Strange Goings On ...

If you are a regular reader of this blog then you will know how straightforward it is ... few bits down the side just a diary really of what I am thinking about. If you do access it regularly then you may have noticed on Thursday evening that Google put up a little notice on the site saying that access could damage your computer.

I was driving back from a session in Bristol when a friend rang me to tell me. He had forgotten the url of the blog so had searched for it and had received a warning message. He wondered if I knew of it. I didn't and rang round some other people and they said .... Yes ... if you search in Google then a warning comes up.

When I got home I had a look ... sure enough there was a warning ... but it also told me how to fix the problem. I couldn't actually see one but I worked away following instructions and asked for verification ... next morning all was back to normal.

So ... if you have are reading this now ... everything is okay ... if you are not reading this you might have been put off by a warning message and I can't tell you that ... all is okay ... but it is (if you see what I mean)

If you do get to read this then clearing your cache seems to open things up

Sorry if it disconcerted anyone ... it certainly disconcerted me for a while!

Mike Waters talks about the Rose review of primary education

Last week Mike Waters spoke at NCSL about current progress on the primary curriculum review being conducted by Sir Jim Rose. Mick, the Director of Curriculum at the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), considered the implications of the findings for school leaders and leadership.

You can listen to his comments on progress here.

Boys will be boys

I was in Chorley last Friday at the Woodlands Centre talking to literacy co-ordinators about embedding ICT in their plans. While I was there I got to talking to a number of teachers who were there at a conference on Early Years education. During the lunch break I happened to pick up a copy of The Telegraph and there it was ... an article that really said the ... 'boys will be boys' and for heavens sake let them.

The gist of the article was that boys were 'lagging behind' ... well there's new news for you !! But further down there was some real sense:

Sue Palmer, a writer and former headteacher, warned that the gap was evidence many young boys were being failed.

It wasn't that boys were failing it was that they were being failed!

She goes on to say:

This gap is the product of nature, nurture and culture," she said. "The boys are developmentally slightly behind from the beginning. If they don't get the opportunities they need for active engagement in the early years they are going to fall further back. This is precisely what is happening."

She added: "Boys are a little behind from the moment they are born. They need much more play and outdoor activities to develop their physical control and naturally learn by themselves how to sit still. If you have a system, like ours, which starts imposing formal work at such an early age they are going to find it hard.

"Children have to meet these goals, such as learning to write, by the time they are five, which means people will try to get them to hold a pencil and start writing at the age of three or four, which is far too young.

I know that this is not new stuff but it is heartening that it is being aired again. If the 'powers-that-be' were just to take a look at the systems adopted in Scandinavia and think for a minute then children's lives and their education could be so much better.

Amazon selling OLPCs

I missed this ... have been really busy recently but I now note that on 16th December Amazon will be releasing One Laptop Per Child XO Laptop. The BBC reported on this on 14th November.

Interestingly the $100 laptop will sell here for £275 ... have I missed something here ?

There is a really wizzy rundown of the guts of the machine here.

Ten Years on ...

Back in June 2, 1998 at Imperial College, London for the 11th Colin Cherry Memorial Lecture on Communication, Professor Bruce Sayers, Emeritus Professor, Imperial College introduced Dr. Seymour Papert to the audience. I was not there but now reading what he said, prompted by a blog post form Betchablog in my feeds, I so wish that I had been. The resonance of his statement:

“The model that says learn while you’re at school, while you’re young, the skills that you will apply during your lifetime is no longer tenable. The skills that you can learn when you’re at school will not be applicable. They will be obsolete by the time you get into the workplace and need them, except for one skill. The one really competitive skill is the skill of being able to learn. It is the skill of being able not to give the right answer to questions about what you were taught in school, but to make the right response to situations that are outside the scope of what you were taught in school. We need to produce people who know how to act when they’re faced with situations for which they were not specifically prepared.”

.....so clearly applicable (and growing even more so) today should show the way forward in institutionalised education systems. Perhaps our ability to learn is not what we would all like it to be.

Rockford to Rock Barnet !!

Those who have followed this blog for any length of time will know that I am a fanatical fan of Rockford's Rock Opera. The fantastic news is that a stage show is about to be staged. The bad news is it might be too far to travel for some.

So I proudly announce .... Rockford’s Live Xmas Special



Rockford's Rock Opera (Part 1) will be live at the Bull Theatre in Barnet (UK) on 12th December at 8pm.

Featuring Steve Punt, Sweetapple, Jess Pendall and Foulds school choir this will be a magical evening of storytelling, songs and videos. Tickets are available now from the Rockford shop and ALL proceeds go to the Dare to Dream children's charity. Spaces are limited so please hurry.

Some Christmas News for Everyone!

To see the latest version of the classic Rockford's Christmas Video click here.

And ... I note that there is a new section of Free Festive Fun including free Xmas lesson plans, games,
e-cards and more here.

Sometimes simple certainly is best - Vocaroo

Twitter and Twirl are wonderful. This morning StripeySteve picked up a Twitter from Tom Barrett and I followed it up .... to discover Vacaroo. If you are a blogger or a web page writer or just someone who wants to send a voice message quickly and simple with no messing then Vocaroo could well be the Web 2.0 application for you.

Listen to my first attempt .... here

Here is what they say about themselves:

Vocaroo is a shiny new service for sending voice messages across the interwebs. It's still under development though, so problems may occur.

It does your heart good ... in more ways than one !!

Allanah Kay is an inspiration ... there is no doubt ... a teacher who puts her ideas into practice and who is not afraid to be 'out there' making great things happen. Read here rationale behind the 'Collaborative Dance Video' and smile. ( Hope you don't mind me 'borrowing the picture Allanah!)

Teachers Podcast Poems

November 5th will go down in history for many reasons, not the least of these will be the podcasts made by Luton teachers to reflect the BBCs 'Off By Heart' project enticing children to learn and recite poems off by heart!

It was a murky day as we assembled at the Luton Learning Resources Centre and a full house was promised for this podcasting session. Amazingly some teachers turned up begging to be allowed to come to the session ... we even let them in !

The session began with a look at how people could use digital sound in their classrooms ... all the way from getting the text on a page to be read to keeping a reading record. We moved on to the functionality behind the software of the day - Podium - and simply had a great deal of fun with Podcasting.

You can listen to the Podium Podcasts here.

So it goes ...

With acknowledgement to Billy Joel and the Kurt Vonnegut ...(for the title of this post)

What seems like a very long time ago now Tricia Neal and I (and others)worked with Becta to begin to the fly the kite of online learning. We put together online conferences and invited suppliers to have their own online space attached to them.

Ahead of our time, we were not successful in engaging people in the affairs because of technical, cultural(in its widest sense) and personal reasons.

One of the things we tried out was trying to persuade schools and Local Authorities to have a 'blended' inset session in their own schools or centres where the session was prepared and directed externally but received and supported in the schools. No travel costs, no supply cover, food provided by staff themselves, short sessions. We felt we were on to something very positive ....... but no ... we were too early ...

Today trawling through my feeds I read on the 'Ideas and Thoughts Blog' that this suggestion is offered as a really positive way to use the materials of the K12 Online Conference ... I couldn't agree more and would be very interested to hear of anyone taking up the idea.