Future Learning Blog

Although this isn't an example of traditional gamification , because I was already using a TGFU approach in practical lessons, I thought i'd share how I encouraged learning through modifying games so they were slightly more like the 'games' that students play today. I have just started teaching a hockey unit with a challenging group of year nine students and thought i'd adapt a game of minefield (students have to dribble through an area without hitting the cone) to become more relevant and engaging for the youth of today.  I modified the game so it was based on ' Call of Duty ' which most of the boys are obsessed with at the moment - and changed my hockey drill to 'Call of Hockey - modern ball-fare'.  This led to blowing boys up with landmines and snipers on

I downloaded a few ipad apps to see if I could find a suitable lesson planning app, some claimed to be the perfect solution and a replacement to my trusty but easy to misplace NZ teachers planner, but I wasn't really happy with any of them - so I decided to use google calendar and sync it with my phone/ipad so I could plan on the go and refer to it when I was teaching PE on the field - it is also

The ability to create multiple calendars in google drive is an amazing organisational tool, especially when you can hide/show and share them with a click.  You could use separate calendars in a school for exam schedules, internal assessment deadlines, staff meetings, sporting events, your own lesson plans and SLT free/busy times and even for physical resources like netbook pods, science lab equipment or library time. 1) At GBHS and many 'apps' schools we automatically have our personal/primary calendar (which is your default entry and associated with the email address) and we have a 'GBHS Calendar' set up as well.  Your own calendar is private, no-one else has access - but it is possible to share it with different

Yesterday I finished off four exams to go towards becoming a google certified teacher.  I first learnt that there was an actual qualification to become a certified teacher when looking around twitter, and seeing that a few fellow educators had it as an attribute.  I looked it up on the net and found out that

At the end of last term I pestered my principal into letting me go to Learning@school 2013 in Gisborne.  I'm glad I sent the numerous emails requesting to go as the whole day was full of inspiration and positive energy - my mind has been a whirlwind of activity since then with all the ideas that were triggered by the talks and workshops - i've finally gone through the notes I made on evernote and thought I'd share some of them with staff who were interested but unable to attend.  The most inspirational part of the day was the keynote that was presented by Derek Wenmouth, Director of E-Learning at Core Education. Derek introduced the talk by glimpsing 20 years into the future by looking at how some of the big thinkers were claiming how our future would be shaped.  The first character that Derek mentioned was Ray Kurzweil who is director of engineering at google.  He claims that biotechnology (reprogramming biology as an information process) would ...