mountain masala

Australian Association of Researchers in Education Conference

I'm at the annual AARE conference in Hobart. Lovely to be back  in Tassie. I'm here with hundreds of people who study education, teach educators, study the teaching of educators, study how educators teach, study how education is studied, study those who study education, and study what we mean by all of the above. i'm out of my comfort zone. (i know two people whom I havent seen yet.) people from universities, education depts and schools from across Australia and overseas.

there's a strong focus on schooling (yet little/nothing specific to church schools), and on preparing teachers to teach. a much lesser focus on higher education in general. very little on vocational education. virtually nothing on more 'community-based' learning eg. church.

i've been to a helpful session on research methods, and a session on educational leadership that was really about school principals for the future. there are 600 presentations over 5 days, so I'm hoping that i pick a few winners. the challenge is that there are lots of people here who know stuff that would be interesting and helpful for me, but its not really going to be in the sessions, is it?

tomorrow night I'm going to the "technology & education" special interest group dinner. i dont have an iPad... will it be all geek introverts? virtual food?

the Routledge book display has some great looking books on educational research and research in general...

i'm doing church work while I'm here too. that's the next post...

mission-shaped worship - Alive@5 - part 1

last Wednesday night i led a session at the Adelaide Mission-Shaped Ministry course. it was their second last night of about 14 weeks, my first time with the material, and I'd had limited time to prepare. they were very gracious! and as you do after running a training session for the first time, my brain has been going overtime about how I'd do it differently next time. not surprisingly, i had a bunch of stuff with me that i didnt even use.

i spoke a bit about our Alive@5 experiment and how that is evolving. there are some things that i didnt get around to saying, so i thought i'd give a bit of a summary of our journey here in case it's of interest to the participants or others.

a couple of years ago our church started playgroups, based on both evidence that 'young families' were moving into the area, and this need being expressed by people associated with our community. we took a 'leap of faith' and employed a new member of the congregation with great gifts in this area as a part time worker. i don't know the exact stats but our playgroup expanded from one day to two, and then a babies day, and we ended up with about 100 families connected. incredibly successful and meeting a need. i applaud our minister Phil and the church council in seeing this opportunity and running with it.

Passionflower - Jon Gomm

thanks to Mike for this. spellbound. speechless. jon gomm. he also does radiohead's high and dry, which mike and claire had at their wedding...

parenting and school achievement

Here's an article in the New York Times by Howard Friedman: "How About Better Parents?" suggesting that policy makers look beyond school performance as contributors to academic achievement in young people.It is based on OECD research concerning standardised academic testing of middle school students in the US.

There's a full report here.

The  main findings:

- children whose parents read to them in their early primary schooling scored better in high school academic tests, regardless of the family's socio-economic background

- parent's engagement with their teenagrs is strongly associated with better academic performance

The latter includes often diascussing political or social issues, and discussing books, film or television programs

This does not seem to be rocket science, and indeed reflects the broader based research of Search Institute over the last 30 years. However there is clearly an issue in helping anf encouring parent.s particularly those less inclined or able to read themselves, to do so. This would certainly be true in Australia as well.

It raises the question of how churches might partner with parents in these two key areas.

Thanks to Gene R for the link.

When copyright goes bad

I'm writing some stuff on copyright. This is worth watching.

Coach K breaks division 1 record for wins

yes, it's true. Duke University's Mike Krzyzewski has led 903 wins in basketball! Coach K has also headed up the US Olympic basketball team for quite a few years, and just coached the US to a gold medal at the world FIBA championships.

Go the Blue Devils! They won the NCAA last year. Currently ranked 6th.

Report on ABC news.

the Bible for idiots who like to watch

jim le page is making a poster of each book of the Bible. they're remarkable. and when i dont like them, they remind me that the book, more so than jim's art, is from a foreign place and time. thanks to maggi dawn via Facebook for this.

 

CRASSH

I've just stumbled across CRASSH - the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities at Cambridge University. Loads of interesting stuff. Manuel Castells is about to give some lectures about . All kinds of interesting conferences and symposia... discussion about how creativity and innovation are measured as social capital, 'digital humanities' research... definitely worth watching and a visit next time I'm in the UK.

makin' sushi

(to the tune of "making whoopee"...). my second attempt at making sushi last night. it seemed to go well. teriyaki chicken and  salmon.

new music

where did that month go? here's the latest...

These from emusic.com

"Torn Sunset" by John Foxx and Theo Travis - more ambient keyboard stuff invaded by a jazzman

"Imidiwan Companions" by Tinariwen - Saharan desert blues. infectious. surely you've heard of them!

"The Sophtware Slump" - Grandaddy - err... country, folky, electronic, low-fi, fuzzy, stuff. apparently its a classic.

"Harder To Tell" - Roger Green - lovely laid-back Americana. nice harmonies

"March of the Zapotec" - Beirut - two mini-albums from the wunderkind - mariachi brass and low-fi but lush electronica. amazing as always.

"Ghost Written Confessions" - Captain Wilberforce - folky, harmonious, a bit wonky, then goes rocky and a bit Radiohead. very inventive and melodic.

"Even My Sure Things Fall Through" - Calexico - what can i say? I'm a huge fan of their brand of broody, Western-movie soundtrack songs. this is a bit of a b-sides qnd remized thing.

These from NoiseTrade - you pay what you want...

"Live From KCD Theatre" by Josh Ritter - how good is this lapsed Lutheran? one man, one guitar, stunning songs.

"Songs Your Mother Never Sang" by Needle - never heard of them. downloaded this on a whim. they say "Acoustic guitars and distortion, analog synthesizers, old time pianos along with toy xylophones and a cocktail drum helped shape these songs of battles won, souls sucked in, and hands held up in surrender."

"What the Crow Brings" by the Low Anthem -yeah, more folky-rocky, raggedy, American stuff. i'm a sucker for it.

"Asylum" - The Cat Empire and friends - a collaboration with Tunes for Change to raise money for asylum seekers. choose what to pay anf 100% goes to support them.

Plus I've signed up for an annual subscrtiption to the new Paste electronic mag. Issued weekly with articles and 7 free songs. US$2.99 per month. a bargain. the excellent journalistic standards and style of the paper mag continue too.