Live, Laugh, Love & Learn

(Based on Jay and Johnson’s Reflective Model, 2002) With so many topics for inquiry are whirling through my mind… here are two relevant possibilities: 1.     To explore the online Digital Readiness Programme to empower educators to best facilitate the learning of 21 st Century skills among students 2.     To explore a range of digital learning tools to enhance student engagement and move deeper into the SAMR Model The New Digital Technologies Curriculum is here!  It is omnipotent to focus on ways to prepare our students to be skilled innovators in this current Information Age. My Community of Practice (CoP) is my staff at HJHS but more specifically my Technology Department Team. My CoP also includes my Mind Lab group who now interact predominantly online. Both CoPs share a mutual desire to improve our digital technology practice and leadership skills, my local Mind Lab have joined the course with the aim to pursue this as a goal. C...

(With reference to Gibbs Reflective Model, 1988) My journey so far with The Mind Lab is taking me to places I feel that I have been yearning to go.   For a number of years now, I have felt restless within the constructs and complacency of classroom education. I believe that education in New Zealand has been stuck in the days of the village schoolhouse and moving in baby steps towards accepting and embracing change in many ways – from the confines of the learning environment, to the pathways of sharing knowledge/skills and the progressive role of educators. We are far beyond the educational requirements which fueled the Industrial Age… we are fully fledged into a new era – an Information Age, a digital era, a time for technology… innovative, collaborative, creative thinking and action-taking is where our learners now need support to build momentum and best sustain the future of this world. Several of the themes delved into within Bolstad, Gilbert, McDowall, Bull, Boyd and Hip...