Centuries ago, people believed the world was flat. They don't (or most don't) believe that any more. So, if you were to chuck in a casual reference to the flat earth during a presentation you were doing to a client, or a roomful of attendees, you would immediately lose credibility. Clearly here is someone who does not have his/her finger on the pulse.But the flat earth is an extreme example. There are other, more recent ones. In recent meetings, I have heard people make casual reference to the whole left brain/right brain thing as if it were indeed, still a thing. We used to think so. But now, thanks to the work of people like Prof John Geake (among others), we know that is simply not the case.Similarly, I have heard people cite the example of how the Americans spent millions researching a pen that could write in the zero gravity of space, while the Russians just used a pencil. That illustration gets used to demonstrate why it is important not to overthink things, and that sometimes, the simplest approach is the best. While that may be sound advice, the story of the pen/pencil thing is bogus. The graphite in pencils is problematic in zero gravity, too.Every single one of us has seen a Facebook share that tells us that a million shares will get this kid his heart transplant, or that Bill Gates will donate a dollar to X charity for every 'like' the photo gets. Truth is, no amount of sharing is going to get that kid a heart, and Bill Gates already donates millions to charity, but to the charities of his own choosing. And by sharing these things, a person reveals a level of naivete and - it has to be said - laziness.It is always possible to check whether a story is true. There are several sites online where you can verify (or otherwise) the latest viral sharing trend. Hoaxslayer, Snopes, etc. It takes a matter of minutes.It is also possible to check whether the earth is flat, whether global warming is real, whether fracking is harmful, whether nuclear energy is really clean, whether the Russians really did just use a pencil while the American spent millions developing the space pen. (Please note: I am not for a moment saying that all of these are myths. But you can check for yourself which are true and which are not.)...and to see what the current thinking is on how the brain works, whether learning styles actually exist.I am a learning professional. I try to keep abreast of current thinking and research in my field so that I don't discredit myself or my company by casually dropping an absolute clanger into a conversation with a client.Whatever your field is, I genuinely believe you owe it to yourself to do the same.Things that were once unequivocally true (the earth is flat; eating fat makes you fat) are being shown by emerging research to be not so very true after all (the earth is round-ish; processed carbs make you fat). Information is everywhere, and it is impossible to keep on top of it all, but keep your eyes and ears open in the fields that interest you. And, in the field that pays your salary, make a conscious effort to keep up. That's my advice. Not that you asked for it.

The company I work for recently switched from an Outlook Exchange based email system to a cloud based system. This happened just before I joined the team, so the switch shouldn't really have affected me. I have been using cloud based email on a personal basis for a while, now, so I didn't really expect to encounter any challenges. But distribution lists have got me (a bit) beat at the moment. I don't use those for my personal emails.I have yet to figure out how to create a distribution list of my own - any help on this front would be welcomed. The distribution lists from the Outlook system have either been carried over or recreated (I'm not sure which), so I can use those to send out group emails. Being fairly new to the company, I don't know who is included on the various distribution lists, and I have yet to find a way to expand an existing distribution list to find out who's on it. Once again, any help you can offer...When I send out a meeting invitation to one of the distribution lists, the invitees are unable to respond. They receive an error message to the effect that the invitation has been sent to , whereas they're logged in as . So in fact, meeting invitations have to be sent to a list of individuals, rather than a named distribution list. If the distribution list is long and/or if you don't know who's on it, this can be problematic!Have you had similar challenges? How have you resolved them?

Over the past week, I have had several conversations with colleagues about the power of social media for learning. For many, it's still a new concept. And it got me thinking about the role that social media play in my own lifelong, lifewide learning.For the past couple of weeks, my radar has been inundated with news about the abducted girls in Nigeria. So much so, that I was surprised at how much noise was being made about a lack of media coverage of the situation. From where I was sitting, this tragedy was dominating the news. But I get most of my news via my social media streams, so while the traditional media might not have been giving over many column inches to the missing girls, social media had taken the ball and was running with it.Protest marches and sit ins have been organised. Demands have been made of the Nigerian government. There is talk of US troops being deployed to help locate the girls.What many people perhaps don't realise is that this isn't the first time this has happened. The large group of parents currently pleading for the safe return of their daughters is not the first group to have their lives unalterably changed in Nigeria in recent times. Over the past few years, bombings, murders and abductions have been frequent, but largely unreported. According to the Guardian, Boko Haram began kidnapping women and girls from schools across north-east Nigeria last year after police detained family members of its commanders. "Since you are now holding our women, just wait and see what will happen to your own women," leader Abubakar Shekau said in 2012. The Nigerian government appears to have been taken by surprise at the vehemence of the response this time around, and have (finally) made a commitment to getting the girls back. Why did it take so long? The verdict seems to be that no-one made enough noise...at first. To quote further from the Guardian, The #BringBackOurGirls hashtag took off on Twitter more than a week after the girls were taken, spearheaded by a former federal education minister, Oby Ezekesili and other Nigerians with large followings on Twitter. It has since attracted the attention of the world's media, and serves as a rallying cry for concerned observers. Just two days before the abduction and the bus station bomb, President Jonathan's daughter got married. In online protests, Twitter users contrasted photos of the wedding and a crying girl. Beneath was written: "She got a presidential wedding; they deserve a president rescue."The power of this reaction reminds me of the very different case of United Breaks Guitars. Social media make it possible for people to acquire information that might not otherwise even register on their horizon. It allows people to get their message out to a wider audience. It enables people to learn from one another when the traditional sources aren't delivering.Never doubt the power or the reach of social media. No group of people need stand alone in their grief (or their triumph, come to that). #bringbackourgirls #bringbackourdaughters

Shaun Crowley has worked as an EFL teacher and a marketing manager for an international ELT publisher. He is the founder of www.linguavote.com, an e-learning platform for learners of English that features social learning and gamification. Follow Shaun on Twitter: @shauncrowley. In Part 1 of this series, Shaun Crowley considered the importance of 21st Century Skills in ELT, concluding that the group of competencies that define this term are indeed important to English language learning. In the next four posts, Shaun continues by offering ideas to help you integrate some of these skills into your classes. Critical thinking skills are some of the key "21st Century" competencies, so it’s no surprise that we’re starting to see publishers position their course books with this benefit up-front, from primary to tertiary level. Here is an idea to help you maximize opportunities for critical thinking, so that your students are better prepared for the rigours of university education and the professional workplace. Adopt a "question-centred" approach to your classes Since the recent curriculum reforms in the US, a question-centred approach to teaching has been gaining popularity in schools. Teachers start a module with a big question. Students consider this question critically, and over the course of the module they synthesize information to form a conclusion in the form of a final homework assignment. This approach first made its way into ELT with the publication of Q Skills for Success. But whatever course you are using, so long as you have enough time to step out of the materials, it should be possible to customize your lessons to feature an "essential question". For example, Headway Elementary Unit 4 is called "Take it easy" and follows the topic of leisure activities. Before you start this unit, you could write this question on the board: "What makes the perfect leisure activity?" Perhaps search for a YouTube video that offers a nice way-in to thinking about the question… here’s one I found following a quick search: Pre-teach some of the main vocabulary items that fit into the question theme. Then spend a few minutes discussing the question and gauging students’ opinions before you open the book. As you go through the unit, use the various listening and reading texts as opportunities to return to the big question, encouraging students to synthesize and evaluate the different input.  For example, in the "Take it easy" unit, there’s a text called "My favourite season." Here you could ask: Is the perfect leisure activity one that you can do in any season? Return to the big question any time you see a link to the course material you are using. Then at the end of the unit, have students write an answer to the question for homework. If students are not in the routine of doing homework, round off the question with a class discussion. Have you adopted a similar approach to your classes? If you have, we’d love to hear how you apply the question-centred method.Filed under: Adults / Young Adults, Multimedia & Digital, Skills Tagged: 21st Century skills, Blended Learning, Critical thinking, Q Skills for Success, question-centred, Technology, YouTube

