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Artificial Intelligence & Justified Fears

It seems like only yesterday – well it almost was yesterday when I first started writing this blog but in November of 2022, the company Open AI released ‘ChatGPT’, which is an artificial intelligence that can respond to natural text and give answers that are uncannily ‘human’ in nature. ‘GPT’ stands for Generative Pre-trained TransformerContinue reading “Artificial Intelligence & Justified Fears”

Cutting a hedge as a metaphor for learning fundamentals

I am still on a quest to try and get my garden in order which I undertook and pledged I’d due during our various COVID pandemic lockdowns of 2020 and 2021. It’s happening – just not as fast as I hoped. I’m still struggling with recognising that there’s 24 hours in a day and only 7Continue reading “Cutting a hedge as a metaphor for learning fundamentals”

If it doesn’t work is it a bad idea?

Ever since we started our school we were thinking about the rationale for playing sports. We played a version of handball when we moved to McGregor Road property and then sometime probably in 2010 we started playing what would turn out to be ultimate frisbee. At the time we kind of made up the rulesContinue reading “If it doesn’t work is it a bad idea?”

Putting the Horse before the Cart

At the beginning of the year, we did a big workshop where we questioned the rationale for education. To make a long story shorter, we came up with the assertion that education is about learning how to make the quality of our lives better. In the case of young people (aka children or teenagers), weContinue reading “Putting the Horse before the Cart”

Sketching: a way to learn how to see reality!

From being a student of sketching to figuring out how to teach Pod 6 students. I was myself a terrible artist, absolutely no talent at school. I mean I liked the idea of drawing and sketching and I was in love with the idea of having the ability to create an image purely from myContinue reading “Sketching: a way to learn how to see reality!”

School as an obstacle to overcome

One thing that I’ve been struggling with in my Year 6 students (been with them since Year 4), but there are definitely some older students that fall into the same category, is students that believe that school and the stuff you do at school is just a necessary evil to get through as you growContinue reading “School as an obstacle to overcome”

Primary School Curriculum @ MIS

Time flies when you’re enjoying yourself! As the saying goes. Here’s another epithet in a similar vein. Find something you love to do and you’ll never have to work a day in your life. This was a good example of these truisms in the first half of 2022 (Term 2) but on the face ofContinue reading “Primary School Curriculum @ MIS”

Learning to Draw and/or Sketch

Previously I wrote that I was learning how to get back into Desktop Publishing. And in that post I recognised that I needed to really learn more about graphic design; and in order to do that I really needed to learn how to draw or sketch. Part of the expansion into learning using Web 2.0Continue reading “Learning to Draw and/or Sketch”

Teaching how to teach using distance learning approaches – success?

The COVID pandemic that hit Fiji in 2020 and 2021 meant that either we had to adapt to a new way of teaching, or we had to do what Fiji schools did which was spend lots of money printing handouts, give them out and then ignore them. Fortunately I had already spent a reasonably longContinue reading “Teaching how to teach using distance learning approaches – success?”

MIS is like a Dojo: my new narrative

A dojo is the Japanese word that we’ve adopted in the English language to denote a place where we learn martial arts. Martial arts, is really any study of the way of a fighter or warrior. We normally think of martial arts as being Asian but particularly Japanese and Chinese disciplines such as karate andContinue reading “MIS is like a Dojo: my new narrative”