Mar 21 2009
Another 6 months – In the world of IT and Education…
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!
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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
- 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.
- 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?
- 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.
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