A New Home

Over the last few months I've had people mention to me that my blog is blocked at their school.

It turns out that many education authorities block any blog with a Blogspot URL.

As a remedy I've set up my own Wordpress blog @

http://adrianbruce.com/teacher-toolbox/

I think I've done all the techo stuff to bring my subscribers across to the new site (but I'm not really sure hehehe)

So do drop by the new blog to keep up to date with the teaching tools I discover and create.

Happy Holidays

Adrian Bruce

Big Changes @ adrianbruce.com

Now that the hurly burly of the end of a school year is over I'm looking forward to some big career changes in 2008.

I've taken the big step of becoming a full time freelance Information and Communication Technology Integration Specialist. It is a little daunting but there are many opportunities presenting themselves esp a couple of overseas trips in the planning stages :)

In the meantime I'm working on some big changes at adrianbruce.com.

The site has finally become too big for my local server so I've moved the whole thing to a server in the US. There are a few teething hassles, (I'm working on getting my forms working again hehehe) but I'm getting there as I learn the server side stuff.

All the best in 2008 to you all

cheers

Adrian

Picasso in the Classroom

I love exposing students to heaps of different types of Art and Picasso's work always generates heaps of discussion about what constitutes Art.

This afternoon my son and I were playing with MrPicassoHead, it is an excellent, free, quick, fun tool to use when exploring Picasso in the classroom.

Have fun with it.

Adrian

Educational Websites for Space Exploration

Hint - When you download Google Sky through my Space Page select the Google Pack link but then only tick the Google Earth box. The Google Pack is a very big download and I find doing them one at a time is much easier.

There are many other resources worth getting your class to have a look at on my Space Links page.

Google Sky is just one of the fantastic educational resources for exploring space I've added to the my latest Virtual Library page.

cheers

Adrian

A Little Outsourcing for my Latest Poster

A couple of weeks ago I took the step of getting a bit more help with my website. I hired a local cartoonist to produce me some line drawings then I coloured them and put them into my familiar format.

So thank you Cath for a job well done on the the new phonics poster and I look forward to our next project.

cheers

Adrian

New Flash Object

I'd just like to thank Andrew for his creative Flash animation that helps students understand the math concept of 'Flips'.

http://www.adrianbruce.com/Symmetry/15.htm

Your work is very much appreciated.

Adrian

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Last weekend I finally finished Covey's, ' Seven Habits of Highly Effective People'. I found it interesting that a few of the habits that he discusses are already deeply en ground parts of my psyche esp. the idea that effective people are pro-active i.e. they get off their butts and do stuff :)

I've never been a big fan of the 'self help' genre but in amongst all the 'jargon' I found one gem that I could 'resonate' with. hehehehehe

' Imagine what an organisation could achieve if every person on staff was treated as a volunteer rather than a subordinate'.

What would this do to the dynamics of this organisation?
What would happen to the culture of horizontal violence in such organisation?
What would happen to the lip service paid to 'team'?
What would happen to directives that HAD to be followed?
What would happen to the directives that HAD to be supported?
What would happen to bullying of staff?
What would happen to quality of educational outcomes?
What would happen to staff morale?
What would happen to the budget for stress leave?
What would happen to the retention rate of beginning teachers in their first 5 years of teaching?
How would staff perceive those in 'leadership' roles as opposed to those 'management' roles and even worse... those who are consumed by 'micro-management'?

All that said, do the heads of your organisation 'lead' or 'manage'?

then,

Do you 'lead' or 'manage'?

The Two Are Vastly Different!