Make Create Educate

In March 2015 I spoke at Future Schools in Sydney.  The overall theme for Future Schools was evolving education. Where are we going now. Some of the ideas for the future of education included: Teaching without textbooks Computational Thinking Australian Curriculum - Digital Technologies how can NSW, NT and TAS teach this curriculum? Coding Asking unGoogleable questions Makerspaces and  3D Printing Teaching without textbooks Peter Ward, Delaney College at Granville How to teach without textbooks? Peter Ward from Delaney College in Granville outlined their approach to teaching year 7 without textbooks. Designed a building to cater for 5 year 7 classes and 5 teachers Made the decision to not use text books Redesign units of work to include unGooggleable questions. Modified the timetable and subject names. http://www.delanygranville.catholic.edu.au/the-delany-connective

On Monday the 23rd February I had the pleasure of attending the launch of the K-12 Education program at Charles Sturt University, Port Macquarie Campus. How exciting for Port Macquarie to have a permanent university campus for 2000 students.  Current education students and local educators were invited to the launch where Dr Noella Mackenzie spoke on teaching literacy in the K-12 classroom. My notes and thoughts on the lecture. As an educator it is important to understand the continuity of learning.  Any classroom can contain students with a range of reading ages. For example one year I had a year 4 class (9yo) with a reading age range of 5-16years. In secondary there are often students who struggle with reading and there may be students with low reading ages. So, it is crucial that all teachers primary and secondary have an understanding of the continuity of learning in literacy regardless of specialty. Many students can learn to read with limited vocabulary. It is possible for