Beginings and paradigm shifts, seeking a quite space

This is the YouTube clip that started it all for me. During this year my (twin) sons were born and children of my sons generation are mentioned in this clip. Now I am approaching my 40's rapidly and have charged into many things web2.0...ish it is time to pause. Yes the net is cool, yes social networking is cool, but clarity is the new horizon to aim for. Finding a quite space within the noise of data & information so one can touch wisdom is now so important. Having face to face time is now more important than ever because it is becoming a rare commodity. In music sometimes you hear the term "Less is More", and also quality not quantity is apt as well, perhaps this should be a mantra for us all to consider.

ICT, don't forget the 'C'

All to often we get excited about the 'I' and the 'T' when talking about ICT in education. This is understandable as it is easier to grasp a concept if it is embodied in an actual solid object, a laptop, iPhone or a digital camera. However,we are textual beings. We are surrounded text, texts in various forms which we absorb by osmosis and eventually we have a head full of semiotic static. Is it time to step back, pause, think then act?

Wordle on minor project/thesis

SharePoint 2010 as an effective Learning Gateway

An interesting presentation about sharepoint in a secondary school context

SharePoint 2010 as an effective Learning Gateway

View more presentations from mikeherrity.

Sir Ken Robinson: Bring on the learning revolution!

This is a very stirring speech and it is hard to disagree with him. If we live in the knowledge age then investment in education needs to take highest priority. Not only should education be high priority but the standing of teachers and educators must also be elevated in the eyes of the wider public. All to often we raise persons of fame and fortune to the lofty heights of public adulation only to find the feet of giants are made of clay. Another common view, touted in the IT industry is, "well he got in to College then dropped out and became a billionaire!". Why this maybe true for some very successful IT entrepreneurs it really only tells part of the story. Often forgotten are those who do work hard at University despite great financial and personal challenges and contribute to enriching the culture of a nation. Furthermore, in your local community or city thousands of doctors, engineers, nurses, teachers and countless other professionals create the delicate network of interactions that create the very societies we live in. However, I digress and Sir Ken is right that we need to think differently about education. If we can maintain the creativity and imagination that a young child has and enfold it with a disciplined academic mind that is tolerant of other cultural perspectives and has a well developed ethical compass great things will happen. Now the challenge for education is to create, foster and champion systems, that encourage, grow and empower their citizens to continue to be creative and constructive thinkers, life long learners and also positive nurturing human beings. If we do this not one or a handful of people will be remembered as the paragon of virtue and financial success, but an entire generation will be remembered as the driving force behind a learning revolution. A revolution that we need and have to have. 

| Get your Presentation Pack

Supercomputing the brains secrets

The strangest thing about this is the way the image of a rose ghosts itself within the visualisation of the data. Another interesting point is the idea that the brain stores a model of the world, almost like a VR world, within which it constantly reflexively refers to. In the context of education this informs us that the mind is in a constant state of re-imaging its surroundings at the same time the past interferes with the present in an effort to explain the experience of the 'now'. Are we in a constant state of becoming? If we are, then realising this constant becoming and bringing this to the forefront of our attention is a demonstration of the perceiving self constructing the 'Now' within - we forge ourselves in a crucible of our own reality.

YouTube - Tim Berners-Lee: The year open data went worldwide

- Tim Berners-Lee: The year open data went worldwide -



I have often thought that once all the worlds data starts talking to itself could we then begin witnessing an emergent global intelligent knowledge network. Data --> Information --> Knowledge -- > Wisdom, where would we locate this network on the continuum? It would be owned by everyone and yet no one, a global human textual corpus.