Musings about life in retirement from academe
This semester I have some time set aside to work on redeveloping the course that I’ve been offering to 4th year Primary specialisation students in the BEd since 2011. The course, EDP4130 Technology Curriculum and Pedagogy, is intended to prepare students to teach the Technology Key Learning Area. It is offered on 3 campuses (2 in 2012 because of low...
READ MORE Redeveloping EDP4130 Technology Curriculum and Pedagogy
The keynote on the final day of the conference was delivered by Mark Milliron, Chancellor of Western Governors University. This was a clear case of ‘save the best for last’ and was a lively presentation on building out the new generation of learning. Although the presentation included little that was new it was put together in a clear and compelling package...
Making it down the I-35 for an 8:30 start with the keynote rather than rushing for a 7:30 SIG meeting allowed for some extra sleep and a less frantic start to the day. The keynote was provided by a panel of 4 Deans – 2 from the USA, 1 from NZ and 1 from Israel. Each gave a brief presentation,...
My time at SITE has been busy enough to negate my good intentions of compiling this report on a daily basis. Here I am at lunch time on the final day and I’m just now finding time to make some notes about the second day of the conference proper. I started the second day early, attending the TPACK SIG meeting...
Our hotel breakfast was simple, bagels and cream cheese, but slower than anticipated and traffic was heavier than on Sunday so we were late for the SIG meetings which started at 7:30 am. Welcome and keynote followed at 8:30. Jim Bower, a computational neuro-biologist from University of Texas at San Antonio, provided the keynote. He pitched at the conference theme...
I spent Sunday at the SITE – Microsoft Teacher Education Initiative meeting. It was a very full day, beginning with breakfast at 7:30 am and concluding with dinner at 7:00 pm. We arrived back our hotel after that around 9:00 pm. The formal program began after breakfast, at 8:30 am, with a short introduction from Mike Searson (SITE President) and Jim...
Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been doing some updates to my EDP4130 Technology Curriculum and Pedagogy course. Mostly I’ve been working through the assessment elements and I’m now at the stage of reworking the major assessment piece. When I’ve run this course, or its predecessor, in the past I’ve used a major assignment in which whole classes have worked...
READ MORE Testing HootCourse for 'studio' environment in EDP4130
From 5 – 13 March I travelled to Nashville, Tennessee, to attend the 22nd International Conference of the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education (SITE). The conference attracted almost 1200 delegates representing more than 50 countries, which was heartening for the society in a time of restricted financial support from many universities in the USA and elsewhere. I am grateful...
From 26 July – 29 July I attended the 2010 Sydney Symposium – The Future of Teacher Education and School Leader Education at Macquarie University. This was a small working conference to which I had been invited by the organiser, and former USQ colleague, Prof. Ian Gibson. Attendees came from Australia, New Zealand and the USA, and included teacher education...
READ MORE Sydney Symposium – The Future of Teacher Education and School Leader Education
Last week I attended the 3rd Regional Conference on Engineering Education (RCEE 2010) and Research in Higher Education (RHEd 2010) held at the Grand Margherita Hotel in Kuching, Sarawak. I was invited to deliver a plenary presentation on the challenges of implementing problem-based learning (PBL) in the university environment. I developed the presentation around the idea that implementing PBL is...