I recently had to attend a speed awareness course (I know, I know - you're all paragons of driving virtue). The delivery method for the course was chalk-and-talk with endless PowerPoint slides, almost all of which contained a list of bullet points. The instructors did their level best to make it interesting, and - to be fair - there was some solid content. But I can't help feeling that it might be time to explore some alternative delivery approaches. Perhaps this is a post for another day, but right now, I digress.If you know anything about me, especially if you've read my recent post, you'll know how my brain imploded when one instructor tried to explain the psychology behind speeding in terms of the whole left brain/right brain thing. You'll be proud of me, though, because I didn't immediately challenge him to a duel. :)I know I've only recently touched on this point, but it really set me to thinking. When all's said and done, this was a course about road safety. Imagine how their credibility would be damaged if they cited traffic ordinance that was as outdated as the left brain/right brain concept. Why do we put so much effort into one and not make the slightest effort about the other?The company I work for provides (among other things) training in various safety-critical fields: working at height, working with high voltage, working in confined spaces, hazardous agents in the workplace, for example (and those are just the ones that pop into my head - there are hordes of others). Imagine if we trotted out outdated safety equipment, or cited outdated safety precautions. The results could be devastating!The people who work in these areas make it their business to keep up to date with the latest information and legislation. They wouldn't dream of doing otherwise.Why is it then, that there isn't the same level of commitment to keeping up with the research about how learning itself works? Why is it okay to trot out research that is decades old and out of date? To cite pop-psychology as if it were solid fact? To quote urban legends as 'evidence' that 'prove' the point you're trying to make?Why isn't the learning world beating a path to Itiel Dror's door (for example)? Or Mo Costandi's? Or (while he was alive) John Geake's? In his presentations, Itiel often mentions how learning providers will feature a picture of a brain in their materials at various exhibitions. And when he asks how the product they're selling relates to the brain, the vendors are stumped. They know little about the brain, other than that learning happens there somehow or another.I have to question the ethics of this. In other fields, professionals keep up with emerging research on pain of dire consequence: structural engineers, microbiologists, burn specialists, aerospace engineers, surgeons... and the world holds them to account. Why are we being allowed to get away with it?

Zarina Subhan is an experienced teacher and teacher trainer. Since 2000, she has been involved in Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) materials writing, training trainers and teachers in facilitation techniques and teaching methodology. Zarina now spends her time divided between teacher training, materials writing, trainer training and presenting at conferences.  "When we originally went to the moon, our total focus was on the moon, we weren’t thinking about looking back at the earth. But now we’ve done it, that may have been the most important reason we went." - reported by David Beaver, co-founder of Overview Institute. Similarly, when we go into the classroom, as teachers, our total focus is to help our students to learn. But unlike the astronaut, who was quoted, many of us fail to look back. We can become so focused on the job of teaching that we don’t reflect often enough on how we can develop ourselves. Let’s consider a question. What’s your ultimate goal as a teacher? Many would say they want to help their students be the very best they can be. However, the reality that many language teachers face is that they cannot always engage their students in what they are teaching. They feel they have to teach to the test, or cannot cover everything in the book in the time allocated. Not enough feel like they may be ‘making a difference’. This is the first of a series of six articles designed to help teachers develop themselves, in order to make a real difference to their students. I’ll be suggesting ways you can boost class participation, and encourage your students to really experiment with the language they are learning. So, where to start? It can be very helpful to begin by objectively considering how you teach, by being observed. Classrooms are a teacher’s territory and if observations are done as a form of inspection or prerequisite to promotion, it can be very stressful. However, if you invite a close teacher friend into your territory, it is quite a different matter. It allows you to ‘see yourself’ through another professional’s eyes, and a professional who is non-threatening at that. I suggest asking a colleague (preferably in the same school as you) if they would be willing to partner up with you. It could be as informal as "I don’t really think I teach p.68&69 in the Grade 6 book very well. Would you be interested in seeing how I do it? Could you share any of your ideas with me?" Although it won’t be assessed, it will still probably cause a bit more anxiety than if it were just you and your students. So be sure to plan to do it a little way into the future and not just "next Tuesday", only to realise it is parents’ evening the same night… When discussing and arranging your time to be observed, you should also negotiate when you can observe your colleague in return. If you make it a two-way observation, you are effectively both agreeing to be open and honest with each other and discarding all barriers. It is also fair. More importantly, observing, mentoring and listening to, as well as giving feedback can be a very beneficial process that leads to some reflective time and consideration on how to do things differently. When you see how others teach exactly what you teach, it provides a real chance for you to try out new things. These changes you make, however small, refresh your teaching. Before observing someone, there are certain things that need to be in place. Make sure you understand what the other teacher is hoping to gain from the experience and also what they hope to achieve for their learners. It can be helpful to ask them to write a lesson plan, even if they don’t normally do so for every class they teach. This is because it is good to understand what led to the lesson you observe. A lesson plan also gives the teacher the chance to point out ‘known difficulties’, whether these are particular students, or specific things about the class the observer needs to be aware of. In addition, a lesson plan allows the observer to have some questions in mind before the lesson begins. For example, "Why is this activity not happening till the end? I would’ve used it at the beginning!" They are questions that shouldn’t be asked before the observation because you could make the teacher feel unsure of themselves, but hopefully will be answered by what is evident in the classroom. And of course, a lesson plan is equally important to provide for your teacher friend who is going to observe you. Remember to keep things equal. Make sure you always thank the person you observe at the end, and highlight the positive things that you saw. If they asked you for constructive criticism, give it, but remember it should be useful and more constructive that critical. Be sure to take notes and get yourself organised before speaking to them. What kind of things should you note? Here are some suggestions. Level of anxiety / stress in the classroom Levels of differentiation and learning Method of questioning to increase student participation Listening to students and clarifying what is said How cognitively challenging are activities for the students? It’s a good idea to also provide some points that you would like the other teacher to look for in your lessons, so when you are observed, you too benefit from the experience. When this is done effectively and efficiently, both teachers usually benefit so much that they implement it at other times and it becomes a peer observation tool for self-development. It works when all things are fair and equal. This way, we can deal with our students’ learning and also our own, by putting into place a method of looking back and reflecting like the astronaut who went to the moon. Ours is just as epic a journey and I hope you will join me in my next blog post. I’ll be exploring anxiety in the classroom, both for teachers and students, and how you can reduce it to improve class participation. This article first appeared in the June 2014 edition of the Teaching Adults Newsletter - a round-up of news, interviews and resources specifically for teachers of adults. If you teach adults, subscribe to the Teaching Adults Newsletter now.Filed under: Professional Development, Skills Tagged: peer observation, Peer review, Professional Development

