Farmer

 Hello this is................................................

We really appreciate you taking the time to be interviewed. (pause) Right now we are adjusting the sound levels and will officially begin in a minute when you'll have to pretend to say hello to us for the first time all over again (pause) We would like to apologize for our teammate John--I think he set a record for the most email to a person with mistakes in them. (pause) I'd just like to remind you that even though we are live on video to a small audience now, the podcast will be an edited audio recording--so if you accidentally burp or can't answer one of our questions we can easily edit it out.


 * Wait for Mr. Bogush's signal***

Ok--ready to begin

===Welcome to the Lunchtime leaders podcast. Today we will be interviewing James Farmer all the way from Australia. He is CEO of [|Edublogs], the largest education blog host on the web, and co-founder of [|Incsub], a consultancy and development company that provide custom websites built around [|WordPress MultiUser (WPMU)]. James also gives keynote speeches at conferences and in his own words, leads a pretty mean workshop.===

Welcome to the Lunchtime Leaders podcast James!
= = = =   What are your responsibilities at Edublogs?

Why blogs? Why did you choose to develop this tool for student use?

On your website Incorporated Subdivision you write, " I believe strongly that design in many contexts, be they educational, organisational or in media, should be facilitative of freedom. Too often we hold back users through unnecessary constraints when we could be encouraging expression, exploration and achieving far greater success through incorporating subversion. " Do you think schools are designed with constraints that stifle students expression and exploration?

What kind of subversive programs or technologies should we be implementing in public education to make sure we have students who will be successful citizens in a globally-interconnected world?

Reflecting on your school experience, if you could design a school to prepare students for today's high tech occupations, what would the school look like? What classes would kids take? How would teachers "teach?"

Looking at the people you currently see entering your field, what are their strengths and what are their weaknesses?

What are your thoughts regarding how much we should focus on content knowledge versus focusing on students’ ability to learn/adapt/grow on the future?

Tell us a little bit about any changes you foresee for the workplace in the next 5-15 years (and beyond). What do you think this means for students currently in high school and for K-12 education in general? What was the best learning/educational experience you have had? Why? When we're done today, what's the one most important "take-away" message you'd like our teachers and students to hear?

===And thats all the time we have for todays show. We would like to give a big thanks to Mr. Farmer for the interview and everyone who stopped by to listen live or is listening to our podcast on their pogo stick --Good Bye!===

