OllieBray.com

Exploring People and Society (Level 4) - Now Available

If you have ever been involved in writing books you will know that it is always nice to get your hands on the final product. In the week our family of books to support CfE Level 3 and Level 4 in Social Subjects became complete with the arrival of Hodder Gibson Exploring People and Society CfE Level 4 written by Gemma Ritchie.

I had the job of writing the thematic chapter at the end of the book which is on fast-food! and the final editing of the series. You can see all six books in our award winning set here. 

Dynamic Learning (inclusing the excellent lesson planning tool) is also now available for the Level 3 serise. 

 

 

Exploring People and the Past (Level 4) - Now Available

If you have ever been involved in writing books you will know that it is always nice to get your hands on the final product.

There was a definite history theme in the air yesterday as not only did we announce Scotland participation in the Big History Project but I also got my hands on the new Hodder Gibson Exploring People and the Past CfE Level 4 Social Subjects Textbook  written by Ed Offer.

I had the job of writing the thematic chapter at the end of the book and editing the series. The People and Place textbook was published earlier in the year and the People and Society textbook will be available soon.

Exploring People and Place (Level 4) - Now Available

I find writing education textbooks hard - but I do enjoy the challenge.

Today, I finally got my hands on a hard copy of my latest book Exploring People and Place (Level 4). It is the follow up to the Level 3 book that we published this time last year. Both books have been designed and written to support the learners understand the experiences and outcomes of Scotland new curriculum.

The main sections are:

• Coasts
• Tsunamis
• Water (including a good section on the bottled water industry)
• Food and Agriculture (A nice picture of some cooked guinea pigs on page 32)
• More about Scotland (follow up from Level 3 book)
• Weather
• Globalization (including mobile phone in Ghana, Film Crews in Dominica and laptops in Portugal)
• Climate Change

Take a ‘look inside’ on Amazon if your interested.

Interesting Infographics (part 2) 3 of 5 - "Open Source Textbooks"

This is part of a series of posts showcasing some interesting infographics that are available on the web. For more information on infographics have a look here and for some of the problems with using infographics graphics have a look here.

Part Two of this series mostly focuses on Infographics that illustrate the US Education System - but I think there is valuable learning and questions they raise about the UK Education System as well.

Today's infographic is on "Open Source Books" (original source)

Open Textbooks is a new paradigm that is beginning to emerge and is becomeing increasing popular in the US (particularly Califonia I think?). It gives the option for students to print books on demand or download free digital copies at the fraction of the cost of a normal textbook price. As you can imagine there is some oposition - but it is an interenting model. 

If your interested in Open Source Books then WikiBooks is not a bad place to start.

Thanks to Tony Shin for sending me the link.

Is a broken down car parked?

I’ve just finished reading “Why do I need a teacher when I’ve got Google?” by Ian Gilbert. I’ve been a big fan of Ian’s work and writing for a while. To me he has mastered the mix of common since, intelligence and humor and uses stories really well to explain his thinking and education arguments.

There is lots to talk about from the book and I would definitely recommend reading it to anyone who is interested in the idea of learning schools rather than teaching schools.

Ian is also a real advocate for getting children to think deeply and develop higher order thinking skills. One techniques that I absolutely loved from his books was the concept of ‘Thunks’.

“ ‘Thunks’ are deceptively tricky little questions that ‘make your brain go ouch!’ “

 

Ian's examples of ‘Thunks’ include:

• ‘Is a broken down car parked?’
• ‘If you read a newspaper in the newsagents without paying for it, is it stealing?’
• ‘Do all polo’s taste the same?’
• ‘Can you be proud of someone you have never met?’
• ‘Is a hole a thing?’

Loads more examples of 'thunks' on the Independent Thinking website and at www.thunks.co.uk and to see Ian talking about them in a lot better detail than I ever could have a look at his TEDx Dubai talk (embedded below).

Mike Matas: A next-generation digital book

I enjoyed this TED Video of Mike Matas talking about a next generation digital book for the iPad. Worth 4 minutes of your life if your interneted in that sort of thing. Looks like from the end of the video the company Mike is working for (Push Pop Press) are developing an SDK to make it easier produce very media rich content.

The Golden Spruce: A true story of myth, madness and greed

 

I first heard about the story of the Golden Spruce from Jowi Taylor. Jowi is a radio broadcaster for Canada’s CBC Radio but he is famous for the creation of the "Six-String Nation Guitar" called Voyageur. I heard Jowi tell the remarkable story of Voyageur when I was over in Toronto at the Quest Conference last year.

