OllieBray.com

UK Education Blog Awards 2011 - The Winners

It was a great pleasure to be asked to judge this years first UK Education Blog Awards. The winners of were anounced yesterday and you can read the press release below....

 

With over 300 nominated blogs in four categories, and over 3600 votes cast, the popularity of school blogging is as evident as ever. The top ten blogs with the most votes in each category were shortlisted before being sent to the five judges to decide on the winning entries!

 

The winners are:

 

Class Blog of the Year: The Diary of 6E

 

The judges said: ‘A great blog documenting the impressive work of Mr Efford and 6E’, the ‘100 word challenge shows the power of a simple idea shared and developed’ and it has a ‘stylish layout, very good BlogRoll, links to supportive resources. Like the Caption Competition. Commendable involvement in the QuadBlogging.’

 

Runner-up:  The Year 4 at Bearwood

The judges said: ‘Powerful learning just oozes from the Year 4 Bearwood Primary Blog – I also loved the Adaptation Videos’.

 

Joint third place:

Horwich Blogs

The judges said: ‘Like the way it is used to inform parents, especially in Reception Class.’

Bangkok Class Blog

The judges said: ‘An impressive blog aggregating a variety of media from images to audio and demonstrating the wide raging learning opportunities that go on in Year 4 at Kensington Avenue Primary School’

PS3 Superstars

The judges said: ‘A lovely and powerful view into the world of the P3 Superstars documenting their learning journey from toothpaste advertising to cliff rescue!’

 

 

Whole School Blogsite of the Year: Sir John Lillie Primary School

 

This blog scored very highly in all areas, and especially met the criteria of having clear and consistent messages about e-safety, comment policy and content.  The judges said: ‘I really think that Sir John Lillie Primary School’s blog ticks about every box. It demonstrates the learning that is happening at the school perfectly, right from Reception to Year 6. It feels truly collaborative which gives it an excellent community feel. I especially loved the brainteasers, the use of online apps such as wallwisher, the links to BBC bitesize and games on other school websites all of which encourage learning at home. It felt like it reached out in just about every direction. Really well done!’

 

Runner-up:  Bearwood Primary School

The judges said: ‘Simply Wonderful’

 

Third place: Ferry Lane

The judges said: ‘Powerful learning demonstrated through a whole school commitment to class blogging. The work of Ferry Lane Primary School deserves a special mention – their class blogs are wonderful and demonstrate what can be done with a bit of creative thought and professionalism from educators. Any school wishing to improve their partnership with parents should visit this website as a model of good practice’

 

 

Teacher Blog of the Year: David Rogers

 

The judges said: ‘David Rogers encapsulates what edublogging should be about – A documentation of your own professional and personal learning through a blend of thinking, ideas, sharing, collaboration and challenge.’  

‘Loved this blog for many reasons but the main one was because David introduced me to Dream Teachers YouTube. Will definitely be visiting again.’

 

Runner-up: Technostories

The judges said: ‘A wonderful resource sharing blog full of practical advice and tips for teachers – a must-read for all those interned in primary education’.

 

Third place: Mister Connor

The judges said: ‘A great example of a teacher’s blog to support the learners at their school.’

‘There’s some excellent accessible content on Mr Connor’s Blog.’

 

 

Most Influential Blog of the Year: Box of Tricks

 

This blog scored particularly highly in the innovative ideas communicated effectively section, as well as with evidence of impact.The judges said: ‘A well written and professional blog from a well-respected educator’.

 

Runner-up: New Teachers Blog

The judges said: ‘A combination of thought provoking thinking and practical advice for teachers.’ ‘Found myself reading this blog for a long time. Some big general teaching issues tackled.’

 

Third place: ICT for Teaching and Learning in Falkirk Primary Schools

The judges said:‘A great blend of tips and ideas for teachers with a growing blog audience’.

 

 

Congratulations to all of the winning blogs.

 

For more information about the Education Blog Awards 2011, including the judging criteria for each category, click here.

