2010 - Hmm where am I now?

I may be slow but I'm rough . . . that saying brings back fond memories of a time when getting paid for an honest days work was the highlight of my life.

Now I find myself motivated by the job . . . and the pay is secondary.

After a sojourn from writing and teaching I return to the scene of the crime (so to speak) and I find myself back at the chalk face. I wonder why I ever left, teaching is the spark that ignites my fire.

Enough waxing lyrical. Let's get down to the nuts and bolts.

Whats happened since my last posting?

• Floppy discs - what are they?
• 250mb memory sticks - bahh try 20Gig
• We skipped through gigabyte and landed right in terabyte (1000 Gig) hard drives
  
• Tablets were the future - where was I? iTouch and iPad are the present
• Lost in Space type interactive polymer screens are no longer only seen in the movies
• Actors have been replaced by CGI and not only that, 3D now actually works
• Everyone has a cell phone and they are being used as a teaching tool
• The hybrid car is off the drawing board and in the garage (apart form the ones recalled cos they got the braky-stoppy thing wrong)
• Everyone got a Facebook account and spends too much time tending virtual gardens and farms
• Moore's Law has been revised in accordance with Moore's Law to the point its like looking into a picture of someone looking into a picture of someone looking into a picture . . . you get the point.
• To "google" something is now a verb
  

and the big one has to be . . . technology is now only worth having if its intuitive and doesn't need a manual.

Which brings me back to why I decided to start writing again. The integration of ICT throughout the curriculum is now more important than ever. 60% of the population have Broadband (according to some survey thing) and10% actually understand what a web brower does. The focus has to be teaching information skills.

Just as we spend time teaching children how to read and write and numerate, there must be active teaching of searching and sorting and reporting.

Kids today need to be able filetr out the garbage and get the real oil. In the past books were published after being checked and double checked for facts. Yes information was controlled but at least in most cases it was accurate. Today if you did it and it was caught on some digital device; you are busted and within minutes the web has it for the world to see.

It reminds me of an off colour joke about the difference between a certain venerial disease and true love . . . the disease is forever. Once its on the net it's there forever.

So what should I be teaching:

• the ability to search
• the ability to filter
• the ability to file/store
• the ability to communicate
• the ability to keep safe
• the ability to think
• the ability to understand how thinking works

Lets start there and see where it leads

See ya in a week or two