Sorry, but I have to take a moment away from Technology in Education to help spread the news about some devastating decisions that are made in Hawaii by our government leaders. Legislators in Hawaii are attempting to pass bills (some as late as 2 a.m. in the morning) that will strip teachers collective bargaining rights. This is very similar to what happened to educators in Wisconsin.Please read further to find out how you can help, and you don't have to live in Hawaii to help us out!Our state legislators are threatening to strip teachers of our collective bargaining rights. The same situation that occurred in Wisconsin a year ago. We need to stand and fight and we need all the help we can get. Below is a letter I sent to ALL of our State Representatives and Senators. Feel free to borrow it and change it to fit your opinion.Please share my message with your friends. Tweet it, Facebook it, e-mail it. Blog it. What ever it takes.-----------------------Hello,My name is Michael Fricano II. I am an elementary school teacher. I am an educator and I am a professional. I'm not just another state employee. I care about my job. I care about my profession. I care about the people I work with and the people I work for. I care about the students and families that I deal with. And I care about all these things no matter what the outcome is.I was recently informed that a group of our state legislator's met (in what seems like secrecy) at 2 a.m. this morning to pass out a teacher evaluation bill that would effectively strip teachers of the collective bargaining rights currently provided by law. It seems this legislation would give the BOE unilateral rights to make changes to our contract without bargaining and this seems eerily similar to what was done to teachers in Wisconsin just one year ago.I respectfully ask that legislators please let us negotiate, don’t legislate this away from us. Negotiate, don’t legislate, don’t mandate, don’t negate the rights of Hawaii’s teachers.We have earned and we deserve the right to negotiate these and other issues with our employer. We don't appreciate the decision by a few to take those rights away from us and force decisions upon us that we either don't understand or don't agree with. This shows a GREAT DEAL of disrespect to your state employees and to the teaching profession in general.Just because other states seem to be taking this road in how decisions are made, doesn't mean Hawaii needs to follow and doesn't make this method of decision making the right method. Be a leader and set an example for the rest of the nation and the world and do what is right rather than following those who are wrong.Thank you for taking the time to read the opinion of one professional educator and thank you for your consideration. I look forward to hearing an honest and non-generic response from you.Michael Fricano II-----------------------You can send your letters to the following email address.ALL Representatives: reps@capitol.hawaii.govALL Senators: sens@capitol.hawaii.gov

As you (probably) know, I am a South African expat, living in the UK. If you're an expat, too, you will know that a conversation about your accent is something that takes place pretty much on a daily basis. Shopkeepers, people with whom you strike up conversations on the train, people on the other end of the phone, fellow attendees at business meetings... everywhere and anywhere seems to be the right place and any time seems to be the right time for "Where are you from?"Some people like to guess. South Africans ('saffas'), New Zealanders (kiwis) and Australians (ozzies) often get mistaken for each other. At one stage, I worked with an Australian. We had a lot in common and we got on really well. His family and mine spent social time together on the weekends. This clearly showed in the way we interacted with each other at work, and many people assumed we were a couple, because we got on so well together and 'had the same accent.'These are three very competitive sporting nations and in general, it doesn't go down too well with a national from one to be mistaken for another. I was no exception. I bristled when I was asked if (and sometimes told that) I was an ozzie or a kiwi. A facetious "g'day mate" brought out the worst in me.But then I realised something. I can't tell accents apart, either. Yes, I can tell my ozzies from my kiwis (it's in the As and the Is), but I can't tell a Pole from a Latvian - and we have many of both in our town. I can't tell a Pakistani from an Indian, and there are many of both of those all over the UK. I have no idea how offended a Polish person is when asked if they're Latvian, or vice versa. I have no idea whether a cricket fan from Pakistan bristles at being asked if s/he is enjoying an England/India game being televised at the time.So I decided to get down off that high horse before I got a nosebleed. It really isn't a big deal. And at least the person is showing some interest and making conversation about something other than the weather.But I'm still ridiculously pleased when someone gets it right. Just this morning, I popped into a little shop on the Charing Cross station and the man behind the counter identified me as a South African. I asked how he could tell, and he said (a) that he was a fan of cricket in general and Kepler Wessels in particular and (b) that with the South African embassy being just across the road, hordes of saffas visited his shop on a daily basis. The man himself was from India...or Pakistan...or Bangladesh...or maybe even Sri Lanka. I couldn't tell. Something I am readier to admit from ground level than I ever was from my perch on that horse I mentioned.Now if I can just learn to stop bristling when people try to 'do the accent' which I have never heard anyone do successfully...

 This is post #1 of a series of posts that I will be publishing involving a new support group that I've started at my school. I call it the "Eno Click IWB Support Group." It involves a group of teachers at my school that have recently received an interactive whiteboard (or IWB for short) as well as a "media cart" (which I will get into a little later). These teachers range from young, new, and willing to experiment with new technology to experienced and hesitant to try new technology, but what I love about them all is that they aren't afraid to try something new! Many teachers may see this as "just one more thing on their plate" but what many fail to realize is the convenience it adds to the classroom and the engagement is brings for students.POST #1 **Disclaimer: This post is no way attempting to advertise or promote PolyVision's product(s). I have no other relationship with PolyVision other than being a recent customer. This post is my opinion based on my experiences and may be different from other opinions.**This school year, our school had the opportunity to purchase interactive whiteboards. We received two separate grants which required us to use the money to specifically purchase interactive whiteboards, or IWBs for short. We were only given about $8000 dollars to spend for each grant, so I had to do a little research to get the most for our money. We had already purchased four SMART boards in the past, but for $8000, we would only be able to purchase 1 more SMART board. A typical SMART board runs for about $5000. Not a great investment, in my mind. And we wouldn't be able to purchase another for only $3000. We wanted to get the most for our money, especially with our ever shrinking budget.So, during my research, I came across the company PolyVision. They sell a product called the Eno Click. The Eno Click is an Interactive Whiteboard that is affordable, durable, multipurpose, and relatively mobile. They sell the Eno Click for around $2000. For this price, we could afford 2 boards for the cost of one SMART board. What a deal! But that's not all. In my opinion, the Eno Click is way better than a SMART board. Let me explain why.First, let me start with what I don't like about the SMART board. When I was in the classroom a few years ago, I had a mobile SMART board. The board fit on a rolling stand and it took up way too much space. If you put the stand against a wall, it literally sticks out about three feet. And since I hardly had enough space for my 30+ students, that three feet was precious to me. So the board became somewhat of an inconvenience. And mounting the board on the wall was out of the question. It would be too expensive and would take away from the regular whiteboard space that I had.Also, even though you are supposed to be able to write on the SMART board surface with whiteboard markers, I was always hesitant to do so. When I attempted to write on the surface and tried to erase it, it would always smear and cause a bigger mess.And the biggest issue I had with the SMART board was the ability to use your fingers to write. It was the one feature I loved the most and hated the most. Mostly hated because when you write with your hand you tend to rest your palm on the surface. Don't try this with a SMART board, though! Resting your hand on the surface while attempting to write will confuse the heck out of the board!Now, let me explain why Polyvision's Eno Click is way better! First of all, it's an IWB for less than half of what a SMART board is! And it does the same thing and MORE! The board's surface is multpuprose! Meaning, it's an interactive board, a regular whiteboard (that wipes off clean!), and magnetic. The magnetic feature is missing from the SMART boards that we have, and is a bonus for our teachers because they love putting charts and posters on the board to show the students.Another reason I love the Eno Click is because most of it's magic comes from the pen. The pen is what makes the board interactive and what controls your computer. It becomes your mouse and your writing tool. And, the Eno Click allows up to 3 (yes, 3!) pens to draw on the board at the same time. Teachers love this feature because it means more than one person can be at the board, writing or drawing, at the same time. What is also nice about this feature is that each pen syncs separately with the software. So, for example, one pen could be writing in red, another pen could be writing in black, and the third pen could be writing in green, all at the same time.The last thing I really love about the Eno Click is it's ease of installation. This board weighs about 30 pounds out of the box and takes literally 1 minute to install in the classroom. That's because the board is equipped with extremely powerful magnets on the back. So all you have to do is remove it from the box and slap it up on a magnetic white board surface. It's really that easy! And although it may seem heavy, the ability to take it down and move it to another classroom is quite easy as well. This is much more convenient than a SMART board sticking 4 feet out from the wall.And the one thing I emphasis the most to all of the teachers that use these boards is that the Eno Click is simply an interactive surface in which the pen controls your mouse. It does the same thing as a $5000 SMART board, for far less. All you do is control your computer from the board with the pen. Simple as that.The next installment in this series will be about the support group's first meeting and what resources and information was shared with the teachers who are beginning on their new technology adventure!If you would like to discuss this post further or disagree with my description of the SMART board, please leave a comment below. I would love to continue the discussion!

