Chris Betcher

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 ...

Hello?  Is this thing on? Anyone? That's how it feels at the moment with my blogging. Or non-blogging. I can't believe I have not written here since July! That's 5 months, and the longest time I have gone without writing here since I started this blog just over 10 years ago. But August - my 10 year 'blogaversary' - came and went and I still just didn't seem to get around to it. Not sure why. Partly being busy with my work with EdTechTeam. Partly being busy with other stuff. And partly, I think maybe just a little bit of a need to disconnect from this online space, and reconnect with the real world a little more. I have good intentions of writing again. I enjoy writing, and as I've said on many occasions, writing is my way of thinking out loud, of throwing ideas around in my own head in a public space so I can be kept accountable for them. But lately I just haven't felt motivated to do that. I think it's partly the impact of social media. It's now...

My friend  and prolific blogger Steve Wheeler issued an interesting blogging challenge the other day called A Twisted Pair . He proposed taking two different people with no apparent connection and writing a post about learning that somehow connects the two, which I thought was an interesting idea. Steve proposed a few possible pairs of names on his post to get our ideas started, and although there were many pairings that intrigued me, two that really stood out were both people who have always inspired me - Pablo Picasso and Sir Tim Berners-Lee .  So here goes... There are probably numerous ideas to explore in terms of how the concepts of learning are embodied by these two people. I'll try to begin with the obvious and then see if we can find other connections. Let's start with Picasso. Picasso was an incredibly prolific Spanish artist with a body of work that is profoundly extensive. Over the years his work moved through multiple phase...

Just to finish the story I started in the last post, here's what transpired (just in case you're interested). The good news is that Optus finally found the reason for this blog being blocked on their network and have restored things to normal. You should now be able to access this site, even on the Optus network, but the nonsense I had to wade through to get things resolved was quite ridiculous. After that last blog post describing the problem with my site being blocked by Optus for reasons unexplained, I posted it out on Twitter and Facebook. It's amazing how quickly that gets a response. To their credit, I heard back from Optus's Social Media Team very quickly offering to help resolve the issue. I'm not sure why tech support problems can't just be resolved by calling Tech Support, and why it takes a very public skewering on social media to get any action these days, but apparently that the way it works now. After a series of very promising back and forth tweet...

If you've tried to access this blog lately from the Optus network, I'm going to make an educated guess and say that you haven't been able to. I have an Optus Cable Internet service at home and about two weeks ago I started to be unable to access my blog. At first I put it down to a temporary network glitch and didn't worry about it. But the problem presisted and I started be become a bit stumped as to what was happening. Every other website on the Net loaded ok, but my own blog was inaccessible. I could get to it from work, and from my phone over Telstra 4G and pretty much anywhere except from home on my Optus service. Then last week I got an email from a reader who said that she also couldn't access the blog and, surprise surprise, she is also on the Optus network. Nor could a friend of hers, who is, you guessed it, also on the Optus network. So I put a note out on Twitter to ask who could access the blog and which ISP they were using. 100% of Optus users could not...

Some of you might have seen that I've been working on a daily blogging project this year called My Daily Create. You can visit it at www.mydailycreate.com (or click the link in the menu bar above). The basic idea is that I'm attempting to create something every day of the year during 2014. It could be music, a video, a drawing, a photo or a poem. It could be something practical and usable, or something retinal and frivolous. It doesn't matter what it is, I just plan to make something each day. So far it's going pretty well and I haven't missed a single day yet. Earlier this week I presented a keynote at the EduTECH conference in Brisbane on the topic of creativity at the invitation of the organisers. I find creativity an interesting topic to talk about, but it's usually one of those things that's easy to talk about in general terms but much harder to talk about specifically. I felt even more challenged by it because several of the other speakers were also t...

As December 2013 came to an end I was considering doing another one of those 365 Day Photo Project, where you take a photo every day for a year. I've done these before, one very successfully where I actually did take and post a new photo every day for a year, and two other attempts that started well but eventually ran out of steam. Being disciplined is hard, at least, it is for me. These projects where you promise yourself that you will do something every day for a year are not easy. You miss a day here or there and then conclude that there's no point carrying on with it.  In truth, even if you only took 150 photos out of the 365 you're supposed to, you'd still have 150 photos! Not to mention a whole lot more practice as a photographer. This year I wanted to do something, but was looking for something a bit different to just taking photos. So I asked for some suggestions on Twitter and got a bunch of interesting ideas back. Taking these suggestions as a whole, I thought...

