Stephen Powell, thoughts mostly about learning

The ‘long tail’ of underachievement of Maori students in a generally well performing education system in NZ, compared to other OECD countries, is widely recognised and significant problem.
This interview with Russell Bishop explains the progress of the Te Kotahitanga project which aims to tackle this problem.
Project starting point
A series of interviews with teachers, students, and [...]

This new publication from Jisc gives an overview of e-Assessment in HE, identifying the key elements of good practice (appropriateness; timeliness; relevance; accessibility; validity, quality of supporting systems) and then illustrating these through a series of case studies.
Ultraversity collaborators (researchers and staff, past and present) may wish to read about it in the section [...]

Richard talking briefly about the past, but mostly about the future…

The most volcanically active place in NZ (although not ranked highest in terms of risk as nobody lives there) is a fascinating day trip from Whakatane, Bay Of Plenty.

As always, I find such places hard to photograph and this one particularly so as the acrid sulphur smell (gas masks were provided) adds a lot [...]

Whilst walking on Great Barrier Island, NZ we came across this stunning fungi - Entoloma hochstetteri. An impressive blue colour combined with a delicate structure made it appear almost ‘artificial’ rather than a creation of nature!