New Technology and Outdoor Learning (6 of 8): Using Blogs

This is the sixth of eight posts where I discuss some of the things that I talked about at the 2010 Learning and Teaching Scotland Outdoor Learning Regional Events.

Blogs are a simple form of website and they are a really good way to be able to document an outdoor learning experience or school trip online. They can be used in very simple ways for sharing information with parents, hosting photographs and providing a place for people to leave comments while the children are away on their outdoor experience.

The Musselburgh Grammar School Trips website is a great example of how the web can be used to support outdoor learning.  Not only are many of the outdoor learning experiences that young people take part in at Musselburgh documented there but it is also a place where parents and students can download letters, consent forms and find out information on the sort of things that they will be up to when taking part in school trips.

One trip that has been established for a long time at Musselburgh is the School French Trip. The latest version of the site has been in existence since 2006 but there have been a number of previous versions. 

Some of the things that the site does include:

1) News - Information from the field while the group is away.


2) Podcasts – audio recording of what the group get up to every day and personal reflections from each of the partisipants.



3) Photographs - Pictures from the trips over the years. Along with the audio recordings these make a lovely digital archive of the experience.



4) Information Zone – links to web cams of the area, tourist information points and trip itinerary.



5) Comments – a place that other children and parents can leave comments while the group is away. The comments are read out o the bus to the children every morning.



On another blogging note:

• The Outdoor Learning Team at Learning and Teaching Scotland also has a blog where you can find all of the latest Learning and Teaching Scotland Outdoor Learning News.

• Another great Outdoor Learning Blog worth a look at is the one from the East Lothian Outdoor Learning Team.

• Juliet Robertson (Creative Star) writes the "I'm a teacher, get me OUTSIDE here! : The emergency exit to outdoor learning..." blog

• Bill Stephen wites "Bill's Outdoor (and Indoor) Learning" Blog
  

New Technology and Outdoor Learning (6 of 8): Using Blogs

This is the sixth of eight posts where I discuss some of the things that I talked about at the 2010 Learning and Teaching Scotland Outdoor Learning Regional Events.

Blogs are a simple form of website and they are a really good way to be able to document an outdoor learning experience or school trip online. They can be used in very simple ways for sharing information with parents, hosting photographs and providing a place for people to leave comments while the children are away on their outdoor experience.

The Musselburgh Grammar School Trips website is a great example of how the web can be used to support outdoor learning.  Not only are many of the outdoor learning experiences that young people take part in at Musselburgh documented there but it is also a place where parents and students can download letters, consent forms and find out information on the sort of things that they will be up to when taking part in school trips.

One trip that has been established for a long time at Musselburgh is the School French Trip. The latest version of the site has been in existence since 2006 but there have been a number of previous versions. 

Some of the things that the site does include:

1) News - Information from the field while the group is away.


2) Podcasts – audio recording of what the group get up to every day and personal reflections from each of the partisipants.



3) Photographs - Pictures from the trips over the years. Along with the audio recordings these make a lovely digital archive of the experience.



4) Information Zone – links to web cams of the area, tourist information points and trip itinerary.



5) Comments – a place that other children and parents can leave comments while the group is away. The comments are read out o the bus to the children every morning.



On another blogging note:

• The Outdoor Learning Team at Learning and Teaching Scotland also has a blog where you can find all of the latest Learning and Teaching Scotland Outdoor Learning News.

• Another great Outdoor Learning Blog worth a look at is the one from the East Lothian Outdoor Learning Team.

• Juliet Robertson (Creative Star) writes the "I'm a teacher, get me OUTSIDE here! : The emergency exit to outdoor learning..." blog

• Bill Stephen wites "Bill's Outdoor (and Indoor) Learning" Blog
  

New Technology and Outdoor Learning (2 of 8): Educaching

This is the second of eight posts where I discuss some of the things that I talked about at the 2010 Learning and Teaching Scotland Outdoor learning Regional Events

Yesterday I wrote a post about geocaching. The location of geocaches in your area can be found by looking at geocaching.com and downloading the coordinates. Educaching is an evolution of the activity that contains some of the core ideas of geocaching (eg: it includes GPS).

