Have been thinking a lot more about the ICT curriculum and had a little Damascus moment earlier on. Often, when I have sat down trying to get thoughts clear about all this I find I get overly drawn to the “how” of teaching. This is fun, but ultimately back-to-front, I think. The why and the what should come first. The … Read More
What to teach in IT? #ICTcurric #ICT500 #RethinkingICT #ukedchat
So a while ago Michael Gove said the current ICT Curriculum is being scrapped. To be honest, hooray. The current offering is dismal, almost unforgivably so. There already seem to be a bundle of energetic, committed characters looking to redraft a better one and in response to Chris and his call for ideas here are some first thoughts. Don’t call … Read More
Private Schools and Private Tutors
I have nothing against private tutors – let me say that straight out. But I think without openness in the communications between tutor, child, parent and school everyone suffers significant problems for schools, parents and children. Equally The Problem for the School Heads of Department, in fact private schools in general, draw a huge amount of succour from their results. … Read More
Character Building 2.0
Character building in the UK, I think, needs a little bit of an upgrade. Part of that means having a clearer idea of what we’re trying to build. Character building 1.0 & The Welsh 3000s Currently, character building is a euphemism for any experience that is uniformly dreadful and unrewarding. One example, from my childhood, was a challenge called the … Read More
A flowchart for motivation
More from Mr Pink. Would be interesting to make a quick taxonomy of school behaviours that benefit from a carrot-and-stick approach.
To do what needs doing
Michael Ellsberg has a book out called The Education of Millionaires, which outlines the 7 key skills you need to know to become a millionaire like college drop-outs Zuckerberg or Gates. The argument, loosely, is: yes college can teach you many wonderful things but those things do not transfer easily to the real world. various millionaires have done really well … Read More
Education 2.0 and Bruce Lee
I’ve just done a feedback survey at school to try to understand why teachers don’t use our intranet more. I’m keen to do some internal workshops on flipped classrooms, BYOT etc but wanted to see what general attitudes were beforehand. There were two recurring themes: it is an extra that gets in the way of real teaching it is too … Read More
Good News, Bad News
Via: OnlineEducation.net So, the good news is that Twitter can help students boost their grades. The bad news is that many students are device-o-holics. Or perhaps it’s all bad news. Perhaps it’s just that students without Twitter lose marks because the Delirium Tremens they are wrestling with after being told they can’t use their phones makes it harder for the … Read More
Workspace, Learnspace, Brainspace
I’ve just been watching Channel 4’s The Secret Life of Buildings. The presenter’s an acquired taste but there are some fascinating bits to it. The main take-aways for me are : buildings and spaces actually change the way the human brain works. (more complex, interactive spaces make for more engaged brains. Fred Gage’s research on this is stunning.) too much … Read More
Books, desert islands and play with a capital P
Isn’t this, in reverse order, what we should be showing children books can do? [via 3quarksdaily ] Robinson Crusoe is notable for a lot of reasons. It was one of the first English novels. It brings up stuff like cultural relativism and morality and providence with a capital P. Marx favorably critiqued its depiction of pre-capitalist man. It can be … Read More