Another 6 months – In the world of IT and Education…

EFF says Cory is a superhero and they mean it;...
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Well should I be making excuses probably not. Is anyone reading, probably not. So why do I return to my trusty weblog after so long -well more than anything to unload almost cathartically everything that has been happening in the last few months – as boy has it been a little busy!

  1. Twitter has taken hold via Seesmic Desktop – still unsure of this continual building and then uptake of new communication platforms – but the aggregating of these makes much more sense and Seesmic now links both my twitter accounts with my facebook feed as well – so in the end it might well work this continual connecting of feeds and applications. I used Tweetdeck for a while and also Twhirl but somehow Seesmic is developing out to be the best so far.
  2. Cory Doctorow and the Open Rights Group – All Seeing Eye Lecture was a cool event although it seemed much to my amusement that the beard ratio was the highest I have ever seen for any event. But Cory Doctorow’s discussion and Stross’s to a lesser extent were very interesting – so much so in fact I am hoping to get Cory to come along to the school and give a chat to students in my ITGS group and maybe to a larger group of students as well.
  3. NIM, VHS and ITGS IB Distance Learning – well I have finished my ten week course into using the wondrous Blackboard (hmm –  please it is only a tool I am using and it does not mean I approve of their methods). I must say that the VHS facilitators and setup was very professional and shall we say extremely positive about the use of remote learnign courses with High School students. I am really looking forward to running my ITGS course – and interested to see how well it really works, and especially what students can cope and do well with such a course completely online. Watch this space and I will bring you the occasional update from September.
  4. Drobo – Thoughts and Backup keep haunting me – and it will not be long until I buy one of these – would love to know if they are as good as they look, or if some of the voices of criticism need to be listened to.
  5. Marking IB Internal Assessment Portfolios – Well a great deal of my time has been taken up with the grading of Internal Assessment portfolios. This was my first time moderating and a very interesting if demanding experience. It is amazing how much time moderating 240*1000 word essays takes. But it has definitely given me a better view of how criteria based assessment can be very tricky
  6. Critical Study / Final Thesis for my Masters is now beginning to take shape – over the next few weeks I will be survey monkeying away to create my first questionnaire for teachers and possibly students. Frog has now been installed and the initial builds are happening at the school – it is a little disappointing that we still seem to be working with Frog 2.0 rather that the widgetised Frog 3.0 – but hoping by role out in September things seem a little more user friendly as otherwise I wonder about uptake initially.
  7. Quest Atlantis – Still fighting to get IT support to finally test and install this 3D Second Life learning environment – hopes are still for introduction next year?
  8. And almost forgot that I taught over Spring Break for the Oxford Revisions Courses company – at St Anne’s College. Surprisingly it was a fun experience, obviously hard work but ultimately rewarding as I hope and believe the students came away after 3 days and 17.5 hours with a better understanding and a confidence for their final examinations. I hope to return next year – and maybe will do the mid IB course at Emmanuel College in Cambridge.

So as you can see life has been a little busy…and sure to get busier…hopefully the next few posts will be less excuses and more work related to my final Masters thesis.