Educational Origami

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 [...]

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 [...]

On the wire today we have a focus on digital citizenship, and a little on a global project   1. Facebook privacy settings http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/facebooks-privacy-settings-a-complete-guide/ This week seems to have had a number of digital citizenship articles in the various online news sites that I subscribe to: Stuff article on “mum’s cell phone contract” – http://t.co/UWVQINiY  [...]

Its been a while since I have had the time to pen an on the wire update, but here is one. 1. TinEye Labs – http://labs.tineye.com/ This is a search engine with a difference, this one is based on colour. The search feature allows you to select a colour and then search through Flickr for [...]

The new facebook poke app raises a concern or two for me in regards to appropriate use. The app which is essentially facebook’s version of snapchat allows the user to do a number of interesting things. Here is what they say about it in the 12 December news release “With the Poke app, you can [...]

This starter sheets is looking at the online service Crocodoc which allows the users to upload, share and annotate document. The documents can then be downloaded in the mark-up format or in the original format. This service supports PDF and Microsoft office files. This is a useful way of collating student work sharing  exemplars and [...]

Here are a couple of educause updates. These are part of the excellent seven things you should know series, published monthly by Educause. The latest two are: 7 Things you should know about microlectures – http://www.educause.edu/library/resources/7-things-you-should-know-about-microlectures 7 Things you should know about group texting – http://www.educause.edu/library/resources/7-things-you-should-know-about-group-texting Educause has a number of interesting libraries that are [...]

This is the next in the assessment series – this use a blog as the medium for a student applying the reflective cycle to reflect on an event. The reflective cycle has 5 stages – Select an event describe the event – what, where, when and who Analyse the event – break it down into [...]

This is the next starter sheet in the assessment series. This is slightly more specialized in terms of the software being used, but the principles being applied are the same no matter what the testing tool is. Diagnostic testing is looking backwards to plan forwards. It can also include a snapshot of the understanding of [...]