The word of the month was Lego. I took my children to the Lego Discovery Centre, we went and saw Lego Movie 2 and we have been listening to the soundtrack on repeat.

In my children’s music classes, the focus has been exploring nature for examples of loud and quiet, short and long sounds. It is funny how much you notice when you make it a conscious choice. Even funnier when the three year old starts calling out, “forte, that’s forte.”
Work saw me seemingly join another team. I feel like I have a part in so many pieces of the puzzle. It is interesting and, as one colleague pointed out, I will know a lot at the end all this. The problem is that being spread so wide can be a bit frantic at times, especially when you are the intermediary between the different parties.
Personally, I have been reading The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. I avoided Taleb’s work for a while feeling that I needed to be in the right frame of mind to keep up. However, when my wife was recommended it as part of her studies and Chris Aldrich recommended his work, I decided to dive in. In regards to my focus on flânerie, the message I got from the book is that to inoculate against black swans and the fourth quadrant we need to embrace randomness, rather than turn everything into a convenient bell curve.
Musically, I have been listening to a lot of clips on YouTube and podcasts, in particular I dived into the work of Mike Dawes, as well as returned to Paul Sheeky’s History of Electonic Music. Iched Black Panther. I have also been working through some of Ben Collins’ courses associated with Google Sheets.
In regards to my writing, I wrote two posts in response to David Hopkins #OpenBlog19 series:

Feedback or Finding Out? – A Reflection on Learning Observations and Walkthroughs
Solutions over Answers – a Reflection on Lessons Learned

Here are some links that have supported my learning this month …
Learning and Teaching
What Shakespeare Left Out
Katherine Duckett reflects on Shakespeare’s legacy and discusses some of the elements that he left out. Her topics include successful rebellions, healthy relationships, mother’s and independent women. It is an interesting excercise to stop and consider what an author chooses not to cover in a particular text.
The surprisingly radical politics of Dr Seuss
Fiona MacDonald takes a look at the political side of Dr. Suess’ work. This includes commentary from another author/illustrator Art Spigelmen and discussion of Suess’ work on propaganda during World War II.
Your curriculum defines your school. Own it. Shape it. Celebrate it.
Tom Sherrington discusses the importance of curriculum when defining a school. To support this he provides ten questions to reflect upon. Although written for a secondary audience in Britain, this list is useful to consider. This reminds me of Ewan McIntosh’s post on defining a schools competitive position.
“Real-World” Math Is Everywhere or It’s Nowhere
Dan Meyer on differentiating between ‘real’ models versus ‘non-real’ models in Mathematics. The problem with this is that from a process point of view it is all real learning.
Are we designing and building the right schools for future Australia? (We could be getting it so wrong)
Adam Wood shares four insights from debates around building schools and learning spaces: avoid crisis mentality, design schools for living as well as learning, we only get what we pay for and we need a debate about school architecture. This is a useful provocation in regards to learning spaces.
Technology
History Disappeared When Myspace Lost 12 Years of Music, and It Will Happen Again
Damon Krukowski reflects on the recent revelation that MySpace lost 12 years worth of music. He discusses the challenges associated with archiving in general. This reminds me of Celia Coffa’s keynote at Digicon15 Digital Stories and Future Memories.
There are now four competing visions of the internet. How should they be governed?
Kieron O’Hara outlines four visions for the internet from the perspective of e-commerce:

Silicon Valley
Beijing’s paternal internet
Brussels’ bourgeois internet
Washington DC’s commercial internet

And a bonus one, Moscow mule model. It is interesting thinking about this after the EU’s recent decision to sign off the Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive.
Ten Lessons I Learned While Teaching Myself to Code
In light on Clive Thompson’s new book, he reflects on the ten lessons associated with learning to code. Two points that stood out to me from Thompson’s was coding every day and doing so with purpose. I have been doing quite a bit with Google Sheets lately. I find myself needing to relearn things after leaving things for a few weeks. Repetition is important. I was also reminded of Richard Olsen’s post on why coding is the vanguard for modern learning.
Learning the rules of predicting the future
Martin Weller responds to a request to predict the future of higher ed by identifying four rules:

Very little changes, while simultaneously everything changes.
Change is rarely about the technology.
Appreciate the historical amnesia in much of educational technology.
Technology is not ethically or politically neutral.

Alongside the work of Gary Stager, Audrey Watters and Nassim Nicholas Taleb, this is a useful provocation to think about the past, present and future of education and technology.
How to quit Facebook without quitting Facebook
Kaitlyn Tiffany interviews Jenny Odell about her book How to Do Nothing. Rather than leaving social media, Odell encourages us to be more aware. This is similar to what I was trying to capture in my post on being ‘informed’. Odell also discusses the idea of ‘social media’ as a public utility that does not depend upon cashing in on our attention. I just wonder if a state-based solution leads to what China has in place? Maybe the alternative is a decentralized solution? I am not sure.
Teaching Digital Citizenship: 10 Internet Safety Tips For Students (With Cyber Safety Posters)
Kathleen Morris outlines her four layered approach to teaching digital citizenship. This focuses on integrating the various skills within the curriculum, providing real world stories to reflect upon, building up student toolkits and developing lines of communication. Associated with this, she also provides ten tips for students.
Reflection
Reporting a massacre: Why the ABC didn’t share the shooter’s ‘manifesto’
Craig McMurtrie unpacks the decision by the ABC to not publish extracts of the Christchurch shooter’s ‘manifesto’. Every move made seems to have be orchestrated to grab attention. As Robert Evans from Bellingcat explains, it is an example of Shit posting. Zeynep Tufekci backed this stance on Twitter. She also linked to a couple of posts she wrote in response to Sandy Hook Massacre and the Virginia shooter explaining the dangers of feeding copycat scenarios. This focus on media manipulation reminded me of dana boyd’s discussion of 4Chan’s association with fake news.
Pattern and Forecast (Vol. 5)
Josephine Rowe discusses Nevil Shute 1957 book On the Beach written about a nuclear holocaust in the northern hemisphere. The story documents people’s response of people in Melbourne on the coming nuclear cloud progressively moving south. Rowe compares this with the current milieu around the threat of global warming. With record heat waves in Central Australia and bushfires caused by lightning in Tasmania.
Trolls are just the start of the problems facing female players
Kate O’Halloran reports on the furore that has arisen around the publication Tayla Harris’ photograph, where Channel 7 pulled the image after being inundated by trolls, only to reinstate it after pressure. O’Halloran explains that such trolling is neither new nor is it restricted to AFLW. Instead, it highlights an underlying misogynistic culture within sport. This reminds me of Phil Cleary’s article in 2004 discussing this subculture.
The Price of Gratitude
Julian Stodd discusses the free act of gratitude. This is something so often overlooked. Stodd’s discussion of ‘cheap, but priceless’ reminds me of Steve Wheeler’s discussion of sharing knowledge and ideas.
A Brief History of That Most Noble Tuber, the Potato
Rebecca Earle digs into the history of potato. She starts in the Americas and follows the trail through to the Irish famine. Along with the chili, this is another staple brought from the new world.

Read Write Respond #039
So that is March for me, how about you? As always, happy to hear.

Cover Image via Ms 8