The main difference, as I understand it, between the two activities is that geocaches tend to be quite permanent and educaches tend to be a little more temporary. Most educaches tend to be hidden for the duration of the learning activity and contain information or items help solve a problem or that are needed to progress with a task.

There are lots of examples of educaching on the Internet. But the example of learning about dinosaurs from Jen Deyenberg is the one that I have been talking about in my resent presentation.

Let me explain the process.

1) The class have been learning about dinosaurs. As part of their learning they have been finding out about Waterhouse Hawkins. Waterhouse Hawkins (8 February 1807– 27 January 1894) was a sculptor and natural history artist. He was the first person in the world to re-model dinosaur bones to create standing skeletons of dinosaurs. He is probably the most famous for recreating the 32 life-size models of dinosaurs in the Crystal Palace Park, London. So, as part of their learning they read the book with the teacher on "The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins".

2) The next learning task was for the children to go and find some educaches. The educaches had been hidden by the teacher in the school grounds and contained a variety of paper dinosaur bones.  The children had to use the GPS coordinates to find all of the hidden bones.

3) Back in the classroom the children had to put the bones together as they were all muddled up.

4) Remember the project was linked to Waterhouse Hawkins who was one of the first people to take the bones are create 3D replications of the dinosaurs. So the class then took the bones and imagines what the dinosaur would have looked like before turning it into a 3D scaled model. There was discussion about why some of the dinosaurs would not stand up and what could and could not be fossilized.

5) The class then video conferenced with another school who had completed a similar activity and were able to talk in more detail about the process of fossilization.

6) Finally the children shared their learning on their personal class blogs.

Now, what I like about this particular activity is that the teacher could have achieved the objectives of the lesson by not taking the children outside at all and also by not using the technology. But instead the lesson used a combination of books, outdoor learning, technology, 3D modeling, collaboration and sharing.

In short it was a really blended lesson involving a variety of pedagogical styles. Some of the children would have been engaged because of the book, some because they went outside, some because of the GPS, some because of the video conference and some because of the physical modeling. But, they all would have been engaged, somehow and that is what the best learning and best lessons are about.

I’ll be writing more on educaching in the future.

Time to catch up!

March has been the busiest month for me since being seconded to Learning and Teaching Scotland just over a year ago – I really can’t believe that I have not had much time to write my thoughts up here for almost four weeks.

March really was a frenzy of conferences, presentations and learning. I’m going to work hard over the next week to make sure that I get back up to date with blog posts and conference reports that I have been meaning to share since the 2010 Education Show.

I’ve been all over Scotland supporting the development of the Curriculum for Excellence, I’ve been to Berlin for a week as a judge at the Microsoft European Innovative Teachers Forum, I presented and chaired at the Games Based Learning Conference in London, I’ve been working on a number of Games Based Learning Projects and even started geocashing…

More on all this soon in what I promise will be a week of completely 'random' blog posts as I catch up!

Education Resources to help teach the 2010 Winter Olympics (5of10): Student Live (get involved!)

Over the last few Olympics social media has quickly becoming more and more important in the crowd sourcing of news, the build up and coverage of events. It’s also created a real way for niche athletes to really help publicize themselves and their sports.

The 2012 Olympics in Vancouver is making some good use of social media for example they have a facebook page (that currently has 299, 163 members) and a twitter account for both the main event (@2010tweets) and also the torch relay (@followtheflame). You can also subscribe to up-dates by RSS and email.

But for me, where it gets really interesting is the Vancouver 2010 Students Live Initiative. This initiative has connected 24 students from across Metro Vancouver and the Sea to Sky corridor to attend sport and cultural events during the Vancouver 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

During this time they will share they are expected to share their experiences through social media tools including facebook, video, twitter and photos. They will also be responsible for facilitating and creating an on-line student community.

It’s a great opportunity for the 24 young Canadians – but you are probably thinking,  “What use is this in my classroom?”

