Every year I tune in to the Reith Lectures on Radio 4. They provoke new ideas, challenge assumptions and often connect previously disassociated notions and concepts. This year sees a break with tradition, as the lectures have been split into two parts, due to a guest pulling out at the last minute. With the overarching [...]
Entries Tagged as 'Developing Thoughts'
The Communications Revolution: reflections from the Reith Lectures 2011
June 28th, 2011 No Comments
Tags: communication · learning theory · online facilitation · pedagogy
Conceptual Incubation
March 8th, 2011 No Comments
A wonderful term isn’t it? I came across it when viewing this TED talk video (2009) about the Tinkering School:
In it, Gever Tulley talks about how problems are turned into puzzles and how setbacks and complexities can lead to a period of ‘conceptual incubation’.
He uses the term in the context of children building [...]
Tags: conceptual
Collaborative Consumerism, Constructivism and the Currency of New Knowledge
February 8th, 2011 1 Comment
As I walk and drive around our island, I am increasingly filled with despair at the self-centred way that people throw rubbish into our grass verges, hedges and roadsides. Sitting in a traffic jam a few years back, I got out of my car and handed a crisp packet to the front seat passenger (a [...]
Tags: collaboration
Technology and Learning Trends for Schools
December 23rd, 2010 No Comments
I have recently returned from The 2nd Berlin Forum on Technology and Learning Trends for Schools, where I presented on the EuroLink – virtual international school (ELvis) – Key Principles and Lessons Learned.
I was fortunate enough to hear Prof. Sugata Mitra speak about his views on the future of learning. To get an idea [...]
Tags: elvis · self-organised learning
Kinetic Typography
October 12th, 2010 1 Comment
I came across a new thing today – new in that although I have seen it before, I did not realize it had a name, that being Kinetic Typography.
Here is a wonderful example from Stephen Fry on ‘Language’:
Although it has been around since the late 1890’s its use in educational terms is still [...]
Tags: innovation
Collaborative Constructivism
March 18th, 2010 No Comments
I have been having a dialogue with colleagues over the past few years about the notion of “Communal Constructivism”. There have been a number of papers written on the subject (e.g. Leask & Younie, 2002; Holmes et al, 2001)
Not least, I have an issue with the term ‘communal’. For me it suggests that [...]
Tags: learning theory · pedagogy
Digital Enlightenment
November 26th, 2009 4 Comments
I read a recent report written by the Women in Science & Engineering Leadership Institute University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA. It was entitled, “Reviewing Applicants: Research on Bias and Assumptions”. A somewhat interesting finding in their research was this:
“In a national study, 238 academic psychologists (118 male, 120 female) evaluated a curriculum [...]
Tags: horizons
