Recent Professional Postings

1. Map tig and cloud appreciation
   → Odblog | Wed Feb 22 22:34:15 +0000 2012

   While I wait on possibly the most frustrating laptop in the world to reopen (nicely shut down while I was working on video clips), thought I would blog two ideas I've developed a bit this week. The first is a way to illustrate globalisation through communication. We had been discussing our take on what globalisation meant in the S2 rotation and the idea that the way we communicate can shrink distance came up. I decided to try to incorporate this idea into a piece of homework which also established the links we all have to other places. I used scribblemaps and introduced the idea of mapping where our favourite possessions, our most memorable holiday destinations or our far flung Facebook friends came from on this. The exercise would be completed on the map by an individual who would then 'send to a friend' for further editing adding their own input. This had to be shared by at least 4 people. No face to face discussions were allowed except for the initial class discussion. Any communication would have to be by text, email, messenger, Skype etc It will be interesting to see if we can facilitate 'faceless' collaboration, which would ve excellent in demonstrating the 'information economy'. Hopefully, more to come.
   The other exercise I'm quite intrigued by involved setting 'cloud homework' after looking at the passage of an Atlantic depression I'm Britain. It was a very simple piece of work involving students cloud spotting at the time of their pleasing over the weekend. They had to record the time, date and cloud type using the Cloud Appreciation Society guide. I'm intending randomly redistributing these 'clouds' as a tag and asking students to place them on a depression as a starter or plenary. Simple idea, but hopefully it  connects students with the topic by actually absorbing what is around them.

   
   
   
   

2. Mindless Wandering through Academic Requirements
   → John Connell: the blog | Wed Feb 22 19:58:05 +0000 2012

   From an article entitled Postsecondary Education in the Changing Learning and Living Landscapes, by Yusra Laila Visser, in Learners in a Changing Learning Landscape (eds Visser & Visser-Valfrey): The crux of the issue faced by learners is that they cannot assume that mindlessly wandering through the maze of academic requirements for any postsecondary learning endeavour [...]

3. Happy Birthday Heinrich
   → Alan Coady's Musical Blog | Wed Feb 22 17:23:03 +0000 2012

   If you are a guitarist then today is the day joyously to play D# - string 4, fret 1. The reason to celebrate the 155th birthday of Heinrich Rudolph Hertz (1857-94), the man after whom the calibration of pitch frequency is named. That D# (the one below Middle C)  is the nearest note to 155 Hz. 1 Hz = 1 [...]

4. Is your school up for a UK-wide Maths Challenge?
   → ICT for Teaching & Learning in Falkirk Primary Schools | Wed Feb 22 17:01:00 +0000 2012

   Can your pupils become national maths champions? Will they claim maths glory for your school? Together with the British Science Association, the free online maths resource Manga High is running a UK-wide Maths Challenge. Manga High is a free online games-based maths teaching resource aimed at 7-16 year-olds.  Mangahigh.com combines the development of maths skills with video [...]

5. New CfE Films – Impact and Benefits
   → Engage for Education | Wed Feb 22 15:32:47 +0000 2012

   Learners, teachers and parents in their own words.

6. Glow Meet CPD Event: Building the Curriculum 4: skills in the early years
   → EduICT News | Wed Feb 22 12:55:41 +0000 2012

   A key aim of this Glow Meet will be to promote discussion and to inspire practitioners to explore different approaches to skills development in the early years. Date: Wednesday 29th February Time: 4.00pm – 4.30pm This Glow Meet is appropriate … Continue reading ?

7. *TODAY*: Glow Meet – Health and Wellbeing Outdoors – Quiet Spaces
   → EduICT News | Wed Feb 22 12:47:10 +0000 2012

   Today at 4.15pm Glow users can join a free 40 minute CPD session on using the outdoors to foster and strengthen personal coping skills and positive relationships. Pre-registration is not essential. The session will also be recorded and available for … Continue reading ?

8. We're hiring!
   → SQA Computing blog | Wed Feb 22 10:48:32 +0000 2012

   We try to be fair and transparent when we ask for volunteers to work with us. Social media is a great tool for this.
   
   We have recently been looking for people to help us with a number of new projects. We use our online group for this. So, if you are interested in working with the SQA Computing team, please subscribe to the SQA Computing online community, and you will be kept up-to-date with the new opportunities as they arise.
   
