Sunday, March 20, 2011

Watch the birdie...

If life is a journey not a destination and we live and learn, where shall we go together in our lives?

Talk without walk is perhaps a waste of our time unless we take the time to walk to talk together.

With social media are we risking being alone together and straying far from what is essential in life? Does social media distract from the essential relationship between teacher and pupil? Does personalisation mean individualism and an abandonment of community? What values underpin our transactions, our education?

If education is life and not just a preparation for life what is our role as educators?

If  life is what happens to you when you are making other plans (John Lennon?) is learning what happens despite our best laid plans? Is education learning to listen to John Lennon?

If education is what remains after we have forgotten everything we have learnt at school (Einstein) why should we waste our time forgetting?

If Socrates knew he knew nothing, why bother trying to learn something? Or maybe we need to revise our classics?

Money talks, absolute power corrupts absolutely, not all that glistens is gold, love is a smoking gun...

'Birds of a feather flock together'.
Vultures circle around the carcasses, pigeons buy without thought, chickens run around headless, ostriches put their heads in the sand. People are falling like sparrows, while the hawks are watching on from afar.

The Twitter revolution, the Facebook generation, the teacher strike, the surgical strike...let's not forget that when all has been said and done, children and women bleed and careless talk costs lives.

"Great minds think alike, but fools seldom differ.'

If we are not part of the solution we are part of the problem.

Proverbs I am learning:

Sense and nonsense...





Why add to this cacophony on the net? What the hell can I possibly add? Why not just shut up?

Well, I must admit that for a number of years I would have agreed with you.I have kept at least five secret blogs which have untroubled your world and boosted Blogger's statistics over the past four or five years. They have been very useful personal journals, resource banks, classroom experiments and exposed me to no risk of ridicule! Now, I am in my 50th year and frankly I no longer care enough about  criticism (my own or that of others) not to want to leave a few touches of my own in this space.

Why am I going to speak through this blog about technology and learning?
In my work as a language teacher, I have been using the internet in my work since 1996, have worked in e-learning since 2000, with social networks since 2007 and am continuing to use social networks and mobile learning solutions in my work today. I am convinced that technology is changing the way that we are learning and that it is essential to imagine a new education system in the light of this.

I have amassed a wealth of experience about life, learning, learning technology and the need to never stop learning.  My interest is to play my part for the community and to learn from the community. This blog,  is a  web media-enabled dialogue from which I hope to learn.