Sliced Bread

Poppy Masselos of Courier Mail Education summarises the Joel Klein story with comprehensive links highlighting his opacity. Klein is the controversial NY Schools Chancellor who has already angered countless Big Apple “education consumers” and Rudd/Gillard seem fixated on emulating his errors. Catch Klein’s National Press Club talk today on ABC TV and make up your own mind.

Chris Bonner’s, author of The Stupid Country  and Future Education Forum, discusses these issues further and with far greater clarity than I am able to elicit whilst I guffaw at Gillard’s naive pandering to failing OS eduexperiments (and ex Australians, which, when he’s finished Boyering us to tears, I’ll comment further)

Australians can and should be leading the educational world and learning from the countries that are setting the pace. In no way are Australian schools in dire straights, as some schools of our two closest allies, Septopia and MC, are. So why import when we should be exporting? Why pander when we can lead? Why be colonial when we could be unique?

Why is Gillard strongly advocating the NYC model without fully considering others ? Easy to see why Klein’s domestic opponents ask reasonable questions that so far remain unanswered. Locally SOS continues the theme by asking “where is the verified, independent, educational improvement evidence, other than Klein’s questionable and abundant own?”

Easy, cheap and lazy springs to mind, all great qualities of those who fundamentally just don’t get it, 21st century education that is. Play catch up if you must Julia, but the NY model is last centuries solution for this centuries learners. The world has moved on, rapidly, and governments just don’t seem to want to know if it costs more than the cheapest solution. (edit5/12: NMC ANZ Horizon Report just released, 198 dowloads as of 5th Dec, get amongst it, good future stuff here, will post more later)

Little boxes, raw stats and testing to the test are so passe, not to mention damaging to learning, I hope the coal facers stop laughing long enough to get to work today.

picture: Rubenstein at flickr

Well ’scuse my newbieness, but these Eddies are now half a decade old and no one told me …. ppiff I say.

Anyway here are my 2 bobs worth for the 2008 edublog awards

Best class blog 2MGems To Mrs M and her 2M Gems, you guys rock. Love your site, love to see kids learning and loving it while they do. As Al Upton requested (16/11/08) and edublogs obliged, THIS category is THE most important Eddie. Well said Al. Mrs M must be behind their website quote, “nearly all classes in the school are blogging” How good is that? Don’t worry about the current traffic jam kids, Uncle Kevin has promised to fix it.

Best individual blog  Watershed  John Larkins work is inspirational. Generous in his shared resources, deep thinking in his eclectic well travelled narratives and my students have deserted my rough and ready wiki to flock to his student friendly links. Top site, easily. Plus he’s a history nut like me.

Most influential blog post My f*#!%ing goosebump story Tomaz Lasic’s honesty is to be applauded, loudly. I just loved this post and need to meet the said Perth beermeister to confirm my suspicians. Hope he’s not a Corona and lemon sucker. 70:20:10 is another TL gem, he dug up for me. Ta WA Moodle Boy.

Best educational tech support blog Tim’s Blog de Blog  Tim and his team work wonders at TaLe and here he shares his personal insights from the other side of the fence. Thought provoking, topical, stops the echo chamber somewhat and adds perspective when I get cheesed off. Like it, lots.

Best teacher blog  Darcy’s Blog is what DET NSW needs installed in every school. If we did, we would have no issue with vaulting the yawning digital chasm that is rapidly emerging. Darcy “gets it”, big time. Thanks for your wonderful insights Darcy, even if you don’t imbide the smell of burning methanol in the morning, it takes all comers to make the nuthouse crackle.

Well thats my bit, drum roll please…… and the winners are …. learners, lets hope.

picture credit: Creating Passionate Users

I blogged about edmodo, an educational microblogging app, a few months ago and thought we’d assess it as a learning tool during 4th term. Our class have been using edmodo for about 10 weeks now and my senior Modern History students are warming to it as they discover its increasing usefulness. 

The hand out/in area is especially beneficial as student work can be reviewed prior to final submission and the ability to either ask and respond to individual questions or private group questions is great. In this way we can either see what the whole class are thinking or contributing or we can send specific messages to selected recipients.

The fact it is also password protected when you invite participants means it is just your group who access the relevant information so student security is not an issue.

The students believe edmodo will be of considerable benefit to them as they prepare for the 2009 HSC, so we have classified edmodo as “keeper app with merit”, not a “chuck it outer”.

The only drawback so far is DET NSW have classified edmodo as “evil”, so access is blocked at school. The students all use it at home, or in their breaks using mlearning, so this is luckily not an issue. (except in DET blocking it at school and the message this conveys about some attitudes towards useful 21st century learning applications)