Disqus - Latest Comments for jonesieboy

Re: Mindset

jonesieboy — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 13:49:41 -0000

Glad you like it! If you post the address of your blog I'd be delighted to have a look. You can start on edublogs.org if you haven't found somewhere yet.

Re: Mindset

jonesieboy — Sun, 24 May 2009 12:36:21 -0000

Cool! I'll be coming to you for advice as I seek to use this stuff in the classroom :-)

Re: Let’s Work Together

jonesieboy — Sat, 23 May 2009 13:41:30 -0000

I agree Michael. But if we are going to find and use web resources, we might as well share the fruits of that effort.

Isn't "unpacking" just a euphemism for "putting in the detail that should have been in there in the first place"?

I want all the stuff you are looking for too, and agree that it is far more important than list of resources. I don't necessarily see it coming outcome by outcome. I'd like advice on generic strategies and approaches as well as specific ideas for how we might teach [clusters of?] outcomes.

Thanks - I'm looking forward to starting for real in August.

Re: Let’s Work Together

jonesieboy — Fri, 15 May 2009 17:11:46 -0000

Hi Susan - I'd rather hoped that the person behind RenfrewshireMaths would notice this post, so that I could congratulate them for the brilliant idea - well done :-)

It has been in my mind that more should be done with the Angus links, so I can't tell you how delighted I am to see that you have already done it!

Re: Time Flies

jonesieboy — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 02:36:59 -0000

Hi! Yes, I did get a G1. Great device. Keyboard is a bit awkward, but otherwise it has surpassed my expectations in all respects.

Re: A New Role

jonesieboy — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 12:08:06 -0000

Thanks all of you :-)

Re: Core Value(s)

jonesieboy — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 14:10:23 -0000

I don't see it as a condition. We demand high standards of youngsters because we value them. It's not that we only value them if they meet the high standards we set.

Re: My Web is Better!

jonesieboy — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 12:24:37 -0000

Not sure how this is relevant to my post, but I'm happy to have a link to the excellent zacbrowser on my blog :-)

Re: My Web is Better!

jonesieboy — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 12:24:08 -0000

It's a real shame isn't it? As I've said before, the blocking of many useful Web sites is an inevitable consequence of giving non-educators the job of filtering and judging them mainly on whether or not porn appears on screens. Such people will inevitably operate conservative filtering policies.

Re: Magic Moments 1

jonesieboy — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 15:19:03 -0000

I agree completely. It's like the Zen Buddhist approach to enlightenmen. You can't force it to happen - it can happen at any time, but you need to be very well prepared in order for it to happen, and very open to the moment for the opportunity not to be squandered.

Re: Time for a new FreeMIS release?

jonesieboy — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 12:26:23 -0000

Cool! Good luck with this project - please ask if there's anything in the FreeMIS code that doesn't make sense. I'll bash on with my usual painfully slow work on FreeMIS - you can always merge my new stuff into your work.

Re: Time for a new FreeMIS release?

jonesieboy — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 15:33:06 -0000

Not a liberty at all - you are free to do whatever you want with the source code as long as it complies with the GPL license :-)

Are you planning to fork the project, or just providing another means for people to grab a snapshot?

Re: http://www.sitemasher.com/seed-the-web-blog/my-twittonary--every-twitter-term-and-tool-i-can-find

jonesieboy — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 10:16:05 -0000

You missed the Honest Twitter Grader: http://twittergrade.appspot...

Re: TIMSS 2007

jonesieboy — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 18:55:17 -0000

Thanks.

Traffic feed is not very clever. Thinks I'm in Airdrie.

Re: TIMSS 2007

jonesieboy — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 18:54:29 -0000

Not sure that I follow you Ian. Some of the stuff is based on questionnaires about attitudes, but mostly it's based on quantitative performances in tests.

Re: Time for a new FreeMIS release?

jonesieboy — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:46:13 -0000

Hi Venkat. If you download the latest release, it has a db.sql file which should give you an "admin" user with password "teacher".

I am in the process of updating FreeMIS to work with Rails 2.2 - once I've done that I will definitely put out a new release, but realistically it could be next March before that happens.

Re: The Irresistible Allure of Print

jonesieboy — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 12:08:37 -0000

To be fair, I have been playing guitar for many years. I am just a strummer, but I'm sure that the experience of fingers on fretboard and plectrum on strings must have helped.

As regards sessions, I guess I should bite the bullet and get out there!

Re: The Irresistible Allure of Print

jonesieboy — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 11:43:59 -0000

Thanks Sean. I guess it's just practice. I've definitely practised for at least 10 minutes, sometimes a lot more, every day for the last 15 months. I'm still just a beginner though really. I haven't yet mustered up the courage to go along to an open sesson.

Re: By Way of Balance…

jonesieboy — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 17:58:59 -0000

Sounds like should go ahead and do it :-)

Re: Disrupting Class

jonesieboy — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 17:30:27 -0000

Thanks for stopping to comment Michael - I'm honoured! I don't mean to be dismissive of the latter sections of the book - it's just that the notion of disruptive innovation seems timeless, whereas any discussion about the future of technology and education is doomed to be somewhat out-dated before the book hits the shelf. LAMS is surely worth a mention, for example. Oh - and while I have your attention - the bits about Linux Kernels are toe curlingly ill-informed. A Linux operating system has one Kernel. "Linux is a modular system composed of 'kernels' that fit together" is gibberish.

Re: When were schools ever ideal?

jonesieboy — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 17:16:10 -0000

Do we have evidence that setting increases social inequality? My gut feeling is that it can't help, but I haven't seen any research on the matter.

Have you read "Disrupting Class"? I think I'll read "The Innovator's Dilemma" now, since I found Christensen's analysis of the challenges facing innovators (which echo closely what you are saying, and which he expounds in "The Innovator's Dilemma") much more interesting than the specific remedies which he suggests in "Disrupting Class".

Re: When were schools ever ideal?

jonesieboy — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 16:23:08 -0000

That's a relief. I wasn't sure how this post would go down. Most of the conversation about this post has happened on Twitter, btw

Re: Disrupting Class

jonesieboy — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 11:32:18 -0000

I think it does apply exactly to the area you interested in Tom. I'm not sure if Christiansen has a solution, mind you!

His analysis is that the current leaders of "successful" schools will tend to try to improve education in terms of the current model of success - standardised test results. Meanwhile the world has moved on, and schools should be measured by the extent to which they develop the essential skills for the 21st century (ability to be innovative and creative, work collaboratively etc etc as well as numeracy and literacy skills).

He argues that the change towards schooling which performs better in terms of the new measures will begin in places which are failing miserably in terms of the old measures. These places have less to lose by changing!

This makes some sense to me, although I don't see any real clarity of thinking anywhere about exactly what the important skills for the future might be.

To give you a more concrete example from Christiansen, schools might consider using computer based learning resources as an alternative to face-to-face teaching. This seems like a terrible idea to me, but that's perhaps because I teach at a middle class school with a good reputation for getting kids through exams. If I were teaching at a school where very few students seem to gain anything from their schooling, I might see more merit in the idea, on the basis that it couldn't make things any worse.

It's not the particular solutions that Christiansen is suggesting (mainly computer based learning) that interest me, it's his analysis of where and why real innovation is most likely to take root.

Re: 10 Most Helpful Twitter Tools

jonesieboy — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 17:18:22 -0000

How about the honest twitter grader - http://twittergrade.appspot... - it may rank as the most useless twitter tool ever :-)

Re: Twitter Grader…Um, Who Cares!?

jonesieboy — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 13:14:59 -0000

here here! I created the honest twitter grader as a response to this pointless obsession with status.