I'm tied to him, or him to me, depending who you ask (Phish)

The more I delve into the nether regions of twitter's interweb universe the weirder it becomes. 

People I want to follow like, say, Arsene Wenger, have a number of parody accounts which is a waste of time as far as I can see. 

Why spend your on line time doing parody tweets? Bizarre. Boo hiss parody accounts - even if you're THE UNIVERSE parody tweeter who responds to those who use the words 'the universe' in their tweets: http://mashable.com/2012/07/13/universe-twitter-account/ What a jolly jape.

Galactus gets to grips with twitter

People I'd like to follow like, say, George Lucas or Nick Hornby have no twitter presence. Hello!! You're a writer Nick! Yes okay 140 characters is a tad limiting for someone of your genius but you couldn't even maintain an interesting blog. I don't get it. Bizarre. Still love Fever Pitch though.

People who I thought would have little time for twitter, like, say Steve Carell, actually do! The man's hilarious.

The other bit I find weird is the sheer volume of stuff being tweeted. It's a Galactus sized never ending stream of stuff and I've yet to figure out how to sift and find the time to read the good stuff. Must be a way. 

Fun though. Most definitely fun - so thanks again Toni for the not so gentle prodding to get reconnected.

Connection, I just can't make no connection (The Rolling Stones)

Staff at Woodford House taking a break from the classroom
 pose in normal day wear - nothing embarrassing here!

Just the opposite actually - I seem to be making more and more connections the older I get.

Let me see - I have a presence on Linkedin, facebook, my three weblogs of course, and twitter.

But wait - there's also google!

Some of my Year 11 students searched my name yesterday and came up with a load of mentions. It led them to my blogs and that in turn led them to some embarrassing photos that I have long forgotten about. Nothing was inappropriate or dodgy but old photos in particular can spookily reappear to haunt me from time to time.

The message is clear. Beware! Things put on these blogs and the messages and photos sent out into the blogosphere via the interweb in moments of innocence - all of that has a long shelf life.

Why this has not really dawned on me until now I have no idea.

I do self censor but time flies like an arrow and something posted during my experiences in the Middle East or China or England just stays in the blogosphere until a student clicks a mouse button.

Anyway - the above photo shows that I'm not alone. Embarrassment comes with the turf when you're a teacher.

Some folks up in treetops just look to see the sights (The Grateful Dead)

My day three highlights package contains:

Best presenter of the day - Mark Treadwell. He's so damned likable and he stirs things up - to wit: maths as a subject is dead!

Best sights - the beautiful gardens in Rotorua. The township and shops are weird (no central hub or landmarks), but the gardens are spot on!

And so the conference came to an end.

Of course, the real challenge of being away at a conference starts when school hits again come Monday morning. Remembering all those big ideas and the inspiring thoughts that occurred during the keynote by...what was her name again?

I came to the ulearn conference with a goal, or maybe an aim...an objective? Yes - I came to ulearn with an objective - to get some validation and inspiration for our proposed changes to our senior English courses for 2015.

Oh boy did I get that! The talk of individuation (not a pretty word but a great ideology), Universal Design for Learning (UDL sounds like a finance company but is really the nuts and bolts of individuation), and the big project work at Hobsonville Point School were all directly relevant to our plans.

Hosannah!!

And so - it's back to school on Monday and some meetings with the English staff about where we go from here - not just to see the sights, but to put ideas into action!

Woh, oh, what I want to know - will you come with me? (The Grateful Dead)

Dr Katie Novak

Day two from TechCrunch, a.k.a. ulearn and another doozy!

Attended a great workshop and a great keynote, had an okay gluten free lunch, chatted with Dr Ian Hunter PhD., and met some amazing people (young, vital, enthusiastic, energetic - that sort of thing) who are genuine in their desire to serve their students and communities. Humbling really.

Best keynote - well it was the only one today but Dr Katie Novak was wonderful. She spoke about the Universal Design for Learning programme that she works with in America. It provides flexible ways of presenting material to students, flexible options for student engagement and flexible methods of expression/assessment, and I am sold!

