Thinking Outside the Pyramid

One aim of this course is to challenge students to think in new ways, develop skills in innovation and to do new things... in their areas of interest.

It is not easy to challenge our thinking. Much of our thinking is based on assumptions - some of which may not have been questioned. We may discuss and debate issues endlessly without ever questioning our underlying assumptions.

One way to question our assumptions is to look at enigma and paradox. The enigma I chose was the Great Pyramid. Some believe that the Great Pyramid is not an enigma at all but others contend that we have interpreted the 'facts' based on assumptions that have not been sufficiently questioned.

They argue that there are too many anomalies that do not fit the accepted historical worldview. Not only that but if we use a different worldview then those anomalies begin to make sense in a consistent way.

But changing accepted thinking is not easy. Scientist Max Planck said “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it”.

The presentation and audio have been uploaded to the class moodle page.

We will look at worldviews again a few weeks.

And it Begins...

Student-Directed Inquiry has begun for 2009 and students have some great project ideas - more on that later... I'm team teaching the course this year with Heather Banks and we will also be using the skills of Dirk Koudstaal who I taught with last year.

This year I've been using SMS directly to student mobiles from my desktop - all in one batch - and including a link to a Google Site I set up to provide course info until everyone is registered in Moodle. Having somewhere to save information that doesn't require registration is proving very useful as new students continue to join the class so I may keep using it.

I've decided to keep posting in last year's journal so people can see what's happened before. Over the next few weeks I'll add new pictures and links so that it becomes the 2009 class journal :-)

Yesterday half the class of 25 students met to hear about the course and talk about their project ideas. All the slides, audio and handouts are now on the class Moodle (for students only). I've also uploaded the slides and some video to the web so that it can be shared on this journal.



There probably isn't much point in showing the video - it's better to see clear slides and hear the audio - but I'll add one anyway.



Tomorrow we will meet the second half of the class... and hopefully the IT issues that have prevented students from using email and any Web 2.0 tools on campus will have been resolved.

Some students have started their activity logs using Twitter and as well as following them I've collected everyone together using Twitter100. I hope to see the whole class on Twitter - with regular updates - within a week.. Nudge... Nudge... :-)

On the Road...

Since completing this course and seeing the excellent results obtained by students - results that I partly attribute to our use of ICT to provide a flexible and personalised learning environment - a number of teachers have asked to hear more.


Uploaded on authorSTREAM by regor2012

I've prepared a presentation to help me explain why we chose particular Web 2.0 services, how students used them and why I think they contributed to higher than expected student achievement in the course.

Later today I'm hoping to get some feedback from teachers at another college during the presentation through Blogger and Twitter to show a little of how Web 2.0 services function.

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How will they rate?

I'm interested to see how SDI students will justify how they rate their products - games, machinima, video and scripts. Many have strong views on censorship and there is much discussion about the proposed R18+ for computer games. Ratings affect sales and distribution and many games have had restrictions placed on them in Australia.

Organisations like the Interactive Entertainment Assoc of Australia provide guidance for parents who feel lost when it comes to computer games.

But game demographics are changing with 1/3 of parents now playing computer games and the average gamer age now 28. IEAA's Interactive Australia 2007 provides fascinating insights into today's game players.

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Google Reader Common Sense

Common Craft have just released a "Plain English" Google Reader video.



I have 106 Google Reader feeds - 55 are student journals. Journal posts for the SDI class now total 370 - easily managed with the magic of RSS.

While on stat's... Twitter posts for the SDI class have just passed 1,000 - that's a lot of activity in just one course.

I've just printed all this and it's 6cm of A4 pages - and mostly double sided printing! Thankfully I can print directly to high speed photocopiers. And every page was where I could find it - one click to open, one click to print :-)

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It's all go!

Many teams are now focused on the short number of weeks remaining this year and are working to complete major stages of their project.

Here you can look around the DIM Studio - click to activate window then drag mouse to pan around room - mouse scroll to zoom.

The team in the corner are recording storyboard scenes for their machinima staged in GTA Vice City. Here they are sitting on the bonnet of a Vice City police car...