Friday, July 04, 2008
Have Your Say. July 2008
A wide range of opportunities and consultations, largely free for schools, teachers and learners.
The We are What We Do website has been featured in our newsletter before and many schools will have taken part in the competition to suggest small changes we can all make to make the world a better place for everyone. The winning ideas have been put in a book, a copy of which will be sent by the charity to every school in the UK. "Teach Your Granny to text" is well worth a read and will be of great value for schools in motivating their learners to act positively as responsible citizens. Further copies, details and other projects by the charity are all available on the innovative website.
Ictopus started as a group of primary teachers and educationalists who met to support each other in effective use of ICT in schools. The project has grown and now has a very comprehensive website with advice, resources and sharing of practice free for all registered schools. The initial collaborative ethos of the group remains within the way the website content is organised and accessed. There is a monthly newsletter and help pages for all members to equally contribute to. The emphasis is clearly on ICT in the Primary School, but the ideas and contentcan benefit teachers of all ages and sectors.
A poster competition has been launched by the NHS with ipods and science resources for the winners. To reduce the use of antibiotics in the UK, the NHS have decided to run a campaign in schools to educate young people and through them their families about the problems of overuse of antibiotics . Key Stage three pupils are invited to devise a poster to raise awareness of the issue to be used as part of the European Antibiotics Awareness Day, taking place on November 18th 2008. For more information click here.
Vinvolved is the new name fora volunteer programme for young people in the UK. There are opportunities and support for young people to gain volunteering experience in a wide range of situations. There are regional teams around the country covering practically every field of interest to young people. Click here to visit the website.
The next stage of the Children's Plan is being rolled out, part of which is the launch of three new consultations. There are three consultations which are currently running on this topic: 'Delivering the Children's Plan - Strengthening Children's Trusts: legislative options', 'Proposals for Revisions To Legislation For Schools Causing Concern' and 'Schools' Role in Promoting Pupil Well-being - Draft Guidance for Consultation'.
Missing the votes on TV shows for the best singer or skater? Fill the gap with a vote on how education should look in the future. Visit a special part of the Powerleague website to add your vote to support an existing vision, or add your own vision for others to vote on. The tough questions posed are; How should education look in the future? and What should education be for in the future? The results will be used by the team writing the Beyond Current Horizons report for the UK government.
The QCA is carrying out an online consultation until 30 September 2008 on the subject criteria for GCSEs in English, mathematics and ICT. In December, following this consultation, the QCA will publish criteria for GCSE qualifications in these subjects. The final specifications will be accredited in autumn 2009 for teaching from September 2010. To be involved. Click here
Blog for Becta As part of the ongoing Harnessing Technology review by Becta, The Innovation Unit and Kable are running a consultation about how 'business' processes in schools such as data management and assessment recording could be made more appropriate to 21st century learners. The link takes you to a blog site where debate is ongoing. The initial starting questions are;
- Should teachers be able to find all potential learning materials at one website location?
- Should they be able to book trips and where appropriate claim expenses using a centralised computer based system?
- What do you think of a computer based system into which learner data is added (for example data including progress, pastoral issues, attendance, tutorials, and meetings with parents) and which is immediately available to parents, pupils and teachers on demand?
- How could advances in mobile and gaming technology integrate informal learning currently taking place outside educational institutions with formal learning?
- How could assessment and data tracking for individual learners be improved through on-line systems?
There is a £1,000 cash prize for the best blog entry and 2 runner-up prizes of an Apple iphone. Click here to take part.
Just suppose teaching and learning became the first priority. If you want some summer holiday reading we recommend this new paper by Frank Coffield. Free to download it is a carefully considered piece about the essence of the nature of teaching and learning, drawing on recent research and new and ancient philosophy. It is specifically focused on improving the post-compulsory sector but makes stimulating reading for anyone interested in education.A quote to whet your appetite:
‘a focus on learning can enhance performance, whereas a focus on performance can depress performance’.
The paper is free to download here
A new type of teaching and learning resource is available at www.wordle.net. The free site takes any text you copy and paste in and creates a single screen showing all the words in the piece varying in size according to how frequently they appear. This could be used as an exercise in learning the key words on a topic, the buzz words. It is also interesting to see which words appear most often in policies, ideas and creative work.
We wordledthis PbyP website page and the picture can be seen at the head of the page.