Connections everywhere – even at camp!

Thanks to my intrepid OEG guide, here I am at camp being able to write a post. It’s been excrutiatingly hot, we’ve hiked to a camp away from the main site, cooked outdoors (remarkably good chicken pasta!), erected tents, hiked back to base camp, completed a high ropes course and are going to experience canoeing, raft construction and a talent night tomorrow. Kids have been great and all are up to having a go at new things. I have to say, having no internet connection was causing me a bit of angst, but having a chat with our group leader from OEG led to him suggesting that I log on and keep up with what’s happening on the blog. He gets what I’m doing. He’s young and uses this medium to Skype with friends overseas and uses facebook to stay in touch with friends everywhere. His partner is a primary school teacher and is using interactive whiteboards to great effect in her grade 3/4 classroom in country Victoria. 

My learning hasn’t entirely halted while at camp. Any down time (read tent at night with headtorch for light!) has been spent reading Thomas Freidman’s ‘The World is Flat’. Although I’ve read plenty about it, I’ve never actually read the book so I’m forging my way ahead now. The early part reminds me a lot of a documentary I watched quite a few years ago called ‘Revenge of the Nerds’ about computers and the origins of the Internet. It’s quietly affirming to read this book. It’s helping to consolidate thinking I have had for some time that all this blogging and learning about new ways of doing things is essential if we are going to be the people leading our students in the right direction fo the future they are going to encounter. The challenge will continue to be moving those around us forward with the change.

My challenge for tonight is to get some sleep in a tent with a sleeping mat and clothing stuffed into a sleeping bag cover as poor substitute for a pillow. 

For those of you who can’t be bothered with Freidman’s lengthy tome, Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach recommended looking a the Wikipedia entry in a keynote speech she delivered last week!