PGCE Students go from Horizontal to Vertical

Just had to blog about the wonderful PGCE students at Leicester University School of Education. Here they are getting their fill on robot control at KS1 and KS2 before they go out onto their TE3 experience in schools ... lots of good ideas and lots of fun in a crowded 3 hour session.

A breath of fresh air ...

I have had the most wonderful two days working with my PGCE students at Leicester University School of Education. They are wild, sceptical, enthusiastic, scathing, interested, bemused, excited and imaginative (amongst their many other characteristics). Being with them reminds me about why I care about these things. A group of young(ish) people not afraid to take risks and not afraid to fail. I just feel so optimistic about their steps forward and am excited that they will go into schools armed with the 'necessary' but not constrained by it.

We spent time talking about creativity and ' Excellence and Enjoyment'. They listened/watched Sir Ken Robinson's presentation at the TED conference in Monterey and, what is wonderful ... they 'got' it.

They experimented with software and websites and could see that creativity didn't sit separate from the curriculum but was an essential part of it. And they saw the connection between home and school and that learning was everywhere.

Wonderful !

Rushcliffe Science

Teachers from a whole development group of schools from the Rushcliffe area of South Nottingham gathered on Friday 19 October ( one day before the half term break)at the Jubilee Campus of the University of Nottingham for a Science Learning Centre day organised by the team at Leicester University SLC.

They were fed ( non-literally) on a high diet of exciting science activities from a wonderful Keynote concerning communication in science given by Rosemary Feasey through 'How to make fizzy chocolate' with George Foster to the exciting work of engaging early years pupils in ICT explorations with Tricia Neal ... these and many more.

My own contribution to the day was a workshop called Creative Interactive Whiteboards

The blurb said:' This session will look at how to get the very best use out of an Interactive Whiteboard to support the teaching and learning of science throughout the primary phase in a creative and exciting way focusing on many activities involved in data handling. There will also be an opportunity to try out some of the ideas.' and I did my best to deliver. You can read some of the comment here. This was the first time any of the teacher participants in the workshop had been asked to make their comments about the session in a blog. The blog is quick and simple to set up and continued the electronic 'theme' of the workshop. I have used the idea a number of times now but find it difficult to get people to reflect on the session and to suggest pathways forward from it for themselves and their colleagues.

One of the key points of my session was to discuss the difference between the use software tools on an Interactive Whiteboard and using prebuilt content. We began by looking at the subject of the 'Earth in Space' and looked at content from Learning Connections to support the understanding of day and night and the the orbit of the Moon around the Earth. The discussion here extended into using models to explain scientific ideas.

This was followed by me building an 'Earth/Moon' model using Textease Studio CT. The model produced was 'not quite right' see here (if you have a copy of the software loaded ... if not you can download a 30 day copy from here)In discussion the facts about: the earth not spinning, the distances being wrong, the orbit being too elliptical and the moon going the wrong way came out. This was seen as having potential as a validatory exercise in terms of confirming/questioning understanding.

The group were then given the task of developing a model which was more accurate. An example can be found here.

The teachers were interested in the ability to record sounds onto objects created on screen (this is possible both on Smart and using Textease) and the potential this afforded for the verbal recording of experiments and how this tied in with the first three strands of the New Framework for Literacy, those concerned with speaking and listening.

Also of interest, within a science context, was how digital images and videos can be quickly and easily transferred to screen for instant feedback. Course participants were shown the use of USB card readers for quick transfer.

In preparation for the course explained how I had created a blog which has links in it to some really excellent sites for use in primary science and showed how to access and use it. This was to create the idea that electronic preparation in this way could be a good idea with curriculum leaders sifting materials to assist their colleagues to match resources to curriculum delivery. If the course had been longer the building of such blogs would have been the next stage.

The course participants accessed the 'linkscience' blog and explored the sites. I also gave the URLs of the other blogs created for similar purpose ... 'Earth in Space', 'Term One' and 'Physical Processes'. Access to these promoted a discussion on using the idea to create 'home-school' links and extending learning beyond the classroom.

6th formers want to be primary teachers !!

You heard it first here!!

Friday 22nd June saw 42 6th Form students from Wyggeston and Queen Elizabeth I 6th form College visit the School of Education at Leicester University to engage in a day of 'ICT and Primary Practice'.

These students had opted to come along and work with myself and Tricia Neal for the day to engege in the sort of ICT activities that go on in primary classrooms ... they brought three of their tutors with them as well !!

The day was split into two parts... Tricia did lots of work with robots and explained the ideas behind control and how that fitted into the primary curriculum: I did a session using Textease CT and we worked on 'kinetic calligrams', completing a painting, what spreadsheets can do and even made the earth rotate with a 'turtle' program.

All of the students seemed to enjoy themselves greatly and they were a real credit to their College both in their knowledge and their manner. With people lkie this wanting to enter teaching then I think the future is fairly secure.I felt that it was an innovative idea on the part of the College to set up this day and to begin to focus their students on potential pathhways for their future.

You can read what they have to say about their day here.

Life processes and living things

Ran the last course in a set of three at the Science Learning centre at Leicester University on Friday 15th June. A select group of us met to consider the tools, resources and peripherals that could effectively support and enhance this particular strand of the Science National Curriculum.

Time was spent examining the number of ways that data handling is used ... from venn diagrams through spreadsheets and branching database to flat file databases. These, and curriculum contexts, were examined from a pedagogic point of view with an eye to the future and a passing mention of heutogogy and androgogy.

Teachers attending the sesion went away with the resources already loaded onto a 'USB stick' for quick and easy reference.

Science Learning Centre - Physical Processes

Around the country there are Science Learning Centres which provide the highest quality Continuing Professional Development for everyone involved in science education, at all levels. With a network of ten Centres across the country access to innovative and inspiring courses is within easy reach of anyone.

On Friday I ran an interesting session entitles 'Using ICT to support and enhance science teaching in KS1 and KS2 - Investigating Physical Processes' for a small group of primary teachers.

It was pleassing to note that participants who had been intoroduced to 'del.icio.us' on the previous session automatically save their 'sites' there for future reference.

IMPALA Project meeting University of Leicester 5th March 2007

Informal Mobile Podcasting And Learning Adaptation

An stimulating meeting with a good discussion on the definition of podcasting and the variety of ways to do it.

Podium Software was demonstrated and a copy was given to Matthew for instalation in the IMPALA zoo. I would be most please to see discussions on the morning in the comments on this thread...thanks

If there are any questions please get in touch

The presentation used is in wikimuse