Confident, capable and creative: supporting boys' achievements

I listened with alarm this morning to the BBC's report: Toy weapons 'help boys to learn' and so immediately went to read the report: Confident, capable and creative: supporting boys' achievements the comments came from.

Searching for the term 'weapons' in the 26 page document came up with one hit on page 16.The BBC seem to have managed to put their own spin on the report ( only they will be able to tell us why). The report itself is, in its way, sensible though does, probably because of its title and focus, appear to be making a large issue of something I feel sure that most early years practitioners are very well aware.

In reading it though, other worries spring forward. Why 'Confident, capable and creative: supporting boys' achievements ? What about the parallel document ( yet to be written ?) Confident, capable and creative: supporting girls' achievements ? And where is the world evidence for the ideas in the text? Not that I am in any way an expert but many of the references appear to be very 'home grown' - with the notable Massachusetts Department of Education exception - and a interesting inclusion of Paley's work of twenty years ago as 'further reading' rather than her more modern (2004) 'A Child's Work: The Importance of Fantasy Play'

My biggest fear from all of this is that there will be some people who will read the headline and not the report.

God Save The Queen

It is superb to hear/watch/read today from the BBC that the Queen has opened her own channel on YouTube. At last an institution that isn't afraid to embrace the medium.
I wonder how LAs,BroadBand Consortia and schools will deal with the fact that some fabulous historical footage will now be available to all except those in our educational institutions on account of the fact that YouTube is resolutely blocked.

I am not arguing here for wholesale access as that will undoubtedly cause immense problems ... but it does pose a number of interesting problems for network managers and the people who make the rules about what our young learners are or are not able to access in our educational establishments.

Teachers will not forever want to spend their time extracting the videos from their primary source so what will they do? I can hear the classroom conversation now, ' There is some terrific stuff available for you on YouTube ... just go home and watch it!'

More on Learning Platforms and Social Networking

My colleague Tricia and I have now cracked most of the problems that we had at first associating the University's VLE, Blackboard, with FaceBook... with the help of the University's e-Learning team and the guys who developed the widget/app ... CourseFeed. Already students on the PGCE course are signing up so that they can use the VLE from within their social networking set up.

This opens up a number of interesting questions about how people see their access to the materials that they want to use. One of the current questions that I get constantly asked by teachers, SM teams, and LAs is 'Will it work within our portal/VLE/LP etc ?' And I am thinking that this is probably the right question the wrong way round. How about 'Will your VLE/portal/LP work within my social network app?' . Because I want to start from where I am and not necessarily from where the institution is. I hadn't thought too much about this until recently but the stuff I have been doing in the last few days has caused me to think a good deal about it. Is it a matter of who leads who here? or 'what leads what' ... chicken and egg syndrome come to mind !

Which brings me to my 'new definition' of interoperability ... I want to be able to choose where I start but also want to get to the same place whichever way it is. Is this a long step on, or as the FaceBook/Blackboard experience seems to suggest, something just around the corner?

Learning PLatform and Facebook ( continued)

I spend some of my time lecturing on the PGCE Course at Leicester University School of Education and was intrigued last week to spot this session on integration of Facebook with the University's VLE, Blackboard.

The widget that does the business (sync has to have been applied for by the University, I understand) is called 'CourseFeed' and it does just that ... allows you to see your Blackboard Course(s) from your Facebook account.

One of the neat things in there is an email alerter for changes in course content, announcements, course notes and wall posts. This is especially useful as Blackboard does not seem to have cracked the RSS idea yet.

It doesn't work too well for some of the links yet but it is a good start towards using a social network as the opener to other services.

Viral Marketing

There is nothing new about viral marketing and the concepts that underpin it are exceptionally well documented in Malcolm Gladwell's book 'The Tipping Point' but a seasonal promo that has entered my mailbox from numerous sources as various of my friends 'discovered' it comes courtesy of a company called OfficeMax.

On their homepage right down at the bottom of the 'Top Links' section is 'Elf Yourself' and this just appears to have caught on ... gone viral !

It is a simple app that allows you to create 'elves' who dance and who have the face of whoever you have photos of.

It is fun to do and just goes to show the power of the simple over the expensive.

If you are desperate to see our family version click here. Enjoy !

Interactive Whiteboards ... Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii !!!

Is it true that 'ICT' and 'Interactive Whiteboard' have become synonymous? After a number of years of hype, a great deal of drilling, a lot of money for manufacturers and suppliers as well as for 'putter-uppers, a good deal of discovered asbestos, a mountain of resources and web sites and some excellent teaching (as well as some appalling stuff), we have reached the tipping point. There is no way back so what is forward?

Ewan McIntosh notes a new twist in the saga that is incredibly innovative. You just need to take a look at it. Details are on his blog and the video is here for you to enjoy and be amazed at.

BETT 2008

Always worth the visit but if you can't physically get there then Teachers TV (UK) are having an ICT week starting Monday 7th Jan 2008 ... showcasing the latest technologies that will be found in the show.

Programmes featured are available to stream and download online free.

Details of this and other ICT resources can be found here.

Just clever ...

This is a really clever use of Flickr to get tagged images to spell out words... have a look how its done here. Thanks yet again to Simon Mills for this.