Well, apart from student citizenship journalism being a really interesting study in its own right and that some of the social media tools mentioned above will keep you and your class right up-to-date with the latest Olympic news. The Student Live initiative also invites you and your classes (anywhere in the world) to partisiapte in their project.

Any work that you do with your class about the Winter Olympics can be part of the student live project as well. 

You can participate by doing one or more of the following things:

• Go to any of the student live blogs on the site, post a comment and start a dialogue (I bet they would love to hear from international followers!)

• Tweet a message to @studentslive.

• Upload a video to YouTube and tag it 'studentslive'.

• Join the StudentsLive Facebook group and join the discussion.

• Post your photos of the work you have been doing on the Olympic and Paralympic Games to Flickr and tag them 'studentslive'.

• Send a link of a blog post you wrote related to the 2010 Winter Games to studentslive@gmail.com.

What a great and real opportunity to really expand and extend the audience of your children’s work. At the same time why not take the opportunity to speak with your class about the responsible and appropriate use of social networking sites?

Another interesting project going on during the games is "We are watching” – this project takes crowd sourced video of the games and projects the footage onto buildings in Vancouver. 

Wouldn’t it be great to try and get some children’s work up there?

Finally

If you are interested in the use of social media in schools (not just for the Winter Olympics) why don’t you have a look at these two articles to find out a bit more information about the sort of things you can do…

1) Social media in schools

2) Twit to woo: how to harness social media

...Stop Press...

On a completely different note if social media doesn’t interest you and you are disappointed by this post – download this Canadian resource Pack from Promethean Planet instead. There are lots of great flipchart activities to help your classes learn about Canada!

New Tools for Teachers - University of Strathclyde PGDE Secondary Students (January 2010)

Ronnie Rankin (National Glow Team) and I were out speaking to the PGDE secondary students at the University of Strathclyde today in Glasgow. Ronnie was talking about Glow and showed some good examples of how it is being used in classrooms across Scotland and I was asked to talk about ICT tools for teachers.

David Muir has already done a nice little write up on the presentations.

 I promised I would post the notes and slides from the talk here. But as they are very similar to a number of other talks that I have recently given.

Just have a look at these posts instead as they deal with all of the points that I mentioned today:

• New Tools for Teachers - BEd Students (Edinburgh University)

• Literacy, ICT and A Curriculum for Excellence

• Curriculum for Excellence, Science, Change and New Technologies

• Internet Safety and Responsible Use

• Free web tools for teachers

If you were at the talk I would welcome any feedback either by email (my contact details are top right) or please just leave a comment below. As I said today, feel free to challenge anything that I said.

Twit to woo: how to harness social media (TES article - January 2010)

The TES ICT Guide was published this week and I've got a piece included on social media in schools. It’s already got some positive feedback that I am really pleased about. I’ve copied the article below into this post or you can read it over on the TES web pages – as always any feedback is very welcome.

BETT 2010 - Twit to woo: how to harness social media

News | Published in The TES on 8 January, 2010

There's no time to waste in bringing the social media revolution into the classroom, argues Ollie Bray, a deputy headteacher and national adviser for emerging technologies at Learning and Teaching Scotland

Stephen Fry recently used Twitter to spark a backlash against Jan Moir's Daily Mail article on Stephen Gately's death. He has also used it to announce the demise of his TV programme Kingdom and reveal that he was stuck in a lift.

Barack Obama became the first US president to run a campaign with an integrated web and social-media element.

Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and other social media are shaping the daily news agenda for newspapers and news websites.

But can social media have a place in the classroom? You bet.

So what is it? Social media includes online tools such as blogs, podcasts, wikis, YouTube, Bebo and Facebook.

There are literally hundreds of social-media tools available on the web, and many of these are already being used by students at home to network, collaborate and learn. By their very nature, these resources are highly engaging for children and if used appropriately present powerful opportunities for teachers.

Why use social media in the classroom?

There are lots of ways that schools can use social media to enhance learning but perhaps the most obvious is how they can be used to share pupils' work.

