Scotedublogs RSS Feed

Summer's lease

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:44:26 GMT

I'll not be blethering much over the next week or so - off to Tuscany with Mr B, as well as the Edublogger family. It's been so hot here this week that I'm looking forward to having an air-conditioned villa and the pool at the foot of the garden, The Blethers possessing neither of these amenities. I'm also looking forward to revisiting the area where we had our last foreign holiday en famille, before our weans turned into families themselves, if you get me; we stayed in this part of Tuscany during a World Cup in which Italy did rather well, and ended up in a neighbouring apartment whose inhabitants had rented a telly specially. This, you will understand, was not my choice, but was done in the spirit of bonding.

Anyway, it's arrivederci from me for now, though you might catch a blogette from my phone if there's a signal (I'm not holding my breath; it's very rural) Should I be taking "Summer's Lease" for holiday reading? Probably not. I seem to remember it cast doubts on the stability of the water supply to a holiday villa, and might induce gloom and despondency.

And that would never do. Ciao!

Reading Recommendations

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:03:35 GMT

Hooray! The holidays are here! Six blissful weeks of pottering and walking and cooking and reading lie ahead of me. Off to the bookshop this weekend to pick up my summer reading. Any recommendations? Posted in Uncategorized

Another one bites the dust.

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:41:54 GMT

Kodak has announced last week that after 74 years, they are discontinuing the last of their Kodachrome films, K64. K64 was one of my main choices for film in the 80’s. I later moved onto Fuji Velvia 50 because of its punchy saturation. I suppose the demise of K64 film was inevitable given most folk have [...]

Do you like taking photos? This competition may be just your thing.

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:15:13 GMT

Do you like taking photos? See Me have a competition that may be perfect for you! See Me is the national campaign to stop stigma against people with mental health issues. So what is stigma? See Me say that its about ‘being avoided, ignored, talked about, laughed at or bullied’ all because your mental health isn’t great. [...]

links for 2009-07-02

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:04:40 GMT

null RT @katiebarrowman: Celebrate 10 years of Moonfruit and win a MacBook Pro http://bit.ly/96bxC #moonfruit [from http://twitter.com/adamsutcliffe/statuses/2420971261] (tags: tweecious Facebook Twitter StumbleUpon Digg Google MacbookPro Website Reddit)

The right to fail?

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 10:16:16 GMT

Should pupils be allowed to fail? Is there a trend to always encourage children - to place happiness as the highest ideal? Should schools always seek to protect children from all negative consequences?

scrabble - testing, testing, 1, 2, 3...
Originally uploaded by Loving Earth

Partly this post is prompted by this very old news report that I filed and intended to write about but somehow, I never got around to it - Pupils 'distressed over spelling':

"A primary school has stopped carrying out spelling tests because children find them distressing..."

It also is related to some of the things I've been thinking about in relation to assessment.

Questions:
What do you think? Should the chief aim of schools be to make children happy? Is there value in failing? Is it possible to recognise achievement in some without de-motivating others who can't achieve to the same standard?

Basic ICT skills training

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 10:04:49 GMT

A new government report calls for basic computing skills training to be provided to all adults in England. More.

Unsere Aufsätze

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 07:57:57 GMT

Über die lezten Wochen haben wir zum Abschluss unseres Filmprojektes unsere ERV-Aufsätze zum Film Lola rennt geschrieben und verbessert. Die Aufsätze sind unter “Comments” angehängt. Authored by Mrs Felber. Hosted by Edublogs.

Horizon Report 2009

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 06:57:21 GMT

Some good ideas here regarding web 2 and 3 technologies, mobile technologies etc.

Cool Stuff

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 06:55:22 GMT

Some cool stuff this week at http://sketchcast.com/
which is like a kind of Youtube for those who want to sketch and upload their creations. Another useful site is http://www.cueprompter.com/ which gives the illusion of a tele-prompter on your computer screen.
One final site is http://www.soungle.com/ which is a search engine for sound clips. If you want the sound of a car engine, a pig, cow or anything else, just search in soungle.

Links for 2009-07-01 [del.icio.us]

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 06:00:00 GMT

Wanderlust: GOOD traces the most famous trips in history
Nicely done, mapping out literary and historical journeys around the world in great clarity
Tempero
Tempero is the UK's leading interactive community management company providing 24/7 specialist moderation for message boards, blogs, commenting, social networking sites and user generated content (UGC) projects.
This Ain’t No Disco (it’s where we work)
If you've ever sought inspiration for your latest school, work or home build, then this is the place to come for it. This ain't no disco. It's where we work.
Xmen relationship map
Some seriously OCD design work here.

Help map our Western World censorship

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 20:27:56 GMT

So, the kind of censorship we've been hearing about most this past few weeks has been of the Iranian type. However, while it may be fashionable to carry your green Twitter avatar in support of free speech halfway around the...

Macbeth @ Slattadale

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:41:13 GMT

Lady Macbeth is persuasive. During the week of the French trip, one of the alternative venues was an open air production of Macbeth at Slattadale. Scenes from the great Scottish Tragedy by Shakespeare are enacted out in pictures by clicking here. Click on the photo above for the slideshow. [...]