This week is election week in the UK. As a mixed nationality family, it took us a while and a few false starts to figure out who was allowed to vote in which election. This is what we have established:My husband and sons, who are Swedish (and therefore EU) nationals are entitled to vote in local elections and European elections. So they have a say in who their local councillors are and who their MEPs are. But they may not vote in a national election. So they have no say in who their MP is.I, as a South African (and therefore a Commonwealth) national, am allowed to vote in all elections: local, national and European (even though I'm a non-European).It's kind of weird, really, because my husband and sons are allowed to live and work in the UK (or anywhere else in the EU) without having to apply for permits or visas or any of that malarkey. I am only allowed to live in the UK (or anywhere else in the EU) if I have a residence permit. But I get more of a voice than they do. Go figure.If you've been wondering who in your family may and may not vote, I hope our experience is of some help to you. It was only after my husband had voted in at least one national election that we found out he wasn't entitled to do so. How his name was included on the electoral roll is anybody's guess. Our story was even included in our local newspaper a few years back, because of the mix ups, contradictions and misinformation we had experienced in our quest for a definitive position on our voting rights.During our 15 years in the UK, we have encountered a few instances of racism* (see below). But these have been the exception. However, our subjective experience is that, in the run up to this election, there is more of it about. There seems to be a great deal of anger just below the surface, and we have found ourselves on the receiving end of more of it than usual. I find it unsettling, as I'm sure you understand.It will be interesting to see the outcome of the election, and the aftermath. Will it settle back down to life as usual, or will the tensions continue? For the first time in fifteen years, I'm actually nervous about going to the polls alone, in case of unpleasantness.In spite of my enthusiastic involvement as a student, I don't think I was designed for politics. The anger and unpleasantness unsettles me.*People outside the UK might be surprised to learn that the term 'racism' is used in these instances. I was too, the first time I encountered it, so just to provide some context: A teenaged neighbour had physically and verbally abused me on my own doorstep, and I had dialled the police to find out what I should do about it, if anything. I was asked if I wanted to lay a charge of racist abuse against her, and I was totally non-plussed. "But we're the same race!" I protested. But the police officer explained that that didn't matter. The term 'racism' in the UK is used more broadly than appears to be the case elsewhere, and can apply to abuse based on cultural or heritage differences, too.

For the first time at my school, we allowed students to bring their own digital cameras for a school project, titled the BYOC School Project. After attempts to purchase more digital cameras failed due to budget cuts, I had to find a way to get enough cameras so that every student in the fifth grade (around 170) would be able to use one for a currently running project.The students' project is to create a movie using Apple's iMovie software that reflects their memories and experiences while in elementary school. Their project needs to include pictures of themselves, their classmates, their friends, faculty and staff, and the campus, so when they look back at their movie 5, 10, or 15 years from now, they will know what everyone and everything looked like in elementary school.Instead of trying to share 14 digital cameras with each class of around 30 students each, I decided to attempt a BYOC (Bring Your Own Camera). I sent a letter home about a week before our next technology class that explained to parents the need for their child to bring a digital camera. If the parents were willing to allow their child to bring a camera from home then they would have to sign a permission form and return it to school. I had to make it clear to parents that if their child would not be able to bring their own camera, then the school would provide them with one during class time, but I also shared the advantages for students who could bring their own camera to school. Those students would have more freedom and flexibility with the amount of pictures they could take and the times in which they could take them. It also had to be made clear to parents that the technology teacher (myself) and the general education teacher would not be responsible for teaching the students how to use their personal cameras. With such a wide variety of digital cameras on the market, it would have been a major time waster trying to figure out how each student's camera worked and then showing them how to use it. I would only be responsible for teaching students how to upload pictures to iPhoto and then how to access them in iMovie. I also required that students bring the charging cables and the USB transfer cable for their personal cameras if provided. But SD Cards could also be used with our classroom iMacs. Surprisingly, only about 37 students were unable to bring a camera from home and every student that did bring a camera already knew how to use it. I figured as much already, seeing as how young kids these days already have smartphones and handheld devices and most are experts at using them compared to adults.Before I started the picture taking/uploading phase of the project, I had each student take a quick 5 minute Google survey in which I asked them questions about their digital cameras.Here are the results of my survey. Not very surprising to me.The responses to this question were close, and probably the most surprising out of the entire survey. These are only 5th grade students, so it shocks me that so many of them actually have their own personal digital camera. I specifically mentioned to the students during the survey that I did not want them to count their family/parents' digital camera. I wanted to know if they, themselves, have their own camera.Its great to see that most families allow their younger children to use their family cameras, let alone touch them!Even though 43% don't own their own cameras, almost 100% of the students have used digital cameras before. Awesome!I correct myself. This one is and is not a shocker. I love the fact that 98% of the students feel comfortable using a digital camera which relieved me when thinking of the wide variety of cameras that would be brought to school.This response makes me happy! And then I wonder who the 4 students are who weren't excited and why. Oh, well...can't please them all I suppose.Before allowing the students the chance to actually use their cameras during the technology class time, I had to go over some very strict rules and consequences. The fact that we were allowing them bring their own cameras to use during school was a privilege, therefore rules had to be implemented in order to prevent chaos and disruption.(I am also allowing students to bring thumb drives with pictures they have taken on past field trips in which they were allowed to bring cameras.) DIGITAL CAMERAS/THUMB DRIVE RULESPersonal cameras are to be used by the owner ONLY. No one else may use the camera (unless you are having someone take a picture of you).Cameras are to be used during designated times only. You should not be using your camera while on school campus unless you are given permission by your teachers. (That includes before & after school)While on school campus, cameras are to be used for the Portfolio iMovie Project ONLY.The flash is to be used for picture taking purposes ONLY and should only be used when you are in a dark place, not outside or in a lighted room.Cameras and Thumb Drives may only be connected to computers with teacher permission and supervision.You may only take pictures of other people if they have given you permission. It is polite to ask a person first if you may take their picture.FAILURE TO FOLLOW THESE RULES WILL RESULT IN YOUR CAMERA BEING CONFISCATED AND LOSING THE PRIVILEGE OF USING PHOTOS FOR YOUR PROJECT. Overall, the first day of this BYOC project turned out very well. The students were excited and focused. Students will continue to use their cameras during the last few weeks of school to take those lasting shots of their final elementary days.

I happened upon a very interesting website today called PicLits.com.According to the website, "PicLits.com is a creative writing site that matches beautiful images with carefully selected keywords in order to inspire you. The object is to put the right words in the right place and the right order to capture the essence, story, and meaning of the picture." When you visit PicLits you are presented with a random picture. Below the picture is a long list of words organized into nouns, adjectives, adverbs, verbs, and universal. You drag and drop the words onto the picture to form unique, poetic sentences. When you are finished with your creation you can email it, blog it, or share it through your social networks.You also have the option of "freestyle," which allows you to create your own words to drag to the picture.I see this as a fun opportunity for students to show their creative writing skills. If a student doesn't like the picture they are presented with, they could always choose a different picture from the scrolling collection across the top of the page.What a great way to inspire and encourage students to write!