All teachers know the impact of a good classroom display, yet how many people have a detailed look at children's work on the walls of a classroom or corridor? The people who really want to look at displays are those personally connected to the children - parents, family and family friends. Yet how often do we let these people into our schools? The web allows us to create a worldwide wall display to exhibit and showcase work to a huge audience.

Blog to provide audiences for students' work

East Lothian Council in Scotland was one of the first UK councils to install a WordPress multi-user blogging platform, making it available for all its 46 schools.

Blogs provide a very quick way to publish content to the web and are very easy to use. If you can send an email and add an attachment, you'll be happy writing a blog.

At Law Primary School, staff wanted to be more innovative in their use of ICT. They created a blog to provide information on school life and to encourage a regular dialogue between families, pupils and teachers. Pupils in the upper primary exhibit work and give an account of their achievements in activities in which they have participated.

The blog also helps parents keep in contact with children who take part in the P7 residential trip and let them know about their daily activities.

When the school was recently inspected, the report said:

"The development and use of the blog has helped to promote pupils' language, ICT and independent learning skills. It has also proved to be a highly effective way of highlighting and celebrating pupils' achievements."

Law also has a blog for its student council (edubuzz.org/blogs/lawschoolcouncil) and pupils upload a weekly audio file giving an update on school life. Such files can include podcasts.

Wiki for cross-curricular collaboration

Wikis are web pages that can be easily edited, the most famous of which is Wikipedia, the world's largest encyclopedia.

When Tom Rae took over as the head of Tynecastle High School in Edinburgh, he noticed the school's Wikipedia entry was outdated and short on hard facts. As he was not sure how to update it, he set his senior students the task of doing it. In just under a week, a group of more than 10 students had researched and rewritten it. They became the first Tynecastle students to be published in Wikipedia. How empowering is that?

YouTube and live video streaming

Saltash.net Community School in Cornwall has really embraced the idea of social media and online audiences. As well as having their own YouTube channel, which features lesson resources, videos and extracurricular material, they regularly use Twitcam (an online tool that lets you turn your Twitter account into a video stream) to broadcast in real time from the school's livestock enclosure.

Musselburgh Grammar School in Scotland has used twitcam  to broadcast a show to classrooms, associated primaries and parents at home. Taking part in activities such as these are important in their own right and simultaneously instil a sense of confidence and responsibility in children. Also, because the pupils know the footage is going to be displayed online or broadcast live, they seem to take more pride in their work.

Gather live data with Twitter

Social-media tools such as Twitter also allow teachers to gather "real data" quickly and efficiently. Last February, I was asked to cover a Year 1 class. It was snowing and there were lots of questions about it. One pupil wanted to know why it was snowing and where else it was snowing in the world. I sent a message out via Twitter asking my personal learning network whether it was snowing in their country. Within 10 minutes, we had more than 20 replies from Scotland, England, Wales, Ireland and the US.

Armed with my iPhone, I asked one of the children to plot the responses on a Google Map. We then imported this into Google Earth and overlaid the cloud-cover layer. A great discussion ensued about clouds and weather fronts. What made the lesson special was its social nature - the children were amazed by the number of people willing to share information from around the globe.

Be social

Some school leaders remain wary of using these and other powerful social media tools in the classroom. But as long as they are used appropriately, wikis, blogs, Twitter and the like present no significant risk.

Indeed, many would argue that schools should be making more use of these resources, not only because of their powerful learning applications but also so the school can teach children how to use them in safe and responsible ways.

The latter is hard to do with school firewalls. The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Agency's Think U Know (thinkyouknow.co.uk) website provides advice on using social-networking sites responsibly. Applications such as www.securus-software.com are also available.

THE SOCIAL-MEDIA TOOLBOX

• WordPress - an open-source blogging platform (www.wordpress.org)

• Wikispaces - create, edit and collaborate on your own wiki documents (www.wikispaces.com)

• Flickr - a photo-sharing website (www.flickr.com)

• YouTube - upload and share videos online (www.youtube.com)

• SlideShare - view, upload and share presentations and documents (www.slideshare.net)

• Twitter - a micro-blogging platform for swapping experiences and ideas (www.twitter.com)

TRY IT YOURSELF!

