As a first time attendee at the Distance Education Association of New Zealand (DEANZ) bi-annual conference I was impressed by the level of dialogue and enjoyed gaining an insight into the New Zealand Context. Mark Brown's article in The Dominion Post on April 11 was often referenced throughout the conference in both the first keynote by [...]
There's something unsettling, uncomfortable and final about selling the family house, the only stable home I have known, where my late parents lived most of their lives. Having lived in eighteen different houses across three countries, one stable house has meaning - significant meaning! It's just a house.... but the walls hold and embrace stories [...]
We begin naked and exposed to the eyes, until we layer a veneer over the skin, each layer on top of each other. Both have many layers upon their skin, some by choice, some by design, some to guard and some that unexpectedly adhere and remain and are difficult to shake. The veneers have occurred [...]
Principle Questions Comfort: a space which creates a physical and mental sense of ease and well-being. ·     How comfortable do you feel in this learning space? ·     Do aspects of the learning space distract you from learning? ·     What area in the learning space do you spend most of your time and why? ·     Is [...]
The Design for New Generation Learning Spaces Conference held in Melbourne on the 28th and 29th March turned out to be a valuable professional exchange of ideas on learning spaces. The mix of formal presentations and panel sessions enabled good interaction from the audience. I had a multi- faceted role at the conference (as Chair) that involved [...]
I recently attended the E-Learning Summit in Sydney in February and presented on some of our initiatives within the Flexible Learning Institute in relation to designing at the course/degree level as opposed to the single subject level. In my view, to make progress in redesigning curriculum the 'granularity' we choose to focus on needs to [...]
The Student Assessment in Distance Learning and e-Learning Symposium was held in Chiba, Japan and was hosted by the Center of ICT and Distance Education, The Open University of Japan On February 16, 2012. Kumiko Aoki chaired the symposium which included guest speakers from the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Korea and Japan. It also included [...]
A long hallway lead to the 7th floor open area apartment decorated with black leather furniture, bright coloured cushions, art from various countries and mobile art in the form of jostling cosmopolitan people chatting in their groups, drinking expensive red wine and eating sushi. A Kandinsky took pride of place on a wall and red-figured [...]
Words are not enough to capture the devotion, kindness, thoughtfulness and unselfishness of a mother. Fond memories of encouraging looks, loving eyes and encouraging gestures flood the mind and heart. An amazing spirit, insatiable reader and artistic mind characterise her deliberate actions and mindful devotion to her children. Although she has aged she still puts [...]
Astrand felt dazed, groggy and a little unaware of where he was…he could feel that he was lying in a bed but had no recollection of how he had arrived here. He searched the room with his eyes, darting back and forth across the beige painted room without a hint of a painting, a photo [...]
