Another year done - 2009 here we come

Since starting yoga, I have made a few changes in my life...

quit drinking, spend more time with the family and enjoying life more.

Planning to go to Thailand for spring vacation for yoga and kick boxing.

My Happy New Year.

I had one hell of a new year. My family I spent the night at Hakone in one of the onsen hotels. It was pure bliss lazing in the outdoor bath. Right next door there was a full on party of about 8 drunk rich Russians. We were invited over and we drank all their champange - Moet. After about 5 hours of drinking I decided to go to bed but they wouldn't let me go without an arm wrestle. It was very funny because I was really drunk by then and kept on winning. My wife eventually came back to rescue me at about 7.00 in the morning. We then went straight to breakfast where I fell asleep at the table. My Russian friends woke me up and my wife and daughter had checked out and gone home. I guess they were angry with me.

Throw caution to the wind...

Hi...

I have never been one for taking easy small steps when I was a baby. I was the one that would fall on his arse because I wanted to climb the seat to get to my sister's cake. After some 35 years later I haven't changed.

So welcome to all my students who have managed to find their way to this blog. Having made it here I am sure your all pretty dissappointed. This is it.

I just want to throw some ideas out:

• everything changes, bend with the wind otherwise your going to snap.
• don't worry too much about new technology because its changing so fast that we are all learning all the time.
• try to think creatively and express yourself freely (while being nice).
• think about how can we use our blogs to change the world for the better.

Also thanks to Owen for waking me up out of my slumber.

Tis a wee diss this unworkshop is - points and issues relating to the unworkshop on Teaching With Social Software Unworkshop

Here below are issues I was thinking about during (or even after) the unworkshop:

• "Social" (why is it social?) networking may be a great tool for learning but the learning can go beyond any parameters that are set by the learners themselves or by any mentor/facilitator.
• Learners will decide themselves whether they want to participate or not and this may be discouraging. However, it may draw out those who are really interested in the topic or issue at hand.
• Social network learning may not actually produce quality because it is limited to participant experience, expertise, personal world view, etc... and the process also does not go through the academic rigourous washing machine.
• The technology itself can act as a barrier to participation and therefore disempower those left out of the loop i.e. the poor, the technologically challenged.

To support the above points I leave you to enjoy this very short video file that some friends back home in Aotearoa/New Zealand made. It is aimed at Maori youth primarily those who want to learn their own culture and language. Can you guess the drawbacks of such an approach as this?