Fitzroynthps

great teaching and learning site

Great alternative to wordle.net which  has been taken down for the moment due to copyright issues. 

This is way cool. A map of the Internet done graphically to look like a universe. The visual learner will get a lot from this one.

I was even more intrigued when he made reference to the work of Bernard Suits that claims there are three constituent parts that make up games: To play a game is to attempt to achieve a specific state of affairs [prelusory goal], using only means permitted by rules [lusory means], where the rules prohibit use of more efficient in favour of less efficient means [constitutive rules], and where the rules are accepted just because they make possible such activity [lusory attitude].

Article discusses how to assess 21st century skills 

When a couple of former Picnik engineers and a monkey get together, you get PicMonkey! alternative to Picnik! Yay! I like this web app because its easy to use, free and no sign in or login required (for now)

Great post for level 3 to 4. A list of contempory books for children 8 years+ This would be very useful for students and teachers.

Great ideas on how to use ICT in Project Based Learning Tasks

For years, almost no-one wanted to talk about education policy. Suddenly everyone is. Of course, just because you can invoke the name of "Gonski" doesn't mean you've read the Sydney businessman's talismanic report on schools funding reform, much less understood it. Schools funding is a complex topic. There's an alphabet soup of abstract acronyms (SES, AGSRC) and a spaghetti diagram of administrative structures. Funding for a particular school could include money from parents, from a major church, from a state or territory, and from Canberra. The formula is set with a bewildering array of equations, fed by the demographic chance of Census data.

Interesting article about how to use minecraft in an educational setting. 

We can't understand the humanities without understanding the cognitive processes that make them possible. Sociobiologist E.O. Wilson on the evolution of culture. E.O. Wilson is Pellegrino University Professor emeritus.

Need to sign up to get resources could be worth a look for building our schools appropriate use policy

Looking at the New Directions for school leadership and the teaching profession discussion paper, the only evidence presented to support the assertion that Victoria's education outcomes are not improving is the report "Challenges in Australian Education: results from PISA 2009: the PISA 2009 assessment of students' reading, mathematical and scientific literacy" Specifically the New Directions paper focuses on reading literacy, where in 2009, 14,251 students were given a two-hour pen and paper comprehension test. To get an idea of what types of competencies the reading test is assessing we can look at the sample test , with questions range from comprehension about a letter in a newspaper, the ability to interpret a receipt, comprehension around a short story, an informational text, and interpreting a table. While it doesn't seem unreasonable to want our students to be able to accurately perform these kind of tasks, these tests are not a true or accurate representation of the skills and competencies our students need in today's technology driven world.

Dr. Yong Zhao is an internationally known scholar, author, and speaker. His works focus on the implications of globalization and technology on education. He has designed schools that cultivate global competence, developed computer games for language learning, and founded research and develop institutions to explore innovative education models. He has published over 100 articles and 20 books, including Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization and World Class Learners: Educating Creative and Entrepreneurial Student

As games, particularly virtual worlds, become increasingly popular and as they begin to approximate large scale social systems in size and nature, they have also become spaces where play and learning have merged in fundamental ways. More important is the idea that the kind of learning that happens in the spaces of these massively multiplayer online games is fundamentally different than what we have come to consider as standard pedagogical practice. The distinction the authors make is that traditional paradigms of instruction have addressed learning as "learning about," while these new forms of learning deal with knowledge through the dynamic of "learning to be." It is the authors' contention that the experiences offered within virtual worlds provide a fundamentally different way of thinking about

Nearly 1 in 5 gamers play social network games and 1 in 10 massively  multiplayer games. Growing social and online play is driving interest in online content. One in five gamers say they would either be "motivated" or "very motivated" to sign up to a faster broadband  service for game downloads and online play.

10 Things in School That Should Be Obsolete | MindShift http://t.co/oBFO5FD via @Diigo and @Stephen_H #VICpln PLLlead

Great post on Assessment in UK schools. Ties in with stuff about their national testing that they have had in place for more than a decade. This could be our crystal ball are we looking at our curriculum becoming narrower because we are all jumping through hoops? Assessment for learning? I dont think so. I would rather spend time planning great engaging lessons rather than lessons that are going to meet the National Testing criteria.

Love LEGO bricks? Your favourite coloured bricks are now in Chrome. Check out Build, the world's biggest LEGO set available on your browser. Over the last few months, we've been working with our friends at LEGO Australia on a new project to bring your favourite LEGO bricks to Chrome.  Created downunder and exclusive to Australia and New Zealand, Build is our latest Chrome Experiment and uses the latest in browser technology in Chrome

Interesting post from a prolific Ed blogger who has always written about Ed and the "bleeding edge" worth following and very readable. This post posits that if we are to introduce a non Americanised version of PBL then we should expect systematic change over a long period of time so that it becomes ingrained in the learning culture of the school. I particularly like this position because it takes into account the longevity of the teachers capacity not only to with stand the change but also to be part of the new paradigm.