Not long ago a colleague stated that “I now believe that the time has passed when they could make a choice. It’s too late for that – they must change or leave”

Reminds me of the analogy about doctors. Would you go to a Dr who hasn’t updated his practice in the last 10, 20, 30 years.  And now Mathew Needleman has made a little video to illustrate this point.
See what you think?

Al Upton is a teacher in South Australia who has had his class blog shut
down by the local government after one parent complained about his
programme where he was getting other edubloggers from around the world to mentor his class as writers. Here are some links by more knowledgeable people as this is being debated around the world in a variety of networks.

Vicki Davis Explains
The students in the class have been devastated and this is evident in their comments following the closure of their blogs. Listen to the words of the students

The power of blogs is in the collaboration by sharing ideas and helping each other in online communities.

Here you can listen to a UStream discussion by Alex Couros and Sue Waters. You may need to join Ustream to view this.

“It’s especially ridiculous because while all this was happening here in Australia, the TED conference was taking place in Monterey, California, where one of the speakers was Dave Eggers.  Eggers presented a talk about an amazing project where he has been connecting school kids with professional writers who volunteer their services for free to help kids with tutoring.  The project, called Once Upon a School, is absolutely awe inspiring and has spread to a number of other states now wanting to develop similar grassroots programs.” Chris Betcher