When the news is filled as it currently is with news of a data compromise at eBay, it is quite common to hear people say things like "this is what happens when we are over-dependent on technology." They say the same things when the link to an online learning resource won't work, or people lose their connection to a webinar. Isn't it terrible? We're so dependent on technology, and everything grinds to a halt when it lets us down.But let's just stop a moment before we all get hysterical about technology being to blame for all that goes wrong in the world. Our lives are filled with technology that we don't even refer to by that name any more. Your cooker is technology. Your pen is technology. Your car is technology. Your old manual typewriter (supposing you have one) is technology. They've just been around so long that you don't think of them as such any more.When your cooker stops working, you don't curse your over-dependence on gas/electricity to provide food for your family. When your car breaks down, you don't make a blanket statement about how we should have stuck with horses. Did you once use overhead projectors? Did the bulb sometimes go when you were right in the middle of a class/workshop/presentation? Should we have reverted back to the days before OHPs were invented? Nah, you just came up with an alternative and moved on. Because you're resourceful like that. The thing that has happened at eBay is serious. It could be more serious than they're letting on. But the dust will probably settle and people will go back to business as usual. Mistakes and challenges have always been a part of life and always will be. The technologies that we curse when things go wrong were developed in the first place to address some other problem. Before we had online learning, distance learning had to involve large quantities of printed materials being sent hither and yon, which was costly on so many levels. Before we had distance learning, people had to travel somewhere to participate in a learning event, which was ditto, and disruptive to boot.So the next time you lose connection to your online learning event (which might happen to me within the next half an hour as I try to log in to a webinar with a splendiferous thunderstorm doing its thang overhead), take a breath and try again. The world hasn't come to an end, and it's probably no more of an inconvenience than when the assignment you submitted by mail didn't reach its destination by deadline date, or your car broke down on the way to a residential course. And, just to keep your sense of humour intact, the next time the water is cut off to your home while they work on the pipes somewhere in your neighbourhood, say out loud to yourself, "This is what happens when we become too dependent on running water!" Because taps (faucets) are technology too.

 This is post #2 of a series of posts that I will be publishing involving a new support group that I've started at my school. I call it the "Eno Click IWB Support Group." It involves a group of teachers at my school that have recently received an interactive whiteboard (or IWB for short) as well as a "media cart" (which I will get into a little later). These teachers range from young, new, and willing to experiment with new technology, experienced, and hesitant to try new technology, but what I love about them all is that they aren't afraid to try something new! Many teachers may see this as "just one more thing on their plate" but what many fail to realize is the convenience it adds to the classroom and the engagement it brings for students.Post #1: http://technocation.blogspot.com/2012/04/eno-click-iwb-support-group-series-post.html POST #2Before I began the support group I wanted to create a list of resources that the teachers could use once they became familiar with their IWB. I scoured the web for both software and web-based applications that can be used on an IWB and with students. Here is a Google document that I created that contains a list of resources with their respective links.To view the document please click on the link: IWB Resources by TechnocationI shared a version of this Google Doc with my support group and gave them each permission to view and edit the document. I asked them to add any resources that they may find while using their IWB. That way, if anything new is found, every teacher in the group will have access to that information quickly and conveniently.If you know if any resources that can be used with an IWB please feel free to share in the comments below.

Today is my wedding anniversary. Mr Namasi and I have ben married for 26 years - that's more than half my life. And I'm struck by how much there is in common between our marriage and our worklives - it's mainly about priorities and choices.We chose to view our wedding as the first day of our marriage. The marriage was - and remains - the main thing. And has been a work in progress since its 'launch' 26 years ago today.On our respective Facebook pages, we are receiving the usual barrage of congratulatory messages, some of which imply that the success of our marriage is due to the 'fact' that we never argue.Ha!We argue a lot. I mean can you really believe that someone who writes this opinionated blog is going to have an argument-free marriage? My husband is a strong-willed man. But, as Kate Reynolds (Téa Leoni) says in The Family Man, "I choose us." So let's just unpick this for a moment:We got married on a shoe string budget. Neither of our parents had any money, so we paid for it ourselves. The ceremony was brief and to the point. It took minutes. It was held in my mother-in-law's granny flat above to my brother- and sister-in-law's house. I made the lunch (coq au vin) that followed, which was held downstairs. I made my own outfit out of fabric I bought from the designer I worked for (at staff discount) and it was something I could use again afterwards. My MIL made the cake. My SIL made the dessert (kiwi fruit pavlova) and took the photos. Bride and groom walked into the 'venue' together. We had no retinue (no bridesmaids or best men). We had no alcohol, due to the presence of one alcoholic and one recovering alcoholic. Just family and very close friends were in attendance - fewer than 30 people in all. To be honest, there are things I would do differently if I were to do it over again - it was one of the most stressful days of my life, because I took too much on myself.BUTBy the end of the ceremony we were just as married as anyone who has spent £15000 (because that's apparently the current UK average according to figures cited on Radio 4 the other day) on the ceremony. Our 4-day honeymoon in a small-town hotel a couple of hours' drive from the city was lovely, too, in spite of the fact that we both got food poisoning on our last day!Many of our friends and family have had magnificent productions on their wedding day. And I confess to occasional twinges of envy. But we started our married life without the massive debts that can result from the lavish event. We were stone broke, but we were stone broke together and everything we have today, we have acquired together.Something else that I've noticed is that planning the wedding can become so much the focus of the relationship that, once the wedding is over, some couples can feel quite bereft. Everything happened so much faster for us, that we didn't have time to develop that level of attachment to the occasion. We had been planning to get married in December 1988. But we realised at one point in April that we had no reason to wait - there wasn't going to be additional budget or resource freed up during that time. So we gave ourselves six weeks to bring the whole thing together and got on with it. So, much like a lot of projects, we had very little time. We had next to no money. We weren't in a position to produce anything shiny. We didn't have a big team of professionals, or an outsourced vendor. We faced a lot of opposition and naysayers who told us that it couldn't and/or shouldn't be done. We were a pair of amateurs who had never done this before, and were too naïve to realise how utterly ill-suited we were to the task at hand (or each other, come to that). We had a few (unpaid) helpers, some willing, some decidedly not so. We have had better, worse, richer, poorer, sickness and health. We have had disasters, catastrophes, we have had slow-burning, insidious challenges. But we stubbornly resolve every time to release a patch, an update.The project had a rather inauspicious start by average standards. But it is enduring, because the team is committed. :)

I'm catching up on this a little late, but better late than never!I received an email at the end of June from The Global Education Conference Network, announcing August as Connected Educator Month. According to the Connected Educator Month website,"Online communities and learning networks are helping hundreds of thousands of educators learn, reducing isolation and providing "just in time" access to knowledge and opportunities for collaboration. However, many educators are not yet participating and others aren’t realizing the full benefits. In many cases, schools, districts, and states also are not recognizing and rewarding this essential professional learning.For these reasons, the U.S. Department of Education’s Connected Educators initiative is launching Connected Educator Month in August 2012. Throughout August, there will be coordinated opportunities to participate in events and activities in dozens of online locations to develop skills and enhance one’s personal learning network."This is a great idea and I hope that it grows every year! I can testify that using social media and online networks is great for your PLN (Professional Learning Network). Most of the information I share through my social networks came from somewhere else and they are things that I found very interesting and helpful. I feel that PLN's are most often more helpful than the traditional in-school professional learning opportunities because it's learning on my time and geared towards my interests.Connected Educator Month includes a wide variety of events and activities on a daily basis throughout the month of August, and even reaching through October and November. A calendar of events and activities can be found at: http://connectededucators.org/cem/ If you create an account and log in, you can sync your favorite events to your personal calendar and/or phone.

