21. August 2017

We are at the crossroads of history once again. The choices we pick now, are going to effect our children either way. It is the education’s duty to provide the youth with as much information and facts as possible and provide them with the respective tools to read these facts. The times to repair the status quo, or better yet, act like there is nothing going seriously wrong, are over. But what am I talking about?

17. Juli 2017

Mein Studium ist schon einige Jahre her, doch die Herausforderungen dürften sich seither nicht geändert haben. Eher verschlechtert. Nur 24 Prozent der Bachelor-Studierenden in Österreich schließen in der Mindeststudienzeit ab. In der OECD sind wir damit das Schlusslicht, wie aus dem jährlichen Bericht der OECD „Education at a Glance“ hervorgeht. Wer jetzt glaubt, mit einer Studienplatz-Finanzierung wäre das Problem gelöst, denkt zu kurz.

12. Juni 2017

What should have become a clear mandate, turned into a political defeat. Theresa May’s Torys may have won the elections but lost the absolute majority. Now, May will form a government based on a coalition to lead a divided country. But in the big picture, does not failing to reach the goals set out before the elections generally mean that one would resign?

13. April 2017

For the educational system, Donald Trumps victory was one of the worst things that could have happened. After a few months in office, things do not get any better, as far as I am concerned. The latest proof for that was Sean Spicer’s lack of historical perspectives. To compare Bashar al-Assad to Adolf Hitler is one thing, to call concentration camps <<holocaust centers>> another. No matter how far right the government in any European country is, such a statement would be off...

03. April 2017

Working in education and writing about a lot of innovative approaches to teaching, I often meet the ones who always find excuses rather than ways to implement innovation. The so-called naysayers. You will find a lot of them, especially in Austria. Being frustrated with the educational system or the funding of it, they will always be reluctant to find ways to implement innovation in the classroom. And it is almost always the same excuse: money. Granted, things are tough at times and a lot of...

13. März 2017

Working in education, we are bound to see the potential rather than what could go wrong. We see room for improvements and not the political battles to get there. We do not understand why anything that could enhance the pedagogical interaction would be too pricy. In a word, we are idealists as we should be. And idealism is needed more than anything right now. Especially in education. There are a lot of trends and new features which could and should be integrated in class and every respectable...

06. März 2017

The latest developments concerning the relations between Germany and Turkey raise the question whether the concept of democratic rights is fully understood. Because democracy is not solely defined by the citizens’ vote but by basic rights that apply to everyone. For instance, the separation of power or the human rights. Talking about the separation of power, a free and healthy press is an essential part of it. Two powerful politicians seem to ignore that and either call respectable press...

27. Februar 2017

A major challenge in education is the proper assessment of students. What do we assess and how? Do we focus on the students’ strengths or faults? Should we focus on motivation or weaknesses? Isn’t it funny: When a student gets the results back from a test, he or she seldom hears the teacher saying <<Congrats, you have 16 answers correct!>>. The teacher probably might be saying something like <<What a shame, you have four answers wrong!>> We are so focussed on...

30. Januar 2017

Every new technology led to the belief that the paradigm of education would shift entirely. Be it the radio, the television, recording material (e.g. video cassettes or the CD) and now the raise of ICT and the internet. But interestingly enough, educational approaches did not change as expected. Today, I would like to talk about the reasons for that and under which circumstances technical innovation could change education altogether.

16. Januar 2017

As I promised, in this week’s English Breakfast, I am going to focus on the strengths and weaknesses of Google’s Android operating system. Is it suitable for educational purposes? Last week, I wrote an article about iOS from Apple. With Android offering much more affordable alternatives, is it suitable to run in an educational environment? Android is an open source platform provided by Google. So, by definition, it should be more suitable for educational purposes, right? Today, I am going...