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CompendiumLD is a software tool for designing learning activities using a flexible visual interface. It is being developed as a tool to support lecturers, teachers and others involved in education to help them articulate their ideas and map out the design or learning sequence. Feedback from users suggests the process of visualising design makes their design ideas more explicit and highlights issues that they may not have noticed otherwise. It also provides a useful means of representing their designs so that they can be shared with others.

Twittering the student experience by Alan Cann, Jo Badge, Stuart Johnson and Alex Moseley Background Based on our personal experience of Twitter, we were interested in examining what use students would make of the service and to what extent it could be used as a support channel.

Schools are made of people. Schools are all about people. Schools are made from the connections between people. Schools exist to serve people and make the lives of all people better.

Sometimes, it seems everyone who ever went to school is an expert on education and has a plan to make it better. Actual teaching experience, years of professional learning and formal training are all easily swept aside. The result is an ongoing dialog around what schools should do, what teachers need to do more of or less of and how the academic success of the nation is linked to strategy x or y.

The foundational stability of schools might be our greatest strength.Getting the fundamentals right and protecting them during change efforts is essential. 

The dangers of making learning so safe and so easy it lacks any real sense of challenge. When we do this we deny our learners the opportunities they need to learn from mistakes and grow their minds. 

Experience shapes our understanding of the world and our responses to it. Our past influences our decision making and constrains our imaginations of what is and is not possible. Understanding this is a crucial step towards change; a first step towards discovering a better way to do things. Until we understand how our experience is limiting our imaginations we will continue to be restrained by the way things have always been done. 

Our language choices communicate both intended and unintended messages. In the choices we make, in the subtlety of these choices, lies a truth more powerful than that conveyed by a literal reading of our words. When we look closely and critically at our use of language, we begin to see particular patterns which reveal much about what we genuinely value and expect from our learners. 

It seems that thanks to COVID19, educators, parents and students are in a rush. It seems the rush started moments after the decision was made to promote social distancing by offering remote learning. From quality learning in classrooms focused on deep learning we shifted into top gear. Packets of work were prepared, online tools rapidly expanded, new options for content delivery were examined and quickly deployed. We wanted to make sure that our students would be kept busy. Parents wanted their children to be busy. - Maybe slow looking is the solution?

Why might it be that our students struggle with independence? Maybe it comes from the language moves we make. As with the language of thinking, being deliberate with our choices can help us to create a classroom culture where students demonstrate independence and initiative.

For schools in Australia and many parts of the world, we are heading towards the end of another school term and year. That means report writing season. For the next few weeks, teachers across the country will be huddled in front of computer screens, writing reflections on the progress their learners have made. Mark books will be opened, assessments consulted, work samples will be reviewed. All so that in the first week of the long Summer vacation students can sit and read their report and make plans for how they will enhance their learning in the coming year.

We are living in interesting, frightening and rapidly changing times. Where rapid changes and transformations through technology, politics, globalisation and the climate, conspire against normality. These times demand a fresh approach to education, one that provides learners with the thinking dispositions they need to turn challenges into opportunities.  "All that was 'normal' has now evaporated; we have entered postnormal times, the in-between period where old orthodoxies are dying, new ones have not yet emerged, and nothing really makes sense." But what thinking might guide us through this time of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity?

To ensure reflective practice is more than an activity added to our schedule, we need to take a reflective stance. Too often, reflection becomes the thing we do at the end of a task or the end of the day. We look back and contemplate what was, and with that in mind, we look forward to what we might do differently next time. It is in this way a very reactionary process. By all means, this form of reflection has its place, and it can be a powerful strategy to deploy as we seek to learn from experience. If we value reflective practice, we will be sure to set aside time for this form of reflection on a routine basis. By engaging in reflection habitually, we ensure that it is a routine part of our day. But adopting a reflective stance can make this more powerful.