If the Army sees the potential in Facebook, why not schools?

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:00:26 GMT

When social networks were still finding their feet among their key demographic a few years ago, I was a keen advocate of formal learning institutions and their staff keeping out of those spaces, certainly not using them as social learning...

Mario Kart revs up the learning!!

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 13:51:10 GMT

I love watching the Grand Prix so it will be no surprise to learn I also love Mario Kart for the Wii. I could see an opportunity here for a great context for learning so I was delighted that Head Teacher, Gillian Penny at Gavinburn Primary School could also see the potential and was happy to trial it for me with a P5 class.

I visited on June 18th and class teacher Lorna McNicol had done a great job. The P5 classroom was festooned with pieces of writing, maths and art work all arising out of the context facilitated by Mario Kart. When I arrived the children were busy rehearsing advertisements about an up and coming racing championship. Later on these were captured on the computer complete with sound effects and music, ready to be burnt to CD to take home as a memento of the project, all done with the help of a P7 tutor. Nice to see ICT permeating through the learning!

The children had been organised into seven kart teams of four. The teams competed on Mario Kart and a championship had been created out of that. All the teams had names – Killer Karts, Wheels on Fire, Mega Mushrooms – and everyone had their own name badge. Team logos and pod stickers for their karts had also been designed.

Writing: Each kart team comprised a driver, a mechanic, a press agent and a manager and they had written biographies about imaginary characters who are drivers, mechanics etc. The children had interviewed each other in role as their imaginary characters and produced an account of that interview. They had drafted letters to a company asking for sponsorship and had also written reports about an accident at the race track. Lorna explained that drama had been used where ever possible to help with the writing process. She said that it had really helped the boys in particular to be immersed in this imaginary world with the visual aspect of the game helping them with a starting point for writing activities. One boy said, “ I don’t like writing but I liked writing The Accident Report. We had pictures of a racing car accident and imagined that we were there and of course we have crashes when we play Mario Kart!”

Maths: Problem solving in maths fitted easily into this context with opportunities to calculate fuel consumption, speed and costs. The children had looked at decimal places for lap timing using a model race track and had also investigated the cost of flights and accommodation to visit a Grand Prix location.

Art and Design: Logos had been designed, karts made from junk material, suits designed for racing drivers and a crowd scene witnessing the crash had been created.

Next week, the plan was to focus on Science and some of the science teachers from the secondary school were coming to get involved in the investigation of friction, air resistance, stream lining and water and fire proof materials in the classroom. Great – and an opportunity for cross sector working too!!

Lorna is a probationary teacher and this is her first experience of games – based learning and she has been delighted with the enthusiasm and motivation that the children have shown. The children were obviously still motivated, energetic and excited and were producing work of high quality – and there was only a week to go before the holidays!! Lorna has been enthusiastically sharing her experiences with other probationary teachers which is great news.

Much more had been planned for the project, but the end of term was looming. Drama, music, animation, web design and a trip to a kart track will all be on the agenda next time they run the project….(and Gillian says they will definitely be doing it again….!)

Guitar @ The Fringe

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 13:32:22 GMT

Here is a list of links to concerts in the Fringe featuring solo guitar, guitar duo, guitar in mixed ensemble & guitar/vocals. These links will take you to their entries in the fringe programme – giving details of dates, times, prices. Many of these artists have their own websites, or MySpace sites, where you can [...]

Mrs Budas Retires

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:33:15 GMT

Mrs Budas retires at the end of this session after 33 years at Forthill Primary. She has worked with three Head Teachers over the many years she has taught here. First with Mr Bowman, then Mr Spence and now Mrs Catto. Mrs Budas is now teaching the children of former pupils! [...]

Staff v. Pupils Netball

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:13:34 GMT

The annual staff versus pupils’ netball match took place this morning. The staff were victorious wininng 3-1. Mr. Blacklaw was named ‘man of the match’!

Our Cocktail Party

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 09:50:53 GMT

Look at the fun we had:- Authored by p6loirston. Hosted by Edublogs.

iPod v Walkman

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 08:44:47 GMT

State of the art technology in it's day, Sony celebrated the 30th Anniversary of the launch of the Sony Walkman this week. In this article BBC news invited 13 year-old Scott Campbell from Aberdeenshire to swap his iPod for a Walkman for a week. It's an amusing stroll down memory lane.

"It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape. "

"I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down "rewind" and releasing it randomly - effective, if a little laboured."

It does remind me that I used to listen to OU tapes on my own Sony Walkman when I was out with the dog without considering it as innovative at the time. It was just the way it was. So, although range of information and the nature of it (latest and up to the minute) may have changed, I guess the notion of considering mobile technologies as something out of the ordinary might be a mistake. It's just the way it is.

Read Scott's article

Links for 2009-06-30 [del.icio.us]

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 06:00:00 GMT

Seth's Blog: There's always room for Jello
So, if there's time for an emergency (Jello), why isn't there time for brilliance, generosity or learning?