Chris Betcher

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why Larry Lessig is one of my heroes. This is a terrific video that ought to make you very angry (or at least, damn annoyed!) The question is, what will you do about that anger? Are you in this fight? And what part are you, as a modern educator, playing in creating this important reform? Recorded at TEDxNYED

<understatement>I've been to a lot of conferences lately.</understatement> The Champion Schools Conference in Wellington. ACEC in Mebourne.  ITSC on the Gold Coast, then Adelaide, Sydney and Perth. They've all been very good and I've gotten something from all of them.  They've all had slightly different angles and focuses, but it's pretty clear that any worthwhile education-based conference these days tends to have the same consistent underlying message, one that most active members of the edtech community would have heard many times before... The world is changing, technology is helping drive that change, and schools need to move with that change if they are to remain relevant.  That's it in a nutshell.  Of course, there are many much deeper conversations we need to keep having about the how, why, what, when and where of enabling these changes, and we need to keep pushing the message out to those teachers still unaware that these fundamental chan...

A few weeks ago, I got an email at work advertising a free technology event for teenage girls run called DigiGirlz .  It was being run by Microsoft Australia and it's aim was to promote careers in the IT industry for girls.  It's a good idea. Women are far too under-represented in IT in Australia (and probably other parts of the world too) so I'm all for supporting any initiative that can help attract smart, creative women into the world of technology. The event sounded like it would actually be pretty interesting.  It was being held at Microsoft's main Australian Offices at North Ryde and offered a chance to meet some of the inspirational women who work at Microsoft to find out what they do, and to have a chat with several Australian universities about the sorts of career paths that IT might offer. There was also a couple of hands-on workshops in Microsoft's Photosynth and DeepZoom technologies, as well as a chance to to see the new Project Natal gaming platfor...

The main keynote on the Friday of ACEC 2010 was Gary Stager, a man who has a reputation for calling a spade a "bloody shovel".  He did a morning keynote, as well as a "soapbox" session in the main hall where he held court and treated anyone who would listen to the world according to Stager. I'm not totally sure what to make of Gary Stager.  I heard him speak for the first time at ULearn last year and I was pretty impressed by what he had to say.  That probably shouldn't sound so surprising since the guy has a long history of working with schools to do some pretty innovative and constructivist things.  He was a consultant at MLC Melbourne, Australia's (and the world's) first 1-1 laptop school. He was a student and personal friend of Professor Seymour Papert, in my opinion one of the world's most influential educational thinkers.  And he has some really forceful opinions about what works and what doesn't work in education.  I admire his intensi...

As much as I would have loved to have been in Melbourne all week for ACEC 2010 , it just wasn't on the cards for me. A pity, because it sounded like there was a lot of really interesting sessions to attend, and one that particularly caught my eye was the Lego Robotics one with Chris Rogers , a professor of engineering from the Centre for Engineering, Education and Outreach at Tufts University in Boston.  I've been a Lego fanboy for a long time, and have worked with kids to do some pretty awesome stuff with it over the years, but unfortunately my current school doesn't really do very much with Lego. (In fact, computer programming in general gets a pretty rough deal at PLC, something that I'd really like to see change) However, we do run a Computer Club every week in our junior school and we've decided that we will introduce programming to these kids to start with.  We've begun by getting them going with Scratch , with a plan to get some Lego Robotics gear and ma...

I've been travelling a fair bit lately .  Although much of it has been within Australia, I've just spent the last few days in Lower Hutt, New Zealand, for the Sitech Champion Schools Conference , and I'm writing this from in the hotel foyer. New Zealand is starting to feel a bit like a second home lately... this is my fourth trip here in the past 12 months. Aussies and Kiwis have a friendly relationship. Aside from the obvious opportunity to take shots at each other over the cricket and the rugby, our two countries get along amicably well, and the trip across the Tasman is something that feels more like going interstate than international.  It's easy to feel at home in NZ. About 12 months ago I was here for last years Champion Schools Conference and some readers of this blog may remember that I came home to a $1000 phone bill for international roaming. That was a saga in itself , and much was said about it both here on the blog and on Twitter and Facebook.  While I sho...

I often ponder why systemic change is so hard to make happen in education.  Systemic change (and by that I mean not just change from a handful of scattered individuals but an all-in buy-in to create change right across a school system) is never easy, but it seems to happen with far less resistance in fields outside of education.  Schools just seem extra hard to shift. I'm pretty optimistic about the positive effects that technology can bring to education.  I really do believe that the school experience for both teachers and students can be made richer and more meaningful with the wise use of technology.  Not just technology for technology's sake, but by making intelligent decisions about what and how our students learn and supporting that learning with appropriate technologies.  I've never seen technology as an add-on, or just another thing that teachers need to somehow squeeze into their day, but rather as a deeply embedded set of tools, methodologies and skill...

In a bizarre and unexpected turn of events, I had a call from the good folk from ACEC a couple of days ago asking if I'd be interested in presenting something at the Friday keynote session. Apparently there was a spot available and someone suggested my name.  That was great news for me, since I really wanted to go to ACEC... not only does it sound like it will be an awesome conference, but there are so many people from my online world who will be there that I want to meet up with in person.  Naturally, I said yes. The hard part is that I was told I can talk about whatever I like. That's dangerous enough, but further complicated by the fact that I've been busy lately presenting some stuff for several other conferences and I don't really want to just reuse the same stuff.  I realise that I'd be talking to a totally different group of people so it's not the overlap that's the problem, but I'd just rather come up with something specifically for ACEC. My pro...

So, here I am on the beautiful (but currently rainy) Gold Coast. I arrived this evening to spend the weekend at Gold Coast ITSC 2010, the annual Innovative Technology in Schools Conference run by Apple.  It certainly sounds like it will be fun, and I'm rather humbled to have been asked to give the keynote address. What's more surprising to me is that Apple asked if I'd do not only this one, but the entire Australian ITSC series, so over the next month or so I'll also be at the Adelaide, Sydney, Perth and Melbourne events as well.  It came as a complete surprise to be asked, but I'm really thrilled to be able to be a part of them. Apple is using a different approach to the ITSC events this year that sounds like it will be really good. It's all very unconferencey.  Beyond the keynote, there will be lots of opportunity to mix and share and socialise and learn together. I think that's great, and it's certainly the best part of most conferences I've been...

Silly me. I was mowing the lawn the other day and I stupidly managed to get my big toe caught in the mower blade while it was running at full speed. The blades ripped right through my shoe and mangled the tip of my big toe. Needless to say, it really hurt! I was home on my own, and had to figure out what to do next... there was blood going all over the place, I felt myself going into shock, as I tried to figure out how to get myself to a doctor. It was not a lot of fun. The good news is that despite smashing my toenail off and slicing the end of my big toe, it could have been a hell of a lot worse. Fortunately, the bone was not broken and I still have all my toes so apart from a bit of pain and inconvenience I think I'm pretty lucky. It highlighted to me - in a very real way - that lawnmowers are bloody dangerous things! With their sharp, rapidly rotating blades, they are obviously capable of doing some real damage to the human body. Naturally, I never intended to get my toe in...