Boma Fellowship: Project
11 August 2019
The Boma Fellowship this year has allowed me to explore and develop a student-led, project-based course model that can be used at the senior secondary level. Read MoreArticles
ULearn 18 Presentation
12 October 2018
The presentation from the ULearn 18 Conference about course design that gives students control over and responsibility for their learning and assessment? Read MoreTeaching Technical Skills for Student-led projects
11 December 2017
During the development of courses that use student-led projects as the central method of learning and developing skills there were a number of key issues that needed resolving. Read MoreAssessing Student-led Projects
18 July 2017
An overview of the assessment process I have been using to faciliate project-based courses where the students develop and manage their own projects, evidence and assessment. Read MoreIndustry meet Education
11 August 2016
My views on Digital Technologies and how the I.T. Industry can better understand and support Education in meaningful ways. Read MoreThe impending collision of secondary schools and society
4 August 2016
The Technology curriculum embodies the Design process in secondary schools but is the approach schools have taken with this area relevant? Read MoreNo Time to Learn
23 August 2015
During my most recent position as a secondary teacher I moved to using student-led projects to introduce and develop design process, technical skills and project management skills to students. To help students plan projects out over a year I created a simple template document that broke the terms down in weeks and totalled the hours per term. It was this document that raised some serious concerns for me about the way secondary schools operate and the expectations we have of students. Read MoreStudent-led Project-based Course Design
9 March 2015
My teaching style definitely leans towards the use of projects to teach students technical and management skills so last year, my first year back in teaching since 2009, I designed a set of courses for senior students that would allow them to create and run their own projects over the course of the year. This year I have implemented those courses and have found that while some of the anticipated issues have not eventuated most are very evident. Read MoreDiamondMind 3D Printer Build
8 August 2013
Following success with a Makerbot Replicator 2 I was keen to introduce local teachers to the idea of 3D printing by running a workshop to build one. Read More3D Printing: OpenSCAD Variables
7 June 2013
In the previous resource we created a small castle using basic techniques and fixed values. In this resource we are going to rework the script so the fixed values are managed by variables and allowing our model to be customised. The castle model is the same. The script will be a little different. Read More3D Printing: OpenSCAD
5 June 2013
This resource works through some common techniques using the 3D modelling application OpenSCAD to create a simple model suitable for 3D printing. Read More3D Printing: Inkscape to 3D
4 June 2013
This resource works through a simple process for taking vector images created in Inkscape to the 3D modelling application OpenSCAD and exporting them to a format suitable for 3D printing. Resources Inkscape: http://inkscape.orgOpenSCAD: http://www.openscad.org/Working files: Robot Files (.zip)License: Creative Commons Inkscape Creating an image The first challenge… Read MoreBrainBoard Tank Robot
13 May 2013
I have recently been getting interested in and learning more about programmable electronics boards, specifically the Arduino, with an eye to introducing my students to them. Read MoreSoftware Design Disciplines and Roles
22 April 2013
One of my stated goals for ZYPE was to work in a decent multi-disciplined software design team and I have been working towards that ever since. To that end I have tried to describe that team: the high level roles, responsibilities and the areas those roles work together across the Design process (I have focused… Read More3D Printing
8 February 2013
While I was teaching I was introduced to the idea of 3D printing by Vik Oliver and the RepRap project and my attention was well and truly grabbed. I left that teaching position before I had the chance to fully develop course ideas around final production of physical objects… Read MoreRaspberry PI: Arrival to Wifi set up
12 December 2012
We finally ordered a Raspberry PI (from Element 14) which resulted in a few days of experimenting with the basics and setting up a few peripherals. I was particularly keen to test out wifi and seeing if I needed to use a powered USB hub or whether the… Read MoreWeb Design for Beginners
15 August 2010
While teaching IT across Year 10 - 13 I built up some resources around web design to help explain the basics and let students build skills to the point they could create their own web site with a decent visual style. I taught them to adhere to the W3C specs (web standards) right from the start and aimed to keep things as simple and uniform for myself throughout the different age groups. Read MoreRadio Interview: Open Source Software in the Classroom
2 November 2009
An interview with PlainsFM about my experiences as a secondary teacher using open source software in the classroom. Read MoreWacom Bamboo and Ubuntu
15 May 2009
Last year I invested in ten Wacom Bamboo Fun drawing tablets for the ICT classroom and with the recent upgrade to Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid have been stoked to find they are now plug 'n play and work really well. Read MoreBlender: Game Engine
15 April 2009
I have been working towards including 3D visualisation in my ICT courses as a way of hooking in students and teaching them how to use a virtual environment to explore concepts that would be expensive to build physically. Read MoreNew classroom layout
15 March 2009
I have been looking at my classroom and thinking about the issues I am facing with the rows of computers. Students all sit sideways to the board and many are out of view while I am instructing and can continue working on the computer without me knowing. I can hardly get between the chairs to work with students and often miss students in the corners. Read MorePilot Projects for 2009
15 November 2008
Following the trip to Wellington for the NZ Open Source Awards and a breakfast workshop at Core-Ed I have revitalised my interest and understanding in Moodle. I have started a very small first step with a couple of Year 10 ICT students who came back after completing the course in the first half of the year and set up an animation project for them. Read MoreOpen Source Software for the classroom
15 May 2008
Open source software is a great resource for the classroom and, in particular I found it an excellent source of tool sets for my ICT courses. Read MoreUbuntu on the desktop
15 March 2008
I have recently rebuilt the machines in my ICT room at school. After a couple of weeks struggling to use Symantic Ghost to create an image of the dual boot we have been using I went with a slightly simpler approach. The machines now run Ubuntu 8.10 as the sole… Read MoreClassroom timing
17 October 2007
The classroom can be a busy environment to organise. Planning is critical to a successful classroom and the timing is important to get right. The systems a teacher uses need to operate within very small time slots (measured in seconds and short minutes) and allow for constant interruption as they work with students (which is the key focus). Read MoreStudent Management System
15 August 2007
In reaction to our school's choice of Student Management System I started knocking up ideas for interfaces that would allow teachers to see the sorts of information they needed in class. The idea is to hide as much of the functionality as possible and make the interface contextual. Ideally this would then feed information back to a Government approved system. Read MoreAugmented Reality
24 June 2004
To experiment with the Augmented Reality Tool Kit developed by the Human Interface Technology Lab (NZ version at HitLab NZ ) and get up to speed with the magic book technology. It was also loads of fun. Read MoreDoing Something Useful with RSS
21 November 2003
RSS is a simple method of providing information about a site for others to use and is typically used by News orientated sites to syndicate their content. A RSS “feed” is essentially a XML file, either hand-cafted or machine-made, that conforms to one of the RSS specifications and… Read MorePrint’s not dead, it’s just joined the ranks of presentation
1 September 2003
Ever since paper was invented and people started making marks on it to communicate ideas content has been embedded in the medium. Once written down those words were forever set and their layout and style were passed through time. Read MoreAccessibility, Usability and Standards – What Does it Mean?
21 November 2002
With all the buzzwords flying around this industry it's a wonder anyone can keep up but in amongst it all are some words that warrant well defined use. These are the concepts of accessibility, usability and web standards. All three are vitally important to the success of web based content but often get fired around as if they were marketing terms and as such have started losing their impact. In this article we'll have a look at the difference between the three concepts and what they mean to people working with the web. Read More