Category: professional development

Learning skills of the future

Michael ChalkLeave a commentprofessional development

Here’s an interesting video with a bunch of educators talking about how the future might work. Names i recognise include Daniel Pink and Greg Black (of education.au). i’ve taken some brief notes on what the educators are talking about, but haven’t really commented with my own response. Many people have been saying this kind of thing in recent years: Schools are like factories, following models of the industrial age; students have more enriched experience outside of schools than in; US schools rank lowest out of all industries surveyed for technology Read More …

Take charge of your learning (a talk by Stephen Downes)

Michael Chalk2 Commentsprofessional development

Stephen Downes is full of good ideas. i’ve followed his thoughts for many years now. A Canadian education researcher, Stephen is an incredibly articulate and rigorous thinker who is definitely worth listening to, and i believe he listens to others really well too. In his first Huffington Post article, he gives an overview of the PLENK massive online course, and his perspective on connected and networked learning. (PLENK = Personal Learning Environments, Networks and Knowledge.) “That is not to advocate throwing learners off the bus to fend for themselves. It Read More …

New bloggers on the 23 things project

Michael ChalkLeave a commentace, professional development

As well as Ancy and Soheir from PRACE, and Megan from Thornbury.. we now have Trish from Thornbury and Deb from Employment Focus joining us on this adventure. What about going to visit their site.. and offer them support with a comment? Oh go on, do! thanks and kind regards, michael Remember all the course learning materials are online at the 23 Things site. image and photo credits: licensed under creative commons at flickr: Thanks very much: pyjama.

Photos and slideshows on the web

Michael ChalkLeave a commentace, professional development

flickr is a terrific site for images. You can search other people’s work, comment on their photos, make contacts.. and share your own photography as well. Suggestion for your own learning: As you browse flickr, think about what makes it a successful site.. and post a reflection in your blog. Add a photo to illustrate. Read more about working with photos on the flexivet 23 Things wiki. Images add an extra dimension to the web, engaging your readers. A good blog post has: some kind of multimedia (eg image, video, Read More …

23 Things – intro to blogging

Michael ChalkLeave a commentace, professional development

Ancy, Soheir and Megan all valiantly posted their first blog messages to the world. Well done all three of you !! After nearly 40 minutes of michael talking about this mythical “Web2” experience.. it was truly time for some hands-on activity. Interesting to read people’s first impressions of blogging: Ancy said she could see they might be useful in some professions for communication, Soheir said she would need to explore the tool before deciding if it could be useful, Megan’s first impression says the blog wouldn’t measure up to email Read More …

Psst.. knowledge-worker? You have mad skills?

Michael Chalk2 Commentse-learning, professional development

Nancy White was spurred into action by Tony Karrer’s “big question” of the month: what skills do knowledge-workers (or “learning professionals”) need (as we head into the teenies). But Tony was disappointed that Nancy listed only 4 “meta skills”: self-awareness, generosity, humility, and willingness to risk. .. because Tony was looking for the technical details, the actual “how do i learn” skills. So Nancy wrote a second version, this time elaborating on the abilities to: scan and filter (manage the “river of information”), connect with other people, synthesise the streams Read More …