Blogs

Does your school or class have a regularly updated website? If not, why not set one up for the whole school or a year group or class? It's easy to do, using blogging tools such as WordPress, Blogger or TypePad.

You could start by creating a blog for a school trip, so parents can keep in touch and leave comments while you're away.

Wikis

Does your school have a Wikipedia entry? Is it a real reflection of your school? Could it be improved?

Anyone can edit Wikipedia. You could use it as a powerful learning opportunity and get your school published in the largest encyclopedia in the world.

Social-media savvy schools and councils:

• East Lothian Council (edubuzz.org)

• Law Primary School (edubuzz.org/blogs/law)

• Musselburgh Grammar School (www.mgsonline.org.uk)

• Saltash.net Community School (www.saltash.net)

LINKS AND FURTHER READING

• Wikipedia social media article (http://bit.ly/16SPG)

• Social media in plain English video (http://bit.ly/QliUq)

• Social media revolution video (http://bit.ly/qCmT8)

MikeTidd.com - The Head of Geography at Gillingham start blogging!

Mike Tidd is the Head of Geography at Gillingham School in Dorset. Mike and I go back a long way as we studied Geography together at the University of Plymouth many moons ago. We were normally lab partners, worked together on fieldwork projects and would often share a pint after (and sometimes during) lectures.

Over the years we have had a lot of great adventures but any stories Mike has about me are fictitious and made up. He’s always been a good story teller – which is what make him a great teacher!

Anyway, Mike’s new years resolution was to start a blog and so MikeTidd.com has been born. If it reads anything like his regular articles in Sec-Ed then I think it will be both stimulating, challenging and worth following in your RSS Reader or by email subscription (bottom right of his web page).

Good luck with your project Mike! The next thing I know he will be following me on Twitter.

Literacy, ICT and a Curriculum for Excellence

My first school engagement event of 2010 was back in Edinburgh City where I was asked to speak to the staff at Portobello High School about ICT, CfE and Literacy. I’ve always had strong links with Portobello as it was the school that I did my very first teaching placement when I was training to be a teacher.

The presentation was based on the one that I did at Drumond Community High School back in October.

I updated the talk to included a few extra slide and points that I thought I was important. These points included references to the eduTalk365 project (drip feed CPD at its best), the value of using real-time data to engage students (including @ukwarcabinet and Classpress.net) the importance of useing modern reserch techniques (eg: Google Alerts) to help children find information that has not yet been published.

The slides that I used from the presentation are embedded below:

Literacy, ICT and the Curriculum for Excellence - January 2010 (updated)

View more presentations from Ollie Bray.

Notes from the presentation and key points

It is important to remember that literacy (along with numeracy, health and wellbeing) are the responsibility for all within A Curriculum for Excellence. Further clarification and a definition is given in the Literacy and English Principles and Practice Cover Paper (2009).

"All practitioners in each sector, in each department and in all settings have a responsibility to develop, reinforce and extend the skills which are set out in the literacy experiences and outcomes.

Literacy is the set of skills which allows an individual to engage fully in society and in learning, through the different forms of language which society values and finds useful"

(Literacy and English Principles and Practice 2009)

In order to allow these things to happen literacy has had to be re-defined for the 21st Century. The forms of language which society has valued and finds useful has changed through time.

Reflective and difficult questions for practitioners:

• Do 13 year old girls find Shakespeare useful?
• Do 11 year old boys find the works of Robert Burns useful?
• Do we value the work of Shakespeare and Robert Burns in our schools? – of course we do they are part of our heritage.
• Is sending a text message useful?
• Do we value the ability to send a text message?
• What makes a good text message?
• How do you pronounce a text message?
• Are comic useful?
• Should we value the use of comics in class?
• Are comics valuable for the Scottish economy?
• Is a comic without the words still literacy?

Definition of text:

"A text is the medium through which ideas, experiences, opinions and information can be communicated".

