David Johncock's Page

Profile Information

School / Work Affiliation: Marymount Secondary School

Website: http://englishplace.wetpaint.com

About Me: am an English language and literature teacher, yearbook advisor and drama co-ordinator at Marymount Secondary School in Hong Kong.

I am particularly interested in the integration of literature and drama into ESL teaching and in the use of web 2.0 technologies, especially wikis, for student-centred learning.

I was born in Torquay in 1972 and grew up in Paignton, Devon. I studied at Westlands Bilateral School in Torquay and then at Christ's College, Cambridge.

In 2006 I co-wrote and directed a musical, Orpheus, written in collaboration with a colleague as a fund-raising project for Marymount. I have also written a sequence of short comic plays in rhyming couplets based on four Shakespeare tragedies, with the title Shakespeare's Shorts. More recently, I directed a production of
Much Ado About Nothing. I am currently directing a production of Hamlet.

David Johncock's Blog

A great social network for sharing books - Anobii

Posted on May 6, 2008 at 6:30pm 0 Comments 0 Likes

I'd like to share with you a great website I've found which you can use to set up an online book club for students. www.anobii.com allows you to create a bookshelf. Just enter the titles or ISBN numbers of the books you want to put on the record, and then the book covers will appear on your shelf, complete with links to Amazon and Google and reviews written by other users of the site. You can post comments on books and indicate whether you have started… Continue

A simple choice - be part of the future or be part of the past.

Posted on May 6, 2008 at 2:35am 2 Comments 0 Likes

I can't put the issue of technology and how we respond to it more simply than this. Teachers and schools are faced with a stark and simple choice - either we recognise and embrace how new technologies have utterly transformed how people access, share and create knowledge and help our students to use these technologies as effective learning tools, or we stick with the media and means of instruction that we are used to and comfortable with and consign ourselves to the dustbin of… Continue

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At 6:15pm on May 8, 2008, Jason de Nys said…: Hi David,
The conference was excellent, especially for a first run. The keynote speakers were inspiring and above all it was great to compare notes with other teachers and hear what is going on at other schools. Have you been to the ning? The idea is to keep it going as a network for HK teachers.
I sure didn't see many (any?) teachers from local schools there and I think that that is going to be the challenge for the organisers next year. Maybe by promoting Cantonese sessions as well.
You should nominate as a presenter next year, they always need more humanities based sessions at these things (I am always well catered for as a maths/science teacher) and it is a good way to get your school interested in the conference
Here at AISHK we have interactive whiteboards in every room but no laptop program at this stage. There were three sessions that reviewed the introduction of laptop and tablet computers at other schools and the information that they had on offer re pitfalls and successes was most enlightening.
I am really trying to focus on convincing other staff that web 2.0 technologies are good tools that are compatible with the best pedagogy. It is sometimes difficult when, for some, everything to do with tech provokes a negative response. Eventually I think the realisation will come that if they don't evolve, they won't be employable!

Cheers,
Jason