A colleague of mine has identified that she would like to progress her career into instructional design, and I was called in to suggest ways in which she might achieve this goal. So I thought I'd turn it into a post.Many companies are developing internal learning materials without recourse to an ID, with varying results. But if you're developing third party learning resources for someone else - particularly someone who's going to pay you for it, you'd probably be best advised to have some instructional design skill on your team.I'm not going to reinvent the wheel, here. The subject has been covered by others, so I'm going to point at some of those. There are formal qualifications out there that can be obtained: diplomas, Bachelor's degrees, Master's degrees and beyond.But I'm not convinced that that's necessarily the best way to go. While I consider it more important to understand learning theories than some appear to do, and acquiring skills is always useful, I think the core of a good instructional designer is an ability to champion the learner/user. The one person who is seldom present in any of the conversations or planning meetings is the person who is going to use the resource after go-live. In my view, the ID's job is to represent that person. And this requires a level of empathy and insight which I don't think can be taught. A person who has this sort of empathy and insight will be able to learn the theory and acquire the skills as they go, and with a useful sense of context from the outset, in my opinion (with which you may differ, of course).I would expect far more value out of a programme such as the one offered by the Ministry of Instructional Design. The contributors are genuine movers and shakers in the field. I'm not sure if they still run them, but it would be well worth finding out.I would also suggest making yourself a virtual apprentice of some of the luminaries in the field. there are a few ways of doing this:Participate in something like #lrnchat - a tweet chat for learning professionalsRead blog posts such as this one by Cathy Moore and this one by Christy Tucker. Both blog posts contain a fair amount of 'link love', so there's a wealth of information to be mined there.Participate in MOOCs like this oneAttend conferences and choose seminars that will help you move towards your goal. There is such a long list of suitable ones, and I'm aware that you may live in a different part of the world from me, so I will resist the temptation to list all the ones that I try/would like to attend.I hope you find this helpful. It's not meant to be exhaustive, but it should provide a useful 'starter for ten' as the saying goes.

SMART Technologies recently released a new iPad app, called SMART Notebook app for iPad. This might be big news for a lot people who have a SMART Board and an iPad in their classroom. My school has three SMART boards on campus, and I have access to one of them in my computer lab. We also have been testing out iPads in the education setting, with teachers and students, over the past year or so. I was really excited to hear about an iPad app for SMART Notebook, but initially, I wasn't sure what to expect from it. Does it allow a user to connect to the SMART Notebook software on their computer? Is it a standalone "whiteboard" app that allows the user to draw and create slides? Will the app display on an overhead projector?Well, I took the hit and purchased the app for $7.00 to see what the app is all about. $7.00 is quite expensive for an iPad app, especially since I'm working with a public school budget and I'm always on the hunt for FREE or, at the most, $0.99 apps.Up front, SMART Notebook app for iPad is a very basic "whiteboard"app. You can create notebook files and slides within each file. You have a set of 5 tools to use with the whiteboard space. The Select Arrow, a Pen, an Eraser, a Text Tool, and an Insert Photo tool.The Pen Tool comes with a set of 4 colors (black, blue, red, and green) and 2 highlighters (yellow and green). The text box comes with an assortment of options, such as Size, Font, and Color. You can also set you text to bold, italics, or underline, and you can align the text within the box. The one thing I dislike about the text options is the layout of the color selection. The colors are organized in a long column. I would much prefer a color wheel, where I have more options to choose from. It would also make finding a color much easier as I wouldn't have to scroll through a list to find what I want.The Insert Photo tool gives the user the choice of either inserting a picture from their camera roll or a photo can be taken with the built in camera.Overall, I think $7.00 makes this app way overpriced for what it offers. There are many other "whiteboard" apps available on the market, some a lot cheaper and others in the $7 range offer more features.If you already have SMART Notebook 11 installed on your computer (which is free with a SMART board), you may just want to consider an app like Splashtop 2. The iPad app is $4.99. It allows you to remotely connect to your computer. Going this route will give you access to SMART Notebook 11 on your iPad with all the other features for a smaller pricetag.If you're using SMART Notebook app for iPad, let me know what you think in the comments below.

Today, I had the privilege of observing 7th grade classes that participate in a 1:1 laptop program. I sat in on four periods, Science, Math, Social Studies, and Language Arts, during the school day at the University Laboratory School, a public charter school in Hawaii.Each student in the 7th grade is given a Chromebook and a school issued Google Apps for Education account.A teacher at my school initiated this observation in part because our school has been told that we will likely participate in a 1:1 laptop program sometime next school year, as some part of a Race to the Top Common Core Technology Initiative. About all the information we've received so far comes from a local newspaper article, Hawaii joins laptops-in-schools talks (if you can't view that link, the article can also be found at NPR, Main School Laptop Contract To Be Open to Others).I made the following observations during my visit today:1. GAFE (Google Apps for Education) is deeply integrated into almost everything the students do during class. Teachers use Google Drive to display and archive the daily agenda.During a math class, students shared a Google Slide to work on daily math problems, with students working in groups, and groups were assigned to one slide that they were responsible for filling in with their observations, questions, solutions, and diagrams. In a language arts class, students worked in groups of four and were wrapping up a Google Site full of student generated book reviews and novel excerpts. The students even created their own artwork with photo apps and Google Draw to match their reviews and excerpts.In a Science class, student took a quiz by creating a chart in Google Draw. They then added it to a shared folder with the teacher.In Social Studies, students created their own Google Slide presentation and a handful of students presented a current event they found in the news a few days prior. The rest of the class took notes on the current event in their own Google document, likely shared with the teacher for record keeping. They also created their own Inca Quipus using Google Draw and then turned it into somewhat of a game. They shared their game with another student in class through Google Drive.2. Most classes took full advantage of the 1:1 program by going completely paperless. However, a few classes where about 50/50. I found this perplexing, because in one instance a teacher would have the students take a quiz in Google Drive, and then they would pull out their composition books and start writing down notes. I suppose this has to do with the level of comfort that teacher has with GAFE.  But why note keep those notes in Google Drive?3. Work stored in Google Drive becomes an archive and a Portfolio. In a math class I observed, the teacher used one Google Slide for all the math problems the class worked on since the beginning of the semester. The file was shared with every student in the class so that everyone had access to all of the work and all of the notes generated during class. This creates a running record of the learning going on in class and shows how the math they are learning scaffolds through the semester.4. Parents need to be stakeholders in this initiative. There needs to be some sort of buy-in from parents so that they are comfortable with their child's increased access to technology and the internet both in school and at home. The University Lab School approaches this buy-in by conducting the following:Students are given an extensive AUP and are also required to pass an AUP test before given a laptop. I think the idea of an AUP test is great! It tells the student and the parent, "This document is important!"All students go through extensive cyber-bullying and internet safety training/workshops.Parents also receive workshops on cyber-bullying and internet safety conducted during Parent Nights.Students create safety videos in school and then upload them to Youtube and share them with their families. I love this idea! It allows the students to be creative. It reinforces the training they receive and the purpose of the AUP. And they have an authentic audience.5. Teachers need Professional Development before they receive the technology! I find this part so extremely important, as do the teachers and leaders at the University Lab School. And frankly, this scares me the most with our own 1:1 laptop program. You can't just give a class technology and expect them to understand it. Well, maybe you can with the students. But not the teachers! I think the approach that this school takes with PD is a great model. Teachers received one full year of PD. Teachers also became the leaders of their own PD and each teacher was required to learn a skill and then provide at least one workshop to their peers. Learning Communities were also set up, and based on the social structure of the school, "Pillars of the Community" were selected to provide the tech support within the school. I see a "Pillar of the Community" as an expert of sorts; someone that the rest of the grade level, or building, can go to for help.Seeing a 1:1 program in action is exciting! And seeing GAFE integrated into that program is even more exciting! The process isn't easy, but once a school is organized and the students and teachers have received proper professional development and training, the possibilities are endless!Has your school initiated a 1:1 program? What benefits have you found with you and your students? What pitfalls have you run into and how did you resolve them? Leave a comment below and join the discussion!

