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This quote stood out to me in the context of the ULearn Conference I am at in ChCh.

Nearly 75% of US college students believe WiFi access on their college campus helps them get better grades, according to a recent survey conducted for the Wi-Fi Alliance.

Wakefield Research polled 501 US college students in September 2008 and found that nine out of ten say Wi-Fi access is as essential to education as classrooms and computers, while nearly three in five say they wouldn’t go to a college that doesn’t have free Wi-Fi. Almost 80% percent said that without Wi-Fi access, college would be a lot harder.

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I must admit that I certainly feel it if I am away from wireless internet access for too long. It is good to make the choice at times but it is difficult to do my job without it.

Nick is from Russel St school (DP) and e-Fellow … their school website is very cool!

“assessment for the purpose of IMPROVING student learning” - NZC.  Framing the purpose of e-Portfolios from NZC which is a good place to begin

stuff on Nicks blog here

strong focus on ALL portfolios being for Assessment FOR learning, (not just OF learning as a summative thing).  change in mindset here, particularly for parents who often just want a summative assessment and comparative information.

Have changed from iWeb and sending home on DVD to using passworded online format.  Linked from school website.  Move to web-based format has made more dynamic and allowed for interaction and ongoing reflection by learner and others.  Parents making comments etc has changed the nature of the portfolios.

this is what we have found with blogging at school as well - the audience makes the medium even more powerful.  When children know they have a genuine, meaningful audience it really ramps up the expectations for and of the children. Having others looking at what you are doing makes a difference!

Allows for showcasing method as well as product(s).

have a local ISP that hosts for them - YAY.  makes a big difference!

Wordpress as platform and at this point not worrying about tagging individual posts but using pages in Wordpress to differentiate content (eg individual pages for Literacy topics, maths, etc)

Just arrived at Tapanui on a lovely sunny morning and will see how the Scribd version of my workshop imbeds. Should have done this last night but was watching the Warriors game …lol

CORE have produced this series of videos looking at key issues in education.  I like this one from Sharon Freisen looks at the difference between Inquiry as a disposition and Inquiry as a Teaching Strategy.  This is a fundamental difference!

ALL those in the school need to be Inquirers and Learners.  Sometimes this will be together and sometimes it is more focused on teacher professional learning.

… thanks Jane for the link!

Followed the link from Tony’s blog and found an amazing array of cool videos.
Would this be fun to do with kids or what!!

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Anyone want to get a shot of kids in your school dancing and lets make a video together??

How can you do this without smiling - and thats the point

If you excuse the emotive heartstring bit this is a great example of public speaking … and well worth watching.

As the entry from the LeaderTalk blog where I found this simply says … “why we do what we do”.