Educause publishes a series of useful resources for administrators and teachers. Here are their latest offerings: http://www.educause.edu/library/resources/7-things-you-should-know-about-connected-learning – One of the critical skills universally identified for thriving in the 21st Century is the ability to communicate and collaborate. http://www.educause.edu/library/resources/7-things-you-should-know-about-infographic-creation-tools I love infographics and the research about our brains ability to process images and develop meaning [...]

Its that time of the year again when staff and schools roll out examinations as a way of assessing the students learning. Examinations are a useful tool in summative assessment, but of course they are not the only tool in the tool kit. I have been thinking about the advice I give to staff about [...]

I have been wondering about what the role of the librarian is? This is actually a hard question, some people might answer that they don’t think its changed, the role remains the same. I would argue that those people have libraries that have not adapted and changed with the world we live in. Some might [...]

privacy noun [ mass noun ] a state in which one is not observed or disturbed by other people: she returned to the privacy of her own home. • the state of being free from public attention: a law to restrict newspapers’ freedom to invade people’s privacy. [Dictionary Version 2.2.1 Apple] I read this morning [...]

Social media, like twitter or facebook, is neither positive or negative. It isn’t good or bad, its just a tool, a facility or a feature we can use. On the traditional medias like television these mediums are collecting a bit of criticism for the comments, tweets and posts published in light of the recent tragedies [...]

This is a very interesting infographic examining generation media consumption http://adage.com/article/adagestat/infographic-generational-media-usage-time-day/229831/ especially if we start to link this with the recent BBC article and the anecdotal vignettes from teenagers about their sleepless habits – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21876118 There is a definite digital citizenship aspect to this. The students in the BBC article are not looking after themselves or [...]

In this update of on the wire I have a couple of interesting articles and the odd infographic to share 1. BBC Future – Why your brain loves to get feedback – http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130226-why-your-brain-loves-feedback An interesting article on the importance of feedback. This supports the research from Professor John Hattie in his book Visual Learning about [...]

The kids have just finished watching the final episode of the Brilliant BBC series Africa, hosted and narrated by David Attenborough. As we watch the last part of the last episode, Attenborough made a point about the importance of the wild places and the need for these to sustain the planet. The series was predictably [...]

Here are a selection of interesting articles on education, technology and digital citizenship: New Zealand Herald Defence force highlights social network dangers – http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10870096 – This is a Digital citizenship basic concept, look after yourself by not posting information that can potentially put you at risk. For these guys it could be life and limb [...]

I have been looking around for a simple quality assurance test plan that my students could use for developing multi-page websites. I haven’t found one that really seemed to cover the bases. So I made one up. This is not a testing process, rather a guide for what should be asked. To put this in context [...]