Yesterday, from several quarters, I found myself listening to statistics, reports and predictions on the subject of university education in the UK (and a little about the global situation). I'm not a futurologist. In fact, my stomach twists into a knot when I am asked to make any predictions about the future of learning. However, I can't help wondering whether universities are going to start disappearing or being 're-imagined' pretty soon. I have provided links wherever I have them. Please feel free to follow those for further information. First, some background.Up to 1998, there were no tuition fees for first degrees in the UK. In 1998, universities were required to pay up to £1,000 per year for tuition. In 2004, that increased to £3,000 (in England - other fee structures apply elsewhere). In 2010 that trebled to £9,000 a year. From a personal perspective, this was right at the time my sons would be looking at starting a university education. Neither of them went that route, and one made the decision based on cost.The average predicted debt on leaving university in England, for those who started in 2012 is over £59,000. Graduates 'only' have to start paying back their study debts once they start earning at least £21,000 per year. Outstanding debt will be written off after 30 years. 30 years! By this time, these people will be in their early fifties. My age. By which point in their lives most of them will also have wanted to have had a wedding (£15,000+), take out a mortgage (£30,000 deposit and  a mortgage of £120,000), buy cars, do some travelling and generally live their lives. They will have needed to look into educating their own children. Many of them may, in fact be grandparents by then. The thought of still having a study loan hanging over my head at this stage of my life is just beyond depressing.61% of graduates find work within six months of leaving university, and will earn an average of £18,000-£24,000 in their first job. So there might not be a lot of time between graduation and the beginning of loan repayment for that group. What of the 39% who take longer? (rhetorical question)Organisations are finding that graduates don't leave university with skills that can be applied on the job. This might be due to a disconnect between what academia considers important and current practice within the corporate world. Whatever the reason, large investments often need to be made into the development of graduates before they begin to play a useful part in the achievement of the organisation's strategic objectives.Having paid a fortune for their university education, students are becoming more inclined to complain when their expectations aren't met. Universities are self-regulating, unlike schools. This, I learned yesterday, is a major issue for several graduates. There is no body they can go to, to escalate the situation when they are dissatisfied. And many of them are dissatisfied. More than 20,000 students complained to their universities in 2013. They have begun to see themselves as consumers and believe they have been sold a sub-standard product. According to a programme on BBC Radio 4 yesterday, students find that the reality of a module often doesn't match the description which formed the basis on which they chose it. They find that they are unable to enrol on the modules they want, and must accept less-preferred alternatives for the same price (you can't have this Porsche 911, but here is a Fiat Punto for the same price). One student's dissertation supervisor was unavailable to him for five months leading up to his submission date, and the poor grade he got for his dissertation pulled his overall degree down from a 2.1 to a 2.2. Students are finding that the degree they have paid so much for doesn't qualify them for anything in particular - one young lady I know has just left university with a degree in German and has discovered that it doesn't open any doors that weren't already open before she earned her degree.When I was in my final year of school (a long time ago), the field of computing (IT wasn't a term yet) was exploding. It wasn't yet the time of the personal computer, but the computerisation of  organisations - both public and private - was rampant. In desperation, organisations approached schools. One day, some captains of local industry came into our  (higher grade) maths class and offered to test us all for the aptitude to work with computers. I declined, but that's another story. Those who showed aptitude were offered jobs straight out of school at decent starting salaries (more than my Mom was earning at the time) and the opportunity to gain a qualification on the job.Might we be seeing a return to that? We're certainly seeing an increase in apprenticeship programmes. Not just in number, but in disciplines. In my office alone, we have three apprentices: one in admin, one in HR and one in Finance.Considering the cost of training up their graduates anyway, and they higher salary they can command. Organisations may start recruiting straight from school. Offering young people the opportunity to earn-while-you-learn and to obtain accredited qualifications on a personal portfolio basis which can eventually build up to the equivalent of a degree... and beyond.Will universities become irrelevant and even disappear? Will they begin to partner with organisations and run programmes that meet the needs of the organisations, with a changed accreditation model?I can see this approach being more feasible in some fields than others - the corporate world is one such example. Neuro-surgery, maybe not so much. But maybe over time, models can be developed for the most unexpected fields to be able to move to a learn-on-the-job approach.I will be watching with interest. To close, though - it is my observation that the recruitment industry is lagging behind. They're a little too wedded to the 'piece of paper' as an easy way to identify suitable candidates. The current situation must surely be a strong motivation for finding a different way. But perhaps that is a post for another day.

I've had somewhat of a disdain for the black navigation bar that Google gave us a while back ever since it's release. I do like it for it's easy access to Google apps but I hated it for having access to apps that I rarely ever use, and hiding other apps I do use very often in the More and Even More tabs.Well, I was listening to the EdReach Google Educast Podcast #090 this morning on my drive in to work and they mentioned a Google Chrome extension that calmed my nerves and made my day!Ala, Big G Black Bar Sorter!This chrome extension is very simple and easy to use and allows you to fully customize Google's black navigation bar. You can add any of the Google apps to the bar and now, with the most recent update, you can visit their website, http://biggblackbarsorter.com/ to add even more custom links that are not part of Google (i.e. Dropbox, Facebook, Twitter, etc.)!Check out my video on how the Big G Black Bar Sorter works!Video made with Camtasia 2!Thanks for watching! If you know of any other great Chrome Apps or Extensions, please share in the comments!