ED BALLS LAUNCHES PLAN FOR CHILDREN

The continuation of yesterday's post ...this taken from the press release today:

• a root and branch review of the primary level curriculum to help smooth the transition from early years, free up space in the school day for more time on the three Rs and time for a foreign language. The review will consider how best to ensure a smooth transition from play-based learning in the early years into school, particularly for summer born children. Sir Jim Rose will lead the review;

• building on the £144m already allocated to fund the Every Child A Reader and Every Child Counts programmes, £25m will be allocated to fund the Every Child A Writer scheme to offer intensive one-to-one coaching in areas of writing that children find hard to master;

• that children should be taught according to their “stage not age”, including expanding the “testing when ready” assessment method nationally. Whilst national testing will remain, this could lead to an end to the key stage tests in 2009 but only if the pilot sites have proven to work and the system has been rigorously evaluated;

It is this bit that worries me most of all : free up space in the school day for more time on the three Rs

... and in Scotland:

Teachers defend Standard Grades

It looks as if major changes are also afoot ... I thought Curriculum for Excellence had only just come of age.

Primary Curriculum to be Reviewed !

I get very worried when I read reports that the Government is 'doing' a review of the curriculum.

Tomorrow will see the release of the Government's latest education'plan' for ENGLAND.

Mr Balls says that:
"A root-and-branch" review is planned into what is taught in English primary schools to allow more time for reading, writing and maths .... some set subjects and "clutter" would be cut to allow more flexibility and all primary pupils to be taught a foreign language

But all will be okay as they are only looking at the 'roots and branches' and appear to be leaving the 'trunk' alone!

It is interesting that a 'foreign language is not in the 'clutter' class and what about the proposed 5 hour/week on PE so that we can win the 2012 Olympics?

Just can't wait until tomorrow to read how exciting and stimulating primary education is going to be for all of our children.

I think if I had young children I might seek a strategic move north of the border or to Northern Ireland, Finland, Iceland, New Zealand, Denmark, Japan, Korea ...

Learning Platforms and Facebook

Later this week I am attending a session at the University of Leicester which is centred on informing staff and students of the development of emerging eLearning technologies in order to give an Institutional consensus on the deployment of such technologies.

My interest in the session stems from one of the presentations on offer :'Facebook and Blackboard integration '.
More details later !

Retro - technology backwards ( if you see what I mean!)

Perhaps you are one of those people who has moved on into the high level use of technology in your daily life but really long for the 'old' days of scribbling on the back of envelopes or menus. If this is you then Wordperhect ( no ... this is not a spelling mistake!)is designed to fulfil a personal need.

My thanks to Steve Taylor for the link.

Its feeding time again ...

Always something new, always terrific ideas, always gets me thinking.

Two blogs that I read a good deal are those of Tim Rylands and, more recently, Don's Learning Log. Both these for entirely different reasons.Don is Head of Education for East Lothian Council and is certainly a man with his feet on the ground and Tim's ideas fill me with hope.On his blog today I noticed a wonderful idea that could be transfered straight into a literacy context ... Click on it to read it.

Last Stand in South Gloucestershire

James Watson again was prepared to do his learning openly and videoed the last of the three sessions using Textease Studio CT I did for the teachers of South Gloucestershire. You can watch the video to catch the things I did .... one of the main points, that James picks out particularly was:
...the real point to take-away is the following little secret…
just how easy it was for Doug using Textease CT on the interactive whiteboard?
The evening was really buoyant and people laughed a lot and seemed to enjoy the activities.

You can read some comments from the sessions here.

Its over to an enthusiastic group of teachers now to get going with their own staff and pupils.

It was raining so ...

... I sat down on this Sunday morning to work my way through my neglected feeds. Scotedublog is one of my favourites as I always learn something new from it and I always have a laugh. Today was slightly different ... on the way down through the mass of fellow bloggers telling me about their life and times and courses that they had been on I came across one that was about PE and ICT ... excellent in itself but suffering, as I am at present (this is no joke I can tell you) from - so my specialists tell me - Post Viral Chronic Fatigue Syndrome - and having spent most of my life running up and down mountains just for pure pleasure - PE was not on my radar! BUT ... it led me to a site called 'Common Craft' ... and it is here I want to lead you. Go there and if you want a simple explanation about RSS or Wikis or Blogs or Social Bookmarking for anyone who needs to know then show them it and sit back.

Click To Play

If only I had enough talent or had thought about it, I would have done it.

Enjoy !!

Writing

In a session with some PGCE students at the University of Leicester earlier this week a colleague asked the group ( fresh back from their first teaching experience) if they had seen any children writing using ICT rather than pen/pencil. There was good number of positive responses to the initial question so the supplementary,' ... and what software tools were they using?' was asked.

The answers have really made me think !

The first response was 'Colour Magic' ( and I confess that I thought that the student had just made a mistake in her software identification) ... but no. It was 'Colour Magic'... the children had been drawing pictures and using the 'typing/labelling' function to describe their pictures.

Further questioning produced a whole range of application that the children were using to 'write' in that were not writing tools in the pure sense.

This, as I have said, has made me think and ask around further.

What I seem to have discovered (and I should have known)is that children are doing a good deal of writing using software that just happens to have that facility.

I don't know why I am surprised at this but I am ! And it is all to the good ... my hope is that teachers and children alike are making decisions about the appropriate tools for the job and situation that they are in and are using them - transparently.

I would welcome views on this and examples to add to my growing optimism that, at last, things are moving forward.

Y5 Unit 5 Narrative

The descriptions of this unit are numerous and 'The Piano' example is impressive and engaging, at an adult level. If you want a Christmas alternative that is both amusing and fits then try the 'ornaments' mpeg to be found on the Bristol LA site ( along with many other great things for visual literacy.)

Thanks to the Kent Clusterblog for this information.