Betchablog education + technology + ideas

About

As someone who has been in (and occasionally out of) education for over 20 years, I guess I have a few opinions on how I'd like it to work. And mostly it doesn't work the way I'd like. I am particularly interested in thinking about how schools need to change to accommodate today's learners, how technology can be used to make learning more interesting, relevant, fun and engaging, and how technology should be used to support people, not drive them crazy.

I have a wide range of interests, based on everything in general and nothing in particular... if it's funny, interesting, curious or just plain bizarre, I will probably find it of interest. If I was a cat, I'd be dead.

Betchablog is my personal place to think out loud, ponder ideas that strike a chord with me, share things I find interesting, and to sometimes just have a rant about what's wrong with the world.  This is my own documentation of a personal journey of learning and discovery, but I'm very happy to be able to share it with you.  Your contributions in the form of comments are always welcome.

I currently provide ICT Integration support at an R-12 school in Sydney, Australia. I originally trained as an art teacher, but thanks to an interest in graphics and design, I've gradually drifted away from that role and into a variety of technology-related areas including the teaching of computing, multimedia and webdesign, professional support in educational eLearning, network administration and IT management, and even some private consulting in educational ICT.

Being somewhat of a dilettante, I've had quite a broad experience with quite a few aspects of educational technology, and I think that gives me a unique outlook on things at times.  I enjoy sharing ideas with others, and in the last few years I've been able to work with teachers and  present at various educational conferences and workshops in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Vietnam and China on a wide range of edtech-related topics.  As well as this blog, I've also created several other web-based communities and tools, including a regular podcast called The Virtual Staffroom which looks at issues of relevance to teachers working with technology; The IWB Revolution, a Ning community for IWB users interested in using interactive technology more effectively; and my wiki, where I collect notes, slideshows, video and audio recording of conferences sessions and pretty much any other random stuff I may be working on.

In case you haven't worked it out by now, yes, I'm a bit of a geek.  However, I'm an unusually social geek, and I don't bite, so feel free to drop me a comment or just say hello.

Oh, and thanks for reading Betchablog.

Chris Betcher

PS: It goes without saying (but I'll say it anyway) that the thoughts and opinions expressed on these pages are all mine, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of anyone else, including my employer or my mother.  If you take issue with anything I've said here, you'll have to deal with me directly. Fair enough?

PPS: Lately, I've been getting quite a few requests from companies and other people with a particular interest in wanting me to mention their products on this blog.  Just to save us all some time, you might want to read this post before you make your solicitations

One more thing...

Surprisingly, some people have occasionally had a few nice things to say about this blog. Some people say they even enjoy reading it! I guess there's just no accounting for taste.

That said, I've been very pleased to get the occasional recognition for things I've done, said or written here, including a series of Edublog Award nominations in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010.  Mind you, I've never actually won anything, but it's still awfully nice to be included in the list of people who lost!

In 2008 I was chosen to be part of the Adobe Education Leader program.  The AEL program is supported by Adobe Systems and recognises the contributions of innovative educators from around the world using their tools and applications.  As an AEL I get inside information about upcoming Adobe products, direct access to training and resources and access to all of Adobe's amazing professional software.  Seems like all that misspent youth playing in Photoshop, Flash and InDesign actually paid off!

In 2011 I applied for, and was accepted into, the Google Teacher Academy held in Sydney Australia. Being someone who regularly uses many of Google's tools, it's great to be part of this community of leading educators, and to be recognised as a Google Certified Teacher. It's an exciting time to be part of the GCT program... the Google tools for education just keep getting better and better and the potential for our students to be working "in the cloud" with tools like Google Docs and Sites is being realised by more and more schools around the world.

I was also rather humbled to have been awarded the inaugural Australasian Educational Media Award at the 2010 ACEC Conference in Melbourne.  This award was designed to "acknowledge the contribution of Australasian educators who support the learning community through blogs, wikis, podcasts, forums, mailing lists, virtual communities and other internet resources." Naturally, I felt very honored to have been nominated in the first place, but to win it was quite the surprise!

If you like what you see on this blog, feel free to drop a comment on one of the posts.  Better yet, use the RSS feed to subscribe. I quite like that.  Ta.

Chris

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