Hi, My name is Dean Groom, and I write Design 4 Learning to help educator’s transition from traditional classrooms. I am interested in renewing curricula and professional practice by embedding new pedagogical classroom practice to create authentic, realistic and relevant learning for today’s learners.
I started my first blog in 2004, to help me better understand how technology changes learning. I now help educators deal with the rapid changes in technology, social media, games and virtual worlds.
I’ve co-authored two books about Learning with Technology with long time friend, Judy O’Connell, whom I regularly work with to provide professional learning for teachers and executives.
My career prior to education was in Advertising and Marketing, specializing in interactive design and media, as an Art Director and Typographer.
I am now Head of Educational Development Design at Macquarie University, and previously Head of Information Technology at a Sydney High School – passionate about creating workable ‘Web2.0’ classroom environments.
I run regular workshops, provide advice to educators and mentor teachers beginning to explore the pedagogical impact of technology – and blended, enquiry approaches to learning. I work with a diverse range of educators in all sectors, participate and speak at conferences and symposia. I have particular interest in virtual worlds and game based learning.
To contact me : please email deangroom@gmail.com
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It’s long since surpassed the credit card as the one thing you wouldn’t leave home without, but if industry predictions are correct, the humble mobile handset will soon play an even more important role in our lives.
Think about what you use your handset for already. Mine is my contact book, my diary, my calculator, my email inbox, my FM radio, my store of podcasts and my mobile web browser.
But within the next 24 months, there are a host of other mobile features set to become daily tools. If only even half of them actually eventuate, handset will morph into something even more powerful.
According to the crystal ball gazers at Gartner there are at least 10 mobile applications that will become mainstream by 2012.
Some of them are not surprising. They include things like mobile browsing, search, instant messaging and music. These things already exist on phones, but work is needed to make the interfaces much easier to use.
Gartner also identifies mobile money transfers and payments as an emerging area. This makes sense as it combines the enhanced security offered by mobiles with the convenience of not having to carry money. It will take effort to convince retailers and banks of the worth of working together, but the benefits to customers will be significant.
Another on the list is location-based services. Here a lot of the pieces are already in place – it’s just a matter of getting them to work together more easily. Growing numbers of handsets have GPS and maps. Linking this with attractive retail offerings (discount coupons when you walk past the shop for example) could have a dramatic effect on commerce.
A final one is mobile health monitoring. Here again, things are in an infancy, but as more applications are devised that can run on mobile devices, the more pervasive such monitor could become.
It all adds up to a future where making voice calls on your mobile will seem almost incidental.
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We technology lovers are often faced with power outlet conundrums that kill our productivity, if not break our geeky hearts.
Rejoice, oh gadget junkies, for the power outlet of the future has come, hailing from True Power. It costs just under 10 bucks, and starts shipping in early 2010 (which is just a few short weeks away) — but you can pre-order now. So what makes this outlet so much greater than all the rest? Simple: two USB ports.
Now you can plug in USB-powered devices — think iPhones, iPods, PDAs and digital cameras — alongside your standard UCS powered devices. As Gizmodo puts it, the USB power outlet is a “no-brainer.”
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An another thing. Duty of care, which really should be more like 'will I get busted'. Given that educators are globally connected, and kids are global roaming in and out of school -- I would rather have my kids being in spaces with people whom I think stand a better chance of not being douch-bags. However, it seems that teachers actually have more of a Monsters Inc view of kids -- if they come into contact with them out of school -- then they put themselves in at a potential risk. I imagine that there is also the 'no kids in the staffroom' mentality too -- but ffs -- the worlds going mad.
There is no solution, no workable template, no set of laws that can deal with this. Right now I'm thinking either -- figure out how to deal with the fact kids are online -- or keep offline -- and if you do that make you can actually teach. Lets face it -- with or without computers, there are some out there who have no clue, never moving past a narrow 'pass' in Uni subjects and unleashed into education. Im fkin over it to be honest.Comments [0]
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