    (Literacy and English Principles and Practice 2009)

The definition of text refers to a wide variety of media that we use to communicate – it does not just mean books. Importantly listening and talking are included as forms of essential literacy.

Examples of text include:

• novels, short stories, plays, poems
• reference texts
• the spoken word
• charts, maps, graphs and timetables
• advertisements and promotional leaflets
• comics, newspapers and magazines
• CVs, letters and emails
• films, games and TV programmes
• labels, signs and posters
• recipes, manuals and instructions
• reports and reviews
• text messages, blogs and social networking sites
• web pages, catalogues and directories

When considering the above texts it may be useful to consider the distribution of skills that are required to survive in a 21st Century world. Which of the above example of text should all children come into contact with? Are any of the examples more important than others? How does financial and consumer literacy relate to the above list?


Understanding our students

As well as understanding what we mean by literacy it is also important to understand how young people and children have may be changing.

Recent research information commissioned by Channel 4 indicates that many young people today are very much digital. You can find out more information about this report here.

For schools I think that we need to ask ourselves three important questions:

• Do we know what skills the children in our care have?
• Do we know what access our students have to technology at home?
• Can we use a combination of the above to stretch, push and engage young people?

Without the above information how can we ever set appropriate and challenging assessment and home learning activities?


Engaging our students

I believe that in order for learning to take place we need to have good pedagogy and also interest or engagement from our students. I think that there is a difference between interest and engagement.

A teacher who is teaching a child who has a natural interest in a subject or who see’s the point of it (eg: it will help them get a job) is likely to find it easier to help that child learn compared to student who has no interest or does not see the point.

Unfortunately not all topics are interesting and not all children see the point of all talks. That’s where tasks need to be engaging in order to create powerful learning environments.

Most children find technology engaging and that is one of the reasons it is so valuable in the classroom.

All registered Scottish teachers should be able to use technology in innovative ways

‘Registered teachers skillfully adopt and deploy a wide variety of innovative resources, including ICT and, where appropriate, the outdoor environment’

(GTCS Standard for Full Registration)

Possible ways to use technology to engage our students

• Use their tools (eg: social networking spaces and computer games in the classroom)

• Offer choice of output (written, typed, poster, presentation, video, podcast etc…) the input (thiking, planning, note-taking, drafting, re-drafting, collaboration etc…) remains the same and the most important bit.

• Provide real audience for students work (Wikipedia, blogs with comments, school radio podcast, school TV station on YouTube etc…)

• Real-time news, events and global happenings are empowering for students (look at @ukwarcabinet and Classpress.net as example sof this)

• Be creative with on-line technology tools eg: Comic Brush, Pixton, Go Animate (This recent list of other free tools for teachers might be useful)

Digital Literacy

All teachers now have a responsibility for digital literacy. Most importantly:

‘To help me develop an informed view, I am exploring the techniques used to influence my opinion. I can recognise persuasion and assess the reliability of information and credibility and value of my resources.’

            (Literacy Level 3)

Golden rules for digital literacy:

1. Intenet Safety and Responsible Use – more information here

2. Don’t ban Wikipedia – teach them to use it - more information here

3. The Internet is only any good if you can find what your looking for, think about:

• Google Advanced Search
• Quintura Visual Search
• Google News Search

4. Make sure that students have up-to-date reserch skills and understand things like Google Alerts.

Final thoughts

Books are not going away. They are a form of text but the nature of text is changing (see above).

We need new models of CPD to engage with a Curriculum for Excellence. If your interested in this have a look at my Drip Feed Vs Sheep Dip CPD post here. A great example of Drip Feed CPD is the EduTalk365 Project - 5 minutes of quality input a day, every day for a year.

The future of professional development is on-line, have a look at:

• CPD Find
• Curriculum for Excellence
• Consolarium: Games Based and Innovation in Education
• LTScotland on iTunesU (the ‘U’ is for University)
• Bill Boyd: the literacy advisor

Feedback

I would welcome any feedback or comments on the above. Please feel free to get in touch if you have any questions (details top right) or leave a comment below.