about you, but I find going to the cinema to be an excruciating prospect at the…

Steve Jobs is reputed to have said that the best stylus for the iPad was at the end of your hands; that is, your finger. In many ways, he’s probably right, but I think he misunderstood how much even a couple of generations of computer use have conditioned us to use other tools for input….

Plenty has already been written – by people far more knowledgeable than I – about the events in Ferguson following the decision not to indict a police officer for the shooting of a black teenager. There’s also been a lot written about First Contact, the SBS TV show that exposed white Australians to the lived…

Social media usually gets a bad wrap today – it’s blamed for our failing eyesight, linked to terrorist groups and central to cyberbullying and youth suicide. There is probably a small amount of truth in all of those claims, but you don’t often hear about the other side of the coin – what social media…

I was never meant to be a teacher. That never entered my mind when I was growing up. But, ultimately, for one reason or another, none of which I’m particularly inclined to discuss here, I became a teacher. I think I surprised everyone, myself included, when I was good at it. I discovered unknown reservoirs…

Schools have always had an interesting relationship with educational technology, and that relationship has only grown increasingly complex with the now almost ubiquitous prevalence of mobile technology. More and more schools, it seems, are embracing the opportunities afforded by this technology for improved outcomes, differentiation and personalisation of learning. Of course, the costs of installing,…

You might have noticed that I spend a lot of time writing about edtech. What you might not see is that I spend a lot of time reading about it too, and a fair amount of time thinking about it too. My interest is scholarly, as it’s a little bit linked to my doctoral work,…

As part of some work that I did a couple of years ago, I found myself spending a lot of time listening to a lot of Hip Hop music. Sure, there were lots of songs that I already knew – I’m not completely disassociated from popular culture, after all – but there was also lots…