It's been a while since I've posted here, which got me thinking about why that might be. I think the obvious answer is that it's just too easy to contribute on other platforms. When I first started blogging I used to post almost every day, sometimes a couple of times a day. It was to share a video or a picture that I found, jot down an idea, or just share a thought. These days, there are easier ways to do that than with a blog. For many, it's Facebook. For me, for a long time, it was Twitter (and it still might be if I could sort out this stupid password issue!) More and more it's becoming Google+, which really is emerging as THE social platform of the future. These services make it so easy to throw an idea out there quickly. And let's face it, for most people the level of engagement you get back on these platforms is probably higher. It's really no surprise that most of us are blogging less often. But having said that, I'm incredibly glad that I started...

I was talking to a couple of people today about the way we use blogs with our students.  At my school we have a number of students and classes blogging, and every one of these blogs is completely open and visible to the public web. These folk were asking, with an obvious degree of concern, how we deal with this public visibility of student blogs and what steps were we taking to prevent them being seen by "just anyone". I've tried to convince many people to try blogging over the years. Usually, their biggest objection is "why would anyone want to read what I write?"  Their concern is usually about the huge waste of effort that blogging will be because they don't truly believe that anybody will ever read or take any interest in what they have to write. They imagine that their work will go into the black hole of the Internet where it never gets seen by anyone. And yet, when we talk about getting students blogging on the open web, the usual concern is just the o...

I just left a comment on Larry Ferlazzo's blog Websites of the Day , in response to a post called  The Best Alternatives To Google Reader Now That It’s Being Shut Down . As the title suggests, after Google dropped the bombshell today about closing down Google Reader, Larry was very helpfully suggesting some alternatives. And they are good suggestions of course, but I think this decision to shut down Reader is more far-reaching than just finding an alternative tool. Anyway, I left quite a long comment on the post with a few ideas that were on my mind, so I thought I'd crosspost it here as well, just in case it helps stimulate further discussion.  But please do go visit Larry's original post... Larry, I agree with you... I'm deeply disappointed that Google is shutting down Reader. And as good as these suggestions for alternatives are, I suspect most of them will be fairly poor replacements for Reader... a) Reader is a part of the Google suite of tools. When I'm logged...

It's that time of year again. Time to submit nominations for the 2012 Edublog Awards . There are those who criticise the idea of giving out awards for educational blogs as being a bit silly, or a bit unnecessary, or a bit selfserving, or a bit self-indulgent. They complain that the voting process is flawed, or that it's just a popularity contest, or that it promotes the wrong kinds of values.  Some complain that it's just a chance for gratuitous self promotion, both for the bloggers themselves and for the companies that promote educational blogging. I'm not one of those people. I think anything that supports, encourages and promotes the use of blogs in education is a good thing. Blogs are all about writing, sharing, thinking, pondering. Writing a blog forces you to clarify your thinking, state your position, defend your point of view. Blogging is a way to connect with others, debate ideas that matter to you, build a community of learners and be part of a bigger conversa...

About 5 years ago, there was an incident in Adelaide where a classroom blog and the South Australian Department of Education and Children's Services had a bit of a falling out.  It was well documented at the time, so I'm not going to rehash it here, suffice to say that it was a bunfight at the time and as a result there was significant tension between the educational blogging community and the Powers That Be in South Australia. Like many other bloggers, I expressed my thoughts on it at the time. I spoke to the person who was directly affected by the dispute, as well as a number of other people in the know. Eventually, everyone involved tried to take what they could learn from the situation and we all just moved on.  Life is too short to be dragged down by that stuff. However, over the last few weeks I've had some idiot posting abusive comments on this blog expressing (quite forcefully) their opinions on that situation from 2007. They have been abusive and rude to me perso...

If you like, you can skip right to the bottom of this post and just watch the video, but I always find the story behind the story kind of interesting. So I thought you  might like to know a little bit about how and why this video was made. It started out with a simple tweet from my buddy Kim Sivick in Philadelphia.  It started a conversation that went something like this... Do I know anyone who might make a quick Welcome to Australia video? I sure do. And besides, I owe Kim a favour. When I was running blogging workshops with our staff last year I was hoping to tap into the experiences of some very blog-savvy educators by getting them to Skype in and talk to our teachers about the realities and the practicalities of using blogs in the classroom. When I asked for volunteers on Twitter (where else?) Kim Sivick  was one of those who generously responded and agreed to spend time talking with us to share her expertise. I also got to meet Kim in person at ISTE in Philadelphia ...

Have you had this conversation with another teacher yet? Me:  Hey, have you ever thought about starting a class blog?  You can use it publish what happens in your classroom, put up all the cool things your class does, and share it all with the world. What do you think? Them: Are you crazy? Why would anyone be even remotely interested in reading about what we do? And anyway, no one will ever see it... they probably wouldn't even be able to find it! And then, eventually, they do start a class blog. And pretty soon the conversation changes to this... Me: Hey, you should post up those photos of what your class did last week on your class blog. And what about that video you made with the kids? How about we post that on YouTube? Them: Are you crazy? You want me to put that stuff with the kids online where everyone can get to it? It's way too dangerous! I don't want the whole world seeing it! So which is it? When we post stuff online are we putting it somewhere where no one wi...

