Tuesday, April 28, 2009

I can't wait to ditch the cables....

I wonder how many power adapters I have owned over the course of my lifetime? Somehow it seems they never get recycled or even tossed out when their gadget-anchors die or (most likely) get handed down to someone else! I have a huge box full of them, and truthfully I can't wait until the day that either inductive coupling pads or WiTricity hit the mainstream!

Imagine, laying your phone down on a pad on your desk and it charges. Or collecting power over wifi....holy cow....

After seeing a prototype Kyocera foldable OLED screen the other day, and thinking of it in terms of educational applications......I seriously need to step back and try to grasp the BREADTH of the impact these sorts of evolutions are going to have on teaching and learning, let alone society....

No more laptops even.....and really....for doing our investigations (will it still be called teaching if it is all about learning?) will we even need classrooms for the big kids?

Cheers

Monday, April 27, 2009

Innovation in Education

I have been doing a fair bit of coursework in the last week or so on the topic of innovation in education. In particular, we have been discussing the boundaries or barriers to innovation.

I’ve been thinking that our ability to innovate in education seems to be dependent upon personalities and their predisposition towards the concept of innovation. It seems too though that our current government ministry seems inclined to look for ways to innovate though, so I am wondering how we could build the idea of innovation into our SYSTEM? Is our archaic system ready for pushing the boundaries of innovation?

Or is that what AISI is for? We may be on the conservative side with those projects…

Cheers

Saturday, April 4, 2009

A NEW STRUCTURE FOR LEARNING...

I’ve just finished doing some reading about how the entire Adams 50 School District (~10 000 students in metro Denver) is moving AWAY from graded classes, to standards-based multiage groupings. Students will only move from one level to another with a B average, essentially ensuring all HS graduates leave with a 3.0 average (minimum).

This is an interesting concept….I think it warrants more investigation. One of the features I’ve seen promoted that appeals to me the most is the idea that the students would have a lot of say in the operations, rules, etc.

Very exciting, I think! And LOTS to read about on this topic HERE.

Cheers

Thursday, April 2, 2009

I Just Had to Say...

This is cooool…..I’m having a good tech day……I figured out how to embed video onto our school website. I think this is going to make the ‘School Tour’ page a lot more interesting, at least. I think there are a great many other, more educational uses too. For now though, we test…..

The embedded Student News of the Day looks pretty impressive on that portal front page!

Cheers