Voyageur the guitar made from 63 pieces of Canadian history and heritage representing many different cultures, communities and characters from all across the country. At the time I was transfixed listening to Jowi tell the story of how he had sourced all of the pieces over a two year period and the individual significance and uniqueness of each one.

I was particularly interested in the front of the guitar that had come from Kiidk'yaas, also known as the Golden Spruce. The Golden Spruce was a Sitka Spruce tree, that grew on the banks of the Yakoun River in Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands), British Columbia. The interesting thing about it is that It had a rare genetic mutation causing its needles to be golden in colour. The tree was sacred to the people of Haida Gwaii and globally a very unique tree.

On January 22, 1997, a 48-year-old logging engineer named Grant Hadwin surreptitiously felled the tree as a political statement against industrial logging companies. He was later arrested, but disappeared on his way to trial (he was  kayaking there).

I’ve just finished reading John Vaillants book ‘The Golden Spruce: A true story of myth, madness and greed’ which tell the story of Hadwin how he loved the forest, made his living from it and then become increasing concerned as the world that he loved became overlogged. The book goes on to tell the story of the sadness which pushed Hadwin to such a desperate act of destruction - a bizarre environmental protest which can easily act as a metaphor for the challenges the world faces today.

Also just like any interesting story there is a twist.

Hadwin, who disappeared under suspicious circumstances (he was sea kayaking to his trial) remains missing to this day.

Anyway, an interesting read if you get the chance and the story of the six string nation guitar is pretty interesting as well.

Exploring People and Place Textbook wins SAGT Award

The new series of social subjects textbooks that I edited for Hoddar Gibson to support the Curriculum for Excellence at Level 3 seem to have been fairly well received by Scottish teachers.

I contributed to all three books on the thematic learning chapter and authored the Exploring People and Place Book. Its nice to see the finished product and it was even nicer to pick up an award for the book at the recent Scottish Association of Geography Teachers Annual Conference.

Thank you judges.

Nintendo DSi XL and Mr Gum ‘Flips’ Books

 

I have a Nintendo DSi XL that I am playing with at the moment. The Nintendo DSi XL is basically a larger version of the Nintendo DSi.

Perhaps I am getting old (or at least my eyes are!) but I like the bigger screen and I also like the optional bigger pen that comes with it as well.

I borrowed the Consolarium copy of Mr Gum by Andy Stanton (Illustrated by David Tazzyman) which come from their ‘Flips’ Series.

Nintendo DS Flips are Simple Interactive Books and although the Nintendo DSi is not the best eBook reader in the world it certainly works and I have been enjoying reading Mr Gum during spare moments on the train. As well as Mr Gum there are lot sof other popular childrens titles aviable for the DS via Flips - more information on the Flips website.

As well as reading the different stories I have been collecting different musical notes on my DS soundboard and also collecting items for the ‘Messy Room’. The Illustrations are excellent and obviously appealing for young people. Some of the illustrations also allow fun interaction including movement and sound.

Books are becoming quite popular for the Nintendo DS – I first blogged about the 100 classic book collection back in 2008. Lots of children have Nintendo DS’s, DS Lites, DSi’s and DSi XL’s – I wonder how many school libraries stock these DS books?

Finally if you haven’t heard of Mr Gum before – you should check out his website. It is kind of a combination between Monty Python and The Twits!

CfE Social Studies Level 3 - Exploring People and Society Textbook

Nearly two years ago I started some work for Hodder Gibson on the new Social Subjects Level Three Textbooks to support the Curriculum for Excellence at Level 3 (the start of secondary school). I’ve contributed to all three of the social subjects books (past, society and place)

I find writing textbooks hard work (I’ve done a few in my time) but it is always nice when you get to see the finished product.

Exploring People and Society is the first book to get back from the printers. Laura Anderson, who I taught with at Mussleburgh Grammar School, has done the bulk of the work on this text. Within the book she covers all sorts of stuff including discrimination, democracy, rights, responsibility and China.

I wrote the last chapter which is designed to provide a more thematic topic for teaching social subjects. For the People and Society book I chose to write this on Chewing Gum and I hope that the people that end up using the book enjoy learning all about it.

More about the contents of my chewing gum chapter later.