Here’s a random thought I’m going to throw out to the winds in the last few minutes before my train arrives at the station. Leigh Blackall and I have both voiced feelings of frustration and pessimism about the prospect of true innovation and real, meaningful, lasting educational change occurring.
Rather than dwell in isolation about this, each fighting their own seeingly futile battles against a multi-headed, hydra-like system, perhaps it’s time to come together to mount an all out frontal assault – together, all who want to see things different and …

According to an article in the Australian this morning, student demand is exceeding available spots in universities, with many universities in Queensland “struggling to keep pace with strong student demand, with the offer rate falling to 79 per cent, down from 83 per cent last year.”
Undoubtedly this is a really stressful time of year for prospective university students, but to me there is an important element to this discussion that needs to be highlighted.  This situation need not be a binary question of acceptance versus rejection.  Universities really need to …

I’ve only made it through the first half of this video so far and have virtually no time to consider this post properly right now, so it’s inevitably going to come out as a brain dump, undoubtedly omitting important points in the process, yet George’s response to Robin Good (above and discussed here) has really set me off on a train of thought…
Referring to the notion of institutionalised schooling, George comments that institutional structures are everywhere in life, and indeed part of society’s fundamental framework, and as such you can’t …

A series of parallel conversations have arisen concerning the topic of Deschooling, all within the last day or so, each of which has contributed to a sense of personal disquiet and contemplation.  Most notably, these include Leigh Blackall’s post on Deschooling, which features a series of fascinating videos on the topic, and secondly, a brief conversation with my wife Lisa (who is a former educator herself).
For those unfamiliar with the term, Wikipedia describes deschooling as follows:
“Philosophically, it refers to the belief that schools and other learning institutions are incapable of providing …

In the wake of my post yesterday I received a trio of comments that have each added a valuable insight to my present state of thought regarding the root cause of the relatively superficial usage of online learning environments we tend to see in education – or at least higher education.This in turn has evolved into a more fundamental look at teaching practice in general, and now, as pointed out by Ed Webb, a look at what appears to be a deeply rooted cultural and systemic reality with regards to …