I have just discovered that Jaiku has been bought by Google. My workshop participants were unable to open an account today! How is that for timing?

Having an excellent time in Singapore. The people are wonderful and I enjoy the time here with the team at the CED. had dinner with Alan in one of the canteens attached to a Hall of Residence. I had a Korean barbecue chicken meal with some very hot kim chee. Spotted an interesting little shrine on the campus walking back to my digs on the campus and took a photograph of the scenery that I used to pass each day. Quick photo of the morning as well from the top of the building in which I conduct the workshops.

I am presently conducting a Web 2.0 workshop at NTU here in Singapore. I demonstrated the Blog tool in edveNTUre and the participants had a hands-on experience with the blooging software. We are now working with Blogger.

Shao Ping and I went for a drive north to The Entrance and Toukley at the end of the day. We walked around The Entrance and found another little Thai takeaway where we could sit outside and enjoy the view. The temperature had reached 35 degrees Celsius that day and it was nice to sit out in the open and enjoy the cool of the early evening.

John and Shao Ping enjoy a Thai meal.

Uncle John, myself and Aunty Pauline

Uncle John, Shao Ping and Aunty Pauline

Bateau Bay bush fire

After that we drove north to Toukley to visit my Aunt Pauline and Uncle John. John is 90 and still possesses all his faculties. We drank a nice bottle of red given to my by the NavCon team as thanks for the presentation. Uncle John and I talked about politics, recycling and town planning. Quite a deep and meaningful evening. We also chatted about family and what is happening among all the relatives. It was a lovely evening. On the way back we spotted a bushfire close to homes at Bateau Bay and I took a couple of photographs from about 1 kilometre away. It was as close as we could get.

I attended a number of workshops at NavCon but three stand out… workshops and spotlights given by Greg Gebhardt & Bettina Sho, Steven Harris and Tom March.

The Spotlight presentation given by Tom March on Web 2.0 was well attended. There were a quite a number of enlightening moments and items that provoked thought. Tom is an eloquent speaker and an enthusiastic educator. He spoke on his CEQ*ALL approach to teaching, learning and curriculum integration. He pointed us to his 2nd10 and its rich set of resources as well.

I attended an excellent workshop given by Steven Harris of St Bernard’s Catholic Primary School in Berowra. He demonstrated how Web 2.0 technologies can be integrated into the Year 2 classroom. His workshop was well documented and backed up with excellent data. His examples were excellent and overall he generated a great deal of interest among the participants. It is worthwhile to explore his Pageflakes site [click cancel when the log in window appears].

One of the best moment’s of the conference was when I attended Greg Gebhardt’s spotlight on Web 2.0. I have wanted to meet Greg and Bettina and although I missed the workshop given by Greg and Bettina on the first day I was determined to catch up with them both. During lunch on the second day I sat down with Steven Harris to talk about his work and the types of applications he was using in the classroom. While we sat there two other delegates took a seat and began talking. During our conversation it dawned on me that they were Greg and Bettina. We had a great chat and shared some productive ideas. We are all like-minded educators ~ there was a synergy if you like and in many ways was the highlight of the three days. Greg created a NavCon workshop page page specifically for the conference and it is rich with Web 2.0 resources and examples.

Greg, myself and Bettina