I've been keen to get more of our staff blogging, since I know from first hand experience what a powerfully reflective process it can be. I've always found that taking the time to write causes me to think more deeply about what I do, it makes me more aware of the ideas and approaches that I'm using with those I teach, and it's also made me a much better writer than I once was. I'd argue that blogging really helps improve your communication skills on many levels while building a stronger foundation for understanding your own beliefs and convictions. There is something both magical and affirming about putting your thoughts down in words, and even moreso when you decide to publicly share those words with others. As you can probably tell, I'm a bit of a fan of blogging (or connective writing, to borrow a phrase from Will Richardson ) During 2011, our school had the opportunity to apply for an AGQTP grant. This grant program is funded by the Australian government...

I've never understood why people send spam mail or leave spam comments on blog posts (in the same way I don't understand why people scribble graffiti tags on trains and walls), but I know that for spammers who really take it seriously there is big money to be made. I suppose in that sense, I DO understand why people create spam if there is the opportunity to make money from it... I guess what I don't understand is how there continues to be constant stream of people who are gullible enough to take action on the messages and, in doing so, continue to generate an income for the spammers. Let's face it, the thing that keeps spam propagating and growing (and therefore making it worthwhile for the spammers to keep sending it) is the fact that there are enough gullible, stupid people in the world who keep responding to it.  If we all were much better at identifying and recognising spam as soon as we saw it, then the spammers would eventually go away because the f...

2011 has been an interesting year for blogging. I feel like my own personal blogging has been really suffering lately, not just from being really busy at work, but also from the endless distractions of Twitter and Google+ which, if I let them, could easily become my sole places for sharing stuff online.  Certainly, there are some people, like Mike Elgan , who use Google as their sole online presence and funnel all their other online stuff into G+.  It's a potentially intriguing strategy, as the engagement factor on G+ is certainly very high.  You could also argue that Twitter has replaced a great deal of sharing that was one done via blogs, and there's little doubt that between the "Big Three" of Facebook, Twitter and Google+, the nature of blogs and blogging  has shifted considerably since I first started using them back in 2005.  I'm blogging less, for sure, and it definitely leaves a void that I miss filling. However, this was also the year when I ...

On January 1 this year, thanks to a bit of prodding from my mate John Pearce , I started a 365 Photo Challenge... whereby I planned to take a photo every single day this year and post it to the web. I'd tried doing this once before but never made it longer than a few days before I lost focus and let it slip away.   So here we are nearly 11 full months into my 365 Days of Light Photo project and I'm pleased to report I haven't missed a single day yet! ( I've been late to post them a few times, but never more than about 48 hours behind schedule either, which I think is pretty darn amazing!) I post them all to a Posterous site I set up called 365 Days of Light , which in turn crossposts to Twitter, Identica,  Flickr. and PicasaWeb (which is really Google+).  It also used to post to Facebook until I quit my account there).  Here is a link to the collection so far ... (minus the first few days of January which I forgot to include back then) Part of the challenge for me wa...

One of the things that my American friends are always very proud of is that they claim to live in a country where dreams can come true and where everyone has an equal opportunity of success. They call it “ The American Dream ” and all over America young children are told that anyone - even them - has the opportunity to grow up and become president one day. Of course, if you’re a young American, the reality is that while anyone can potentially become president, the probability of it actually happening to you is somewhere around 1 in 307,006,550 (which is roughly the number of people living in the USA at the moment). So while you possibly could become president, it’s far, far, far more likely that you won’t be! If you did happen to somehow end up as the President of the United States, the odds get even more staggeringly unlikely that your son or daughter will also become president. Mathematically, the chances of two people from the same family both becoming President of the USA are ...

I like photography. In fact I like imagery in general, which is, I suppose, why I enjoyed art school so much. The combination of not only interesting images, but also interesting ideas, made the four years I spent at art school some of the best years of my life. However, it was only after I taught art for a few years that I discovered that, while I liked art, I didn't necessarily like teaching art. I've since spoken to many people who proclaim that the quickest way to kill your passion for something is to do it for a living. I'm not sure that's the case... what I do now, working with kids and technology and the future, is what I love doing. But I understand what they are saying... for many people, their passions need to be unshackled from the daily "must do" so that they can be enjoyed as a "want to" instead. So, working with imagery and design and graphics and photography remains something I enjoy simply for the sake of it. I like to take photos, o...