Embracing sandcastles: rekindling Imagination

Picture: Vishal Shah: Castles in the Sky Imagination, the engine of my creativity Ian Van Dahl’s millennium classic ‘Castles in the Sky’ conjures strong memories of my youth. Interpreting the lyrics as dreams of visionary projects or the impossible, few can deny the deep neural connections between music and imagination (Kaufman, 2000; Fries, 2009) or …

World Teacher’s Day 2020: recognising education’s heart

Image Credit: Hush Naidoo Today is World Teacher's Day 2020. A perfect opportunity to pay homage to the quiet, introspective, absorbed patience of the teaching profession (Rilke, 1958). People who have, through their competence, commitment and compassion, surmounted all manner of challenges throughout the pandemic. Professionals with the power to transform individuals and society at …

COVID-19 fails to halt CPD: Online celebration of Welsh entrepreneurial school

Image adapted: Guille Álvarez Following this blogspace, you’ll know I work on the Erasmus+ funded ‘EntreCompEdu’ project. It is with much delight I update with phase one celebratory news, specifically the culmination of Dafen School’s entrepreneurial CPD endeavours through lockdown. An online graduation. We didn’t start out with a pandemic context in mind, but what …

I spy with my little eye…something to do with ‘being’

Image: Sarah Trummer I'm used to falling down rabbit holes in my doctoral research, and do so quite deliberately, enjoying and valuing the adventure. The process satisfies 'wonder' through access to the new, the forgotten, the unnoticed or uncharted. Challenging thinking and cultivating insight, it can produce or trigger deliciously rich memorabilia [data] and new …

The mind behind authentic entrepreneurship

Multiple-award winning educator and author, Dr Colin Jones is committed to the development of authentic and transformative entrepreneurship and enterprise education. Here I gather Colin’s reflections on entrepreneurial education, and garner insight into how his personal journey shapes his students’ authentic learning environments. On Entrepreneurial Education What do you say to those who argue entrepreneurship …

EntreCompEdu supporting new national curriculum challenge

An enthusiastic and forward-thinking Carmarthenshire primary school (South Wales) has taken steps to increase its ‘entrepreneurial learning’ curriculum content through engagement in the ‘EntreCompEdu’ pilot, the Erasmus+ funded skills framework that aims to build educator creative and entrepreneurial mindsets. Identifying the value of entrepreneurship education, Dafen Primary School Head Teacher, Mrs Iolan Greville with full …

In pursuit of Harmony: we can thrive again

‘Harmony principles’ in practice For the delegates and presenters drawn to the UWTSD's Harmony Institute Student Conference 2020 last week, this translated into crossing silos, addressing diversity, adopting integrative thinking, moving beyond analysis to synthesis, and empowering with narrative. To the representations gathered from, and for, the business, interfaith, theology, social justice and inclusion faculties, …

‘EntreCompEdu’ embraced by teachers in Wales

Piloting of the Erasmus+ 'EntreCompEdu' is underway in Wales, with primary teachers and PGCE Post Compulsory Education Teachers in training, currently being immersed into the new CPD framework that envelopes EntreComp (the Entrepreneurship Competence Framework). EntreComp Today’s I report on the PGCE PCET engagement led by Mark Flagg, the UWTSD’s Programme Director PG Cert HE. …

Creativity, Curiosity, Challenge with Fun, Fire & Focus

Creativity, Curiosity, Challenge with Fire, Fun and Focus. That was my morning yesterday, joining Professor Andy Penaluna, as he inspired educators and leaders from a breadth of Swansea primary schools. Delegates gathered together, as agents of change in the development and implementation of the new Curriculum for Wales 2022. A collective of focused professionals working …

I’ll do my thinking with a spot of ginger and bacon!

As a founding figure of ‘positivism’, Francis Bacon is very well-known for his promotion of the scientific method. This contrasts with my own researcher position as a phenomenologist. Subscribing to the belief that knowledge is obtained through both experience and observation, I adopt the view “science is useful for understanding many things, but not literally …

WCOL2019: new pathways to hope and light in a digital world

My 'lived experience reflections' of the ICDE's 28th World Conference on Online Learning, Dublin, 2019 (4-7 November), hosted by Dublin City University (DCU). Sense of place WCOL2019 was well situated in the unique glass-fronted futuristic Conference Centre Dublin. Interaction, innovation and inspiration were first impressions as I rose the heights of its atrium of crisscrossing …

Lifeworld and Lifelong development: The transformative power of ‘Entrepreneurial Learning’

Image: Entrepreneurial competencies (EntreComp) The Global Skills landscape is morphing quickly. In the educational context, the spaces and silos built up between disciplines are collapsing under the weight of 21c connectivity and the appetite for transversal competencies. There is a growing collective impetus for curricula reform, that which will robustly prepare learners for life beyond …

Nature in Education

Picking up from earlier blogs embracing-sandcastles-rekindling-imagination and cyborgs-part-1-world-without-mind a brief share on an incredibly invigorating induction with sand, soul, and sustainability in mind with the Carmarthen Business School (UWTSD) freshers today on Tenby beach. "The future will belong to the nature-smart—those individuals, families, businesses, and political leaders who develop a deeper understanding of the transformative …

Embracing sandcastles: rekindling Imagination

Picture: Vishal Shah: Castles in the Sky Imagination, the engine of my creativity Ian Van Dahl’s millennium classic ‘Castles in the Sky’ conjures strong memories of my youth. Interpreting the lyrics as dreams of visionary projects or the impossible, few can deny the deep neural connections between music and imagination (Kaufman, 2000; Fries, 2009) or …

Taking on the machines: the rise of the Educator

Yes, I am picking a fight with robots and the organ-grinders! Automation is not the end of the road for Educators Yes, you know too, ‘the robots are coming for our jobs’! Cue to some collective eye-rolling, this statement has fast morphed into a ‘future of work’ cliché. Arguably, there’s little to prevent automation’s continued …