Monday, August 24, 2015

Why Leaders Eat Last- Simon Sinek




In this in-depth talk, ethnographer and leadership expert Simon Sinek reveals the hidden dynamics that inspire leadership and trust. In biological terms, leaders get the first pick of food and other spoils, but at a cost. When danger is present, the group expects the leader to mitigate all threats even at the expense of their personal well-being. Understanding this deep-seated expectation is the key difference between someone who is just an "authority" versus a true "leader." 

3:30 Happiness breakdown (4 chemicals)
5:53 1) Endorphins
7:16 Importance of endurance
7:59 2) Dopamine
8:19 Dopamine is to make sure get stuff done
9:10 Goals must be tangible - we have to see the goal to stay focused
10:17 Dopamine is dangerous when unbalanced
15:07 Feel safe
15:40 In our organization, danger isn't a constant it is a variable
17:05 The responsibility of leadership is 2 things: 1) Determine who gets in and who doesn't 2) how big do we make the circle of safety
17:33 Great leaders extend safety to the outermost of the org
17:53 3) Serotonin - leadership chemical
19:30 Trying to enforce relationships
22:22 Value of group-living
22:28 Being alpha comes at a cost
26:01 The cost of leadership is self-interest
27:15 Makes you feel safe
27:34 4) Oxytocin
29:03 Businesses aren't rational, it's about feeling safe. "It's human -- physical touch"
29:27 "Human bonds matter"
29:29 Act of human generosity
32:19 Leaders spend time/energy not money
37:30 You have to make sure you can trust others as leaders because you won't have time to help everyone
38:47 Cortisone - the feeling of stress and anxiety
40:59 Needs to shut down during times
41:42 Cortisone inhabits oxytocin
42:18 "Our jobs are killing us.. leaders are responsible"
43:12 Leadership is a decision, a choice.

Monday, August 10, 2015

Safe and Responsible Use of Digital Technologies in Schools

MOE Report



Education is changing. Digital technologies are everywhere and they are impacting what, where, how and why students learn, and who they learn from. Many schools are using digital technologies like the internet, laptops and tablets to quickly, easily and cost- effectively connect students with the huge range of digital services and resources. However, the many benefits of learning with digital technologies are accompanied by some challenges and potential risks for students and schools. These ‘digital challenges’ are real and present a dilemma to schools seeking to use digital technology to enhance student learning.
Digital challenges can be broadly categorised as:
  • Cybersafety: Involves conduct or behavioural concerns.
    Examples include cyberbullying, smear campaigns, accessing inappropriate content, creating spoof websites or sexting.
  • Cybercrime: Involves illegal activity.
    Examples include sexual offending, accessing objectionable content or online

    fraud.
  • Cybersecurity: Involves unauthorised access or attacks on a computer system.
    Examples include hacking into someone’s social media service account, launching a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack or loading malware onto a laptop.
    In general, preventative approaches that rely on technical or other protections simply do not work. These methods have a role but must be balanced with strategies that promote:
  • development of skills and knowledge for safe and responsible use of digital technology
  • opportunities for students to be involved in decisions about the management of digital technology at the school
  • development of a pro-social culture of digital technology use, and
  • cooperation of the whole community in preventing and responding to incidents.
The ultimate goal is to ensure the online safety of all students. 

Augmented Reality: An Overview and Five Directions for AR in Education

The Article



Keywords: augmented reality, AR, education, virtual reality, mixed reality






With AR tech- nologies becoming more and more integrated into individual’s non-academic lives, through mobile devices and AR real-world markup (AR RWM), making available location-specif- ic data, such as historical information, current social tweets, and real-time hazard data, the idea of ‘learning’ through an AR interface will eventually, and perhaps quickly, become some- thing that is taken completely for granted. 

20 Ways to Ue Augmented Reality



The Article

 Second Life proved an incredibly valuable tool for educators hoping to reach a broad audience — or offering even more ways to learn for their own bands of students.

Augmented Reality Development Lab:
Affiliated with  Google, Microsoft, and Logitech, the Augmented Reality Development Lab run by Digital Tech Frontier seeks to draw up projects that entertain as well as educate. The very core goal of the ARDL  involves creating interactive, three-dimensional objects for studying purposes.


Reliving the Revolution:
Karen Schrier harnessed GPS and Pocket PCs to bring the Battle of Lexington to her students through the Reliving the Revolution game, an AR experiment exploring some of the mysteries still shrouding the event — like who shot first! Players assume different historical roles and walk through everything on a real-life map of the Massachusetts city.

PhysicsPlayground:
One of the many, many engines behind PC games received a second life as an engaging strategy for illustrating the intricate ins and outs of physics, in a project known as PhysicsPlayground. It offers up an immersive, three-dimensional environment for experimenting, offering up a safer, more diverse space to better understand how the universe drives itself.

MITAR Games:
Developed by MIT’s Teacher Education Program and The Education Arcade, MITAR Games blend real-life locations with virtual individuals and scenarios for an educational experience that research proves entirely valid. Environmental Detectives, its first offering, sends users off on a mystery to discover the source of a devastating toxic spill.

New Horizon:
As a smartphone app, it takes advantage of built-in cameras to present animated character conversations when aligned with certain sections of pages.

Occupational Safety Scaffolding:
Professor Ron Dotson’s Construction Safety students receive a thorough education in establishing safe scaffolding space through three-dimensional demonstrations incorporating the real and the digital alike. A simple application of AR, to be certain, but one undoubtedly possessing the potential to save lives and limbs alike.

