A few years back after giving a keynote to a rather large group of educators, one of the ‘invited officials’ beckoned me over.

“I like you & I especially like your quote,  ‘Subversion is a major part of innovation and it is our job to subvert’. Come sit by me.”

This conversation has always reminded me of Dorothy Parker’s, ‘If you don’t have anything nice to say, come sit by me.’

The computer is the most powerful learning tool ever created. So why are the majority of my professional dialogues centred around strategies for getting teachers to turn them on?

Teachers should be the epitome of what it is to be a learner. They should model self directed learning. They should model life long learning, critical thinking and insight. Teachers should possess insight that extends far beyond the capabilities of the hardware into the realm of learning & creativity. It is not a matter of ‘making the time to learn this stuff’, it is what we do by definition!

Embrace these disruptive tools people and use them to transform and educate!

Tonight I’d like to take the opportunity to welcome Mahatma Ghandi to my desk. Mahatma is the 7th Oddfellow to join me in my workspace.

So why do you keep inviting these guys to your desk Adrian?

1. These people led inspirational lives. Maybe we can learn a little from them.

2. Reality TV mostly makes heroes of people with little talent of worth to humanity. How do we as teachers counter that?

3. To get my students asking questions about historical figures and what it is that caused them to live ‘beyond their generation’.

cheers

Adrian

Plus I’m really glad a magnificent ‘Pommie basher’  join me during The Ashes

Last year I wrote an article for the Australian education journal EQ Magazine entitled ‘Keys to the Virtual World’ and now the time has come upload it to my website.

Beyond the school gate exists an awe-inspiring virtual place where a person can take almost complete control of their own professional development. It is a place devoid of filters that allow you to purchase a Russian bride but block the evils of lego.com. A place where staff politics, ill conceived arguments and small mindedness fall by the wayside to the pursuit of evidence based ‘best practice’. A world inhabited by passionate educators & ‘switched on’ learning communities. The world I speak of is that of the modern digital Personal Learning Network or PLN.

Read more about Personal Learning Networks

Two stories led me to creating this Stressbuster.

Story 1.

After just one year of teaching, a very talented music teacher friend of mine tossed it all in and went off to do ‘other things’. At his farewell morning tea I had a quiet word to him and inquired, ‘So mate, what led you to make this call?’

‘Look around this room Adrian,’ he whispered, ‘look at their faces, there is not a happy soul among them and I feel like I’m turning into one of them. I don’t want that for myself or my family.’

I must agree, I felt pretty much the same as him at the time.

Story 2.

A couple of months back I had dinner with a couple of second year Uni students after they had just finished their prac experience. As the wine flowed they recounted their experiences in staffrooms and how they found them such depressing places.

So are you one of the people who contribute to a toxic workplace, or are you one of the few who make the work environment a great place to educate and celebrate learning?

More Stressbusters

Tonight I’ve added a few new software tools to my mind mapping page that you might like to explore and compare to your traditional software of choice… or coloured pencils.

When Dr Jim and I were working together in Melbourne last year he recommended the online mind mapping tool Mindomo to the punters that attended our sessions. I’ve since found that the beauty of this tool is that you can embed multimedia into the mind maps. Nice!

Recently Mindomo has added a new desktop version of the software to the site so you can work offline. This is a nice feature as oh so often a lesson can go ‘belly up’ if the internet goes down while relying on Web 2.0 tools.

The crux of my mind mapping page is still the conventions of mind mapping. At the bottom of the page I’ve included my ‘mindmap on mind mapping’. This resource outlines the most of the conventions of mind mapping and I find that the quality of the mind maps produced by people after exploring this scaffold greatly increases.

I have also included a link to a mind mapping rubric that I have found useful. I hand out the rubric and explore with the students before setting them off to work.

I’ve also included a Youtube video from the man himself, Tony Buzan as well as a few links to books he has written on the topic that I have found extemely useful.

Feel free to experiment with my mind map on mind mapping and the mind mapping rubric

Adrian

A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future

That said, it is now time to set Pink free to roam the planet and have people take from him what they will.

What I envisage is:

- you read the book and add your thoughts to the comment section of this post being sure to let me know where the book is located at the moment
- you write your first name, the date & your location somewhere in the book
- you throw it out to your Personal Learning Network, ‘Who would like to read Pink?’
- you send the book to the first cap off the rank but let them know they can’t hang onto it for more than a month
- they then repeat the process.

Let’s see where Daniel Pink ends up or how many times he is sent on before someone steals him

cheers

Adrian

FYI IMHO – The honour of worst book I’ve read in the 21C goes to Zombie Bums from Uranus by Andy Griffith. hehehehehe