Chris Betcher

For many years, we had a beautiful Golden retriever named Buzz.  He was a really lovely dog. We got him through Golden Retriever Rescue NSW and he was pretty special to us. He eventually  became quite old and unwell, and we had to put him down last year just before Christmas. I was a little surprised today when I saw an article on a French news site about a Golden Retriever . It was a fairly sad story of a Golden who went to the vet for an operation and was accidentally euthanised. Whilst it was a sad story that brought back some painful memories of the night we lost our Golden boy, I was a little surprised that the photo being used was one of my own, taken of Buzz a few years ago. Because I believe in sharing as a default, I published the photo on Flickr under a Creative Commons BY SA licence, as nearly all of my photos are. So this French news site has every right to use my photo as long as they respect the CC guidelines under which I published it, namely the BY (Attribution...

Like you, I have also been inundated with updated privacy policy emails lately in the wake of the new GDPR rules ( General Data Protection Regulation ). Everyone wants to tell me what they are doing to protect my data. To be honest, it's not something that's been bothering me, but thanks for clogging my inbox anyway. It gets silly... I've heard that some schools are using GDPR as an excuse to avoid having things online, such as refusing to post photos or student work, not allowing students to use online services, etc. I've even heard it suggested that you can't read blogs anymore as it infringes on the GDPR rules! I am pretty sure that was not the purpose of GDPR (and we certainly should not allow some rule designed for the European Union to be affecting schools as far away as New Zealand!) I also heard that some bloggers are adding GDPR compliance statements to their blogs for fear of breaking the rules. Which I think is ridiculous, but here goes... This blog does ...

It seems like it wasn't that long ago that the music industry was still resisting any attempt at allowing consumers to access music in any way other that buying CDs. So many other industries have been disrupted by digital technology, and while a few notable ones stuck doggedly to their "principles" until they literally vanished (I'm looking at you Kodak and Blockbuster), most industries either embraced the disruption or eventually waved the white flag and gave in. One of the industries that probably should have most logically embraced the opportunities of being digital was the music business. After all, with a product that is essentially just a collection of digital bits, the decision to move those bits directly to consumers via the Internet should have been a no brainer. Yet the record company cartels fought the inevitable digital transition for years.  Rarely have I seen such a group of people with so little vision for the future be so obstinate about protecting the...

As many of you know, my current role is working with EdTechTeam in Australia and New Zealand. It's a role I enjoy and I know we make a difference to many teachers both here in ANZ and globally. As a team of educators working in the field of ed ucational tech nology, I have always thought the name " EdTechTeam " is a good one.  It seems clear and unambiguous and I feel like it describes who we are and what we do. So one thing that has always puzzled me is the way people consistently get our company name wrong. We commonly get called just "Edtech", "Ed Tech", and even "Edutech", which is something entirely different. We sometimes get "EdTech team" or "Ed tech team", both of which are close, but no cigar. Say it with me. EdTechTeam . I have lost track of the number of times I have received emails referring to us as Edtech, or been introduced as Chris from Edtech, and while I try to politely correct the error, I truly am as...

I was recently interviewed on The Press Release podcast with David Hotler . I found it in interesting chat with him and we covered quite a range of topics so I thought I would just share the episode here as well. Whenever I get interviewed I generally prefer not to know the questions in advance, and this was no exception. I find the conversation flows much better when I have no idea where its going. David asked some good questions that led into, hopefully, an interesting discussion.   I guess you can be the judge of that!   You can subscribe to The Press Release directly on their website . There are a ton of interesting episodes there! Thanks for having me David!

"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more you learn, the more places you’ll go.”— Dr. Seuss - I Can Read With My Eyes Shut! Watching a child learn to read is a fascinating thing. I remember watching my own two kids acquiring the skill of reading for themselves, and seeing what a remarkable difference it made once they were able to pick up any book they wanted, on any topic, and read it. I remember the joy of watching my kids devour literally hundreds and hundreds of books as they got older. It really is quite amazing. And that ability to read - not just for functional understanding of words, but with a fluent and genuine love of literature - opened up vast worlds of learning and imagination and curiosity for them. I think most educated people understand the value, and importance of reading. There is a substantial body of evidence to support the idea that reading TO children when they are young has a positive, long term effect on their development, not just ...

YouTube has been around for quite a while now, and apparently I've been part of its history for much of that time. The domain, youtube.com , was registered in February 2005 and I joined YouTube just over a year later in May 2006. I uploaded my first video in August 2006. So I guess that makes me an early adopter? Google bought YouTube in October 2006 for USD$1.65 Billion. I recall that the tech press was stunned by the purchase price at the time, as that seemed like a ridiculous amount of money. Of course, by the silly standards of some tech purchases since then (like Facebook's purchase of WhatsApp for $19 Billion, for example) YouTube was quite a bargain. YouTube mainly makes money by showing ads, although I must admit I spend pretty much all my YouTube time in Google for Education accounts where there are no ads, or in my personal Gmail account where I pay for YouTube Red, which again, has no ads. So I still get a little surprised when I watch YouTube on someone else's...