Best workshop/ best presenter - Sarah Wakeford from Hobsonville Point School was terrific. An energiser bunny on steroids. She spoke about the Big Project based learning that she oversees. Wonderful.

Best individual moment of the day - when Sarah's youtube links failed she reenacted them for us in hilarious fashion - way better than the originals I'm sure.

Best old friend meeting - Rachel Roberts (not the WH social scientist but the RR I knew from Stratford days) was a presenter at one of my scheduled breakouts. Great seeing her again. 

Lowpoints  - not winning the Schoology draw for the smart phone - means the Nokia gets a temporary reprieve. And the gluten free lunch wasn't that groovy!

A face that seems to laugh alone (Jack Bruce)

First full day at ulearn? Check.

It's been a great day all up. Here are my highlights and lowlights of day one.

Best keynote - Dr Yoram Harpaz on the three incompatible driving ideologies in education. More on this to come.

Funniest stories - two of my fellow Woodfordites sharing their adventures with the spa baths in the motel.

Most unlikely event of the day - I reactivated my twitter account from 2011 following a taster session by Craig Kemp. I know, I know.

Best meal - sharing some Indian takeaways with the Woodfordites and friend.

Best news of the day - our family pet (Bazil) is okay for now after a major health scare. What with the twitter reboot and Bazie - apparently you can teach an old dog new tricks.

Surprisingly, a large number of rudeness moments of the day - people buried in their devices while presenters present - even a large number with their backs to the presenter. Amazing! It's a modern curse. I'm definitely old school - please don't read your emails or ignore what's happening live, in front of your eyes. Take it from me, you'll miss the good stuff.

I'm just out to find the better part of me (Five For Fighting)

I watched a cool 2010 documentary film this morning by director Davis Guggenheim called Waiting For Superman. Picked it up for $5.00 from The Warehouse t'other day.

The film analyses the failures of the American public education system by following several students as they strive to be accepted into a charter school. It's a lottery and that means sadness as well as joy. Great human drama!

Smart guy - by focusing on some personal stories Guggenheim makes the film's ideas both emotionally affecting and accessible.

One of the features the film analyses is 'tracking'. As explained in the film I understood this to be what we know as 'streaming'.

Streaming has its proponents and opponents. Having experienced both streamed classes and non streamed classes I'm not a hard line advocate for either method. Both have their merits and drawbacks.

It did remind me of starting school at Mt. Albert Grammar in 1971 though. 

The tracking then was blatant and unequivocally labelled. Top third form kids went into the 3A stream (core + Latin and French), next lot went into the 3B stream (French). After that there were specialised tracks like 3 Commercial or 3 Agriculture.

I started in the 3A stream but was quickly demoted to the 3B track - where I stayed for the next four years (and where I failed School Certificate). The sixth and seventh forms were all about options. I guess they figured if you stuck to it you could choose your poison.

I've never really thought about it but it was clear what tracks the school thought we were all on: 3A went to University; 3B maybe went to a polytech or something; and the 3 Com and 3 Ag boys went into business or farming. All sorted! 

Imagine trying to sell that in 2014!!!!

Long you live and high you fly (Pink Floyd)

A banana update: 

I am balanced on the ladder, hand on the banana. I'm close; I can almost taste it.

I may have struck upon the right method to secure those bananas that I started writing about in March.

Slow and steady is the answer. It's been an eight month effort so far but I sense the school will be moving to a vertical pastoral care system for next year. Not only that - the vertical forms will be within the House structure.

The whole bunch of bananas is safe though, as I suspect the horizontal deaning structure will remain in place for a year to make for a successful transition. I was shooting for the whole bunch - vertical, House, House deans in a fully vertical structure.

I'm happy if this transpires though because, personally, I think this is one of those times where it is easier done than said.

This was one of Olander/Ahmed's seven new laws for a world gone digital.

Basically 'it is easier done than said' means - get going and then get better or 'do and learn, don't wait and see'.