FETCH! Lunch Rush:
Education-conscious parents who want L’il Muffin and Junior to learn outside the classroom might want to consider downloading PBS Kids’ intriguing iPhone and iPod Touch app. Keep them entertained in the car or on the couch with a fun little game for ages six through eight meant to help them build basic math skills visually.

Field trips:
Augmented reality museums guide students and self-learners of all ages through interactive digital media centered around a specific theme — maybe even challenge them to play games along the way. HistoriQuest, for example, started life as the Civil War Augmented Reality Project and presented a heady blend of mystery gaming and very real stories.


School in the Park Augmented Reality Experience:
Third graders participating in the 12-year-old School in the Park program engage with AR via smartphones as they explore Balboa Park, the San Diego History Center, and the world-class San Diego Zoo. Not only do they receive exposure to numerous educational digital media resources, teachers also train them in creating their very own augmented reality experiences!

QR Code scavenger hunts:
Smartphones equipped with a QR code reader make for optimal tools when sending students on scavenger hunts across the classroom or school. The Daring Librarian, Gwyneth Anne Bronwynn, sends kids on an augmented reality, animated voyage through the library to figure out where to find everything and whom to ask for assistance.

Mentira:
Mentira takes place in Albuquerque and fuses fact and fiction, fantasy characters and real people, for the world’s first AR Spanish language learning game. It intentionally mimics the structure of a historical murder mystery novel and allows for far deeper, more effective engagement with native speakers than many classroom lessons.

Driver’s ed:
Toyota teamed up with Saatchi & Saatchi to deliver the world’s cleanest and safest test-drive via augmented reality. While the method has yet to catch on in the majority of driver’s education classes, it definitely makes for an impressive, effective alternative to keeping and maintaining a fleet of cars.

Geotagging:
Classrooms with smartphone access blend Google Earth and web albums such as Picasa or Instagram for a firsthand experience in geotagging and receiving a visual education about the world around them. More collaborative classrooms — like those hked together with Skype or another VOIP client – could use this as a way to nurture cross-cultural, geopolitical understanding.

Dow Day:
Jim Mathews’ augmented reality documentary and smartphone app brought University of Madison-Wisconsin students, faculty, staff, and visitors to the year 1967. As they traveled campus, participants’ smartphones called up actual footage of Vietnam War protests corresponding with their current locations.

SciMorph:
Using a webcam and printed target, young kids in need of some science (although, really, everyone is in need of some science) interact with the cute critter SciMorph, who teaches them about gravity, sound, and microbial structures. Each lesson involves exploring a specific zone within the game and opens users up to questions, quizzes, and talks.

Imaginary Worlds:
With PSPs in hand, Mansel Primary School students embarked on an artistic voyage, where downloaded images and QR codes merge and provide challenges to draw up personalized environments. The journey also pits them against monsters and requires a final write-up about how the immersive experience left an educational impact.

Sky Map and Star Walk:
Available on Android and iWhatever devices, these deceptively simple applications pack a megaton punch of education via an innovative augmented reality approach. Both involve pointing the gadget to the sky and seeing the names of the currently visible stars, planets, and constellations pop up, along with additional astronomical information.

Handheld Augmented Reality Project:
Harvard, MIT, and University of Wisconsin at Madison teamed up with a grant from the U.S. Department of Education and nurtured science and math skills to junior high kids using GPS navigators and Dell Axims. Moving through the school meant moving through a synched virtual environment, with each area presenting new challenges they must tackle before pressing forward.

Project Glass:
One of the most ambitious augmented reality initiatives comes straight from Google, who believes its Project Glass holds potential far beyond the classroom. Notoriously, it requires a pair of glasses versus the usual smartphones and laptops, and current experiments involve placing users in first-person extreme athletic experiences, snapping photos, and more.

Sunday, August 9, 2015

Threshold Concepts Rebecca Tushingham

Threshold Concepts


‘A threshold concept can be considered as akin to a portal, opening up a new and previously inaccessible way of thinking about something. It represents a transformed way of understanding, or interpreting, or viewing something without which the learner cannot progress. As a consequence of comprehending a threshold concept there may thus be a transformed internal view of subject matter, subject landscape, or even world view. This transformation may be sudden or it may be protracted over a considerable period of time, with the transition to understanding proving troublesome. Such a transformed view or landscape may represent how people ‘think’ in a particular discipline, or how they perceive, apprehend, or experience particular phenomena within that discipline (or more generally)’
Meyer and Land, 
Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge: Linkages to Ways of Thinking and Practising within the Disciplines, 2005



‘Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: implications of course design and evaluation’ provided me with the detail that I need which I have slimmed down into a summary for my own learning and maybe yours:

Jewels in the curriculum

The importance of engagement

Listening for understanding

Reconstitution of self

Tolerating uncertainty

Recursiveness and excursiveness

Unintended consequences of generic ‘good pedagogy’


Good table in article for planning concepts.

Monday, July 27, 2015

Digital Technology

MOE- Digital Technologies. What the Research Tells Us.

Page of useful NZ MOE links etc and summary of ongoing work int he digital technology field.

There is, a growing body of evidence to support the view that digital technologies have the potential to improve student outcomes and to enrich, if not transform, the learning experience of children. This report makes links to research demonstrating the increasing evidence of the positive impact of digital technologies in areas such as motivation, engagement, efficacy, and interaction.
Author: Ministry of Education
Published: July 2012

Research Informed Teaching of Adults

Research Informed Teaching of Adults


This has some really good points in it- especially about the mis-match between a teachers professed philosophy and ideology and their actions in a classroom.