Marica’s Meanderings

Burglary makes me angry. What gives anyone the right to invade another person’s privacy in this way – or in any way for that matter? Knowing that someone has taken it upon themselves to go through my things and help themselves to whatever they want is abhorrent to me. Jill Walker writes about her office [...]

I first met Marg O’Connell back in November 2004. We were both attending a Research in Distance Education Conference at Deakin University, Geelong, Australia. This turned out to be a rather intimate gathering of researchers in open, flexible and distance education. I was new to this world; it seemed as though everyone knew one another [...]

This week is shaping up to be one huge learning experience. Our home is buzzing with ideas and energy as we try to make the most of having Marg O’Connell staying with us; we have so much to talk about and share. The latest tool she has introduced me to is Flock. It is an [...]

Doing something as simple as walking down the street now presents new possibilities to me. The only catch is that I think I will need to buy a new mobile phone to try these out. The kind of phone I am talking about is really a mini, although rather impressive, multi-media capturing device. My phone [...]

An article headed ‘Teacher literacy in decline’, appearing in the Australian Campus Review, Volume 16, Number 35, September 6 2006, raises an interesting issue which has implications on the literacy levels of the general population. New research shows the academic aptitude of new teachers has decreased significantly over the past two decades. The authors of [...]

For a long time now I have been grappling with the expectation that I have to entertain my learners. I am being inundated with messages that I must make learning fun and if I don’t do this I have failed as an educator – even worse the message is that I am old-school and not [...]

“Hello. Marica Sevelj speaking,” I said rather formally and quickly as I answered the phone. “Hi,” responded a deep male voice at the other end. I waited for him to say something else but he didn’t. “Can I help you?” Again there was no response from the other end. The silence was a bit unnerving. [...]

Recently I wrote that I agreed with Jay Cross when he made a plea for people to delete their orphan blogs. These are the blogs that have been supposedly abandoned by their owners; no longer useful or serving any functional purpose. Some may consider them a blight on the landscape. Originally I thought: No regular [...]

I can’t believe July is almost over for another year. This has been a lean month for me here in my blog. The days have been long and wearisome. Winter has struck with a vengeance and that always slows everything down including the brain! Things seem to take longer and the days seem so incredibly [...]

It’s Friday. I don’t know about you but I am tired. I always feel this way at the end of my working week. When I am tired everything seems like such hard work. It becomes particularly difficult to focus on anything for any length of time. I find I become very restless and easily distracted. [...]