For the past few years in the UK, there has been a campaign to try to de-stigmatise the concept of mental illness. I guess this is my contribution. I'm not an expert. I have no training in psychiatry. My understanding of psychology and the human mind is rudimentary at best - mostly acquired as a result of working in the field of learning and development. Marginally enhanced by a personal, strictly amateur interest in the subject.When I was growing up, and even into my adulthood, terms like 'mental illness' were just euphemisms for other, less kind words, like 'mad' or 'insane'. I used terms like 'insane asylum' and 'mental hospital' without giving them a second thought. Mental illness was something that happened to other people. Abnormal people. Scary people.Then, in the early 90s, the wife of one of my husband's colleagues had what is still usually referred to as a nervous breakdown. She was placed in a facility that we referred to in hushed tones as a mental hospital. I had no problems asking her husband after her health and progress and offering him help and support - all in that exaggeratedly self-congratulatory sympathetic way, with the slightly tilted head. But I was less brave when it came to speaking to her - it was the elephant in the room that we didn't talk about. So I sort of avoided her altogether, which was unspeakably cruel.I knew that people like Spike Milligan had had what used to be called manic depression, and I saw the evidence of it in his brilliant work. I began to wonder about people like Mozart and van Gogh.It took a long time before I was prepared to admit to myself that I, too, experience mental illness from time to time. And I don't mean in that "my kids drive me nuts" kind of way. Nor am I 'insane'. My battle is with depression.I had always had a tendency to 'get a bit down' from time to time. Something which got no sympathy at boarding school. At other times, the smallest thing would send me off into a towering rage from which I struggled to return. The towering rages were shrugged off as PMS. I wonder how often women with mental illness are misdiagnosed with PMS.For me, the 'getting a bit down' thing became a bit more problematic. I was eventually diagnosed as having depression and given anti-depressants. The first lot gave me the raging munchies and caused me to gain weight, which made me more depressed. So I was switched to that miracle drug of the 90s: Prozac.I decided I didn't want to be dependent on chemicals to deal with the day-to-day reality that is my life, and I weaned myself off them - cold turkey is not advised.I have had repeat bouts of depression over the years - some of them so deep and so dark that I have not expected - or even wanted - to emerge from the other side. Calm, rational (or so they seem to me) thoughts of suicide have been very much the order of the day at times. During my studies in 2007-2010, an unexpected setback pushed me over the edge, and I suspect I had a nervous breakdown. It was a year before I was able to return to my studies without having a full-blown panic attack. I really should have sought professional help. As it was, my poor dissertation supervisor had to deal with tears and tantrums befitting a child, even after I got back to my studies.I have learned to distinguish between being unhappy and being depressed, for the most part. It took a while, and I still don't always get it right. I have managed to avoid drugs as a long-term solution, but I don't rule out the possibility that I might have to go that route at some point in the future. I know the view at the bottom of that dark pit, and it's not one I am keen to see again, but the odds are against me.Everybody is different. Each person will have their own experience of what works and what doesn't work. For me, it's as follows:Telling me 'I'm there for you' doesn't do it for me. I have no idea what that means. They're just words, as far as I'm concerned.Any sentence that starts with "At least..." isn't going anywhere helpful.Do not EVER ask "What have you got to be depressed about?" and then proceed to enumerate all the wonderful things in my life. I know I have a well-paid job. I know my husband adores me. I know I have a lovely home - which is a tip right now, because I'm wallowing. I know my kids are wonderful. And now I also feel guilty that that 'isn't enough for me', as some people perceive it, and I sink lower into the mire.Some people know exactly what the solution is, and they declare it with great confidence. When my depression continues, they either (a) feel helpless because they don't know what else to suggest or (b) get impatient because I should be over this by now.Being 'given space' is not helpful. People often politely step back and leave me to get on with it, on the understanding that I will contact them when I once again feel ready for human contact. All that happens is that I feel abandoned. Politeness is over-rated. When I do emerge, I will probably just continue to respect the space that you have created between us.I've made a nestOther people ask me what they can do for me and then disappear when I say I don't know or that there isn't anything they can do. When I am in that pit, I just want to relieve people of the burden of my company, and I'm useless at making decisions. I'm not going to ask for anything. Someone who pitches up, sits me down on the sofa with a chick flick and then sets about cleaning my kitchen or my bathroom will make more difference to me than someone who tries to dispense wisdom. Having a clean kitchen and bathrooms give me an enormous boost, but when I'm depressed I can't motivate myself to do it, which makes me feel worse.When I'm depressed, I can't bring myself to spend money on myself. I try to take up as little space in the world as possible, so I look a fright, which also makes me feel worse. Taking me to have my hair cut or giving me a home-spun makeover will also give me a boost.Bringing a home-cooked meal and relieving me of the anguish of watching my husband have to shoulder more than his fair share of the household chores would also help.Coming over with the makings for a day of crafting-and-making would get me up and busy, and the fact that we're not making direct eye contact might even enable me to talk more easily about what I'm going through. Don't feel under pressure to have answers.Coming over with your dog, and taking me and my dog out for a long and strenuous walk would get me out of the house and the endorphin flowing.On the subject of endorphin - an exercise session would help, too. So bring along your Davina McCall fitness DVD and do a workout with me.Popping over for a day of bad movies and worse snacks would help, too.When I start to emerge from the pit, don't avoid talking to me about it. Don't adopt falsely cheerful tones and ignore the elephant.Don't be astonished if there's a relapse. Recovery isn't linear.Don't patronise me. I might be acting like a petulant child at times, but I'm still an intelligent adult.Talk to me about your own experience. Ask me what I find helps me. Have a rational conversation with me. Don't treat me like a victim and steer me away from treating myself as such. For the most part, I don't want someone to 'fix' me. I'm not looking for a problem-solver. I need people who will demonstrate that they aren't going to be driven away by me at my unlovely worst.I have shared a cartoon, as you can see. I wish I could track down the original and give credit to the person who created it. If you recognise it, please let me know. It resonates with me.

I was browsing Pinterest this evening and came across an interesting Pin. The pin showed a picture of a QR Code printed on a piece of white paper with instructions to scan it with a QR Code Scanner. The pin originates from a 2011 blog post at Pencils, Paper and Pixie Dust which suggests to use the QR Code during Open House Night as an easy way for parents to get your contact information. I was intrigued by that idea and felt the urge to scan the QR code with my phone. When scanned, it took me to a simple page with school contact information for that teacher. What a wonderful idea! Its a quick and simple way to share your contact information with your (older) students and parents.So I had to explore this a little further. The blog post didn't really explain the "how".  So how did this person create a QR Code that directs you to their contact information? After conducting a simple Google Search, I found this website which actually suggests readers use a QR Code generator at the Google Developer's Chart Wizard website. Added (7/25/14): I found a much better alternative to creating QR Codes with more customization and options! Try out QRstuff.comHere's how to create a QR Code that, when scanned, will provide contact information.Visit the Google Developer's Chart Wizard QRstuff.com (added 7/25/14)Click the "Editor" tabChoose "QrCode" from the Chart Type drop down boxIn the Text box type the contact information you want to include (email addresses and website links will automatically be hyperlinked once created)Adjust the size, background color, and margins (Create a large enough QR Code so it's easy for people to scan)You can Right+Click on the QR Code to save it as an image or copy the HTML code to paste into a websiteVoila! Now you have your own personal QR Code that, when scanned, will direct a person to a page with your contact information and appropriate hyperlinks. If you ever need to update your contact information, just return to the Chart Wizard, recreate the QR Code, and replace the old one.Now for the neat Open House idea!Once I created my QR Code, I saved it as an image to my computer. Then I created a quick and simple sign using a Google Drive document. I can print the sign and attach it to my front door in my classroom for any visitors to scan!You can see the Google Drive document here: http://goo.gl/GOwDQ"Make a Copy" for yourself and edit it to fit your needs!You may also want to suggest a QR Code Scanner app for your parents and students to use.Scan (iPhone) - https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/scan-qr-code-barcode-reader/id411206394?mt=8Scan (Android) - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.scan.android.client&hl=en

Today, I came across a post on Google+ by +George Station about a MOOC being offered through Leeward Community College, a local college in my state, by Dr. Melissa Kaulbach. It begins on Sept. 2 and the focus is on "How to Teach Online!"News Article: http://facultyecommons.org/moocing-in-hawaii/How to Teach Online MOOC Blog Post: http://blogs.leeward.hawaii.edu/teachonline/Register for the MOOC: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ns58fQzCIOk6yTNqpIOBKXxiE19Oprs27xRcalI9mmU/viewformI'll be participating as much as I can, as I am both interested in the power of a MOOC as well as teaching online.