   Working with SQA is not only professionally rewarding (it's great CPD), but you are paid, and, most importantly, you are affecting national qualifications, which are taught in every school and college in Scotland. So, it's a great way of making a real difference to Scottish education.
   
   The online group is used for more than recruitment. It's a great way of asking (and answering) questions about any aspect of the portfolio of SQA Computing awards. Please subscribe here or simply click on the Groupspaces button on the right.

   

9. New John Gray Centre web site is live!
   → EduICT News | Wed Feb 22 10:08:29 +0000 2012

   Why not be one of the first to visit the new John Gray Centre’s new web site, http://www.johngraycentre.org? Their Helen Bleck has today announced that it’s now live: I just wanted to let you all know that our ‘real’ URL, www.johngraycentre.org, … Continue reading ?

10. Exploring People and the Past (Level 4) - Now Available
    → Ollie Bray | Wed Feb 22 10:00:00 +0000 2012

    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...

11. What do you seek in a wood for play?
    → I'm a teacher, get me OUTSIDE here! | Wed Feb 22 06:41:06 +0000 2012

    These past three days I've had the privilege of working with Karen Boyd, Central Scotland Education Adviser for Forestry Commission Scotland. We've been running a course for Early Years practitioners about developing regular visits to woodland and other nearby greenspace.
    
    One of the topics we've covered is what features to consider in a wood for play purposes. The participants were given a short appraisal form to help them assess the play potential of a woodland area. This originally began life in the Forest Kindergarten Feasibility Study in Appendices 4-6 where it was refined three times. And we've continued the process (think of Edison and the light bulb being a 10,000 step process - so we've done well here with just 5 attempts)!
    
    Here's the woodland site of St Paul's Forest Kindergarten. You can see a lovely YouTube clip of this Forest Kindergarten which has been up and running for over 2 years.
    

    
    
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    It was this site we visited yesterday with the course participants so they could see a Forest Kindergarten session in action. Hopefully the photos below will give you a good sense of it's play potential.
    
    Below is the path down to the Forest Kindergarten site (one of five different locations within this one wood):
    
    
    
    
    
    Firstly despite being surrounded by housing, the place has a feeling of wildness. You can't hear traffic.
    
    
    
    
    
    But you can hear the small river at the bottom of the ravine. It's in spate today but in warmer weather visiting the stream is a valuable play activity.

    
    

    

    
    

    Like many urban settings, dumping is common place. I'm sure this will change over time, with greater community use such as the nursery children visiting regularly. For example, at another nearby nursery the parents organised a community clean up of their wood.

    
    

    

    
    

    The site has steep slopes which the children love to climb up and down. There's a tree with wonderful roots systems that can help.

    
    

    

    
    

    There are steep drops round parts of the site. This may be nerve-wracking for some practitioners. 

    
    

    

    
    

    However most children have an innate sensibility and do not wander over the edge. They know to stay well back. These boundaries are reinforced at the beginning of every visit. There's also a high ratio of adults to children.

    
    

    The path to the site is muddy. This is part of the attraction - squelching through the mud! The site seems to be withstanding regular use and the nursery does vary which site it visits to avoid too much wear and tear.

    
    

    

    
     Children love features such as archways. logs to jump off and clamber over, trees to climb and places to make dens. I'll blog more about this shortly! For me, this is all about the affordances of a natural site - lots of big open-ended features such as this arch below which a child can use in so many ways. This is in combination with many loose parts - sticks, leaves and stones which encourage creativity and imaginative play.
    
    

    

    
    

    Below is the entrance to the woods. It's an old bridge and you can see just how close the residential area is to the woods. It's a truly urban site.

    
    

    

    
    

    This post doesn't do justice to all the features that make woodlands just perfect for play. I'd love to hear your ideas, suggestions and experiences. Let's share the magic of these places!

    

12. Big History comes to Scotland - great CPD opportunity for Scottish teachers
    → Ollie Bray | Tue Feb 21 20:49:42 +0000 2012

    Ian Stuart (@islayian) and I first met David Christian at the Microsoft Partners in Learning Global Education Forum in Washington DC in November 2011. David was talking about Big History and we were instantly impressed with the quality of David’s...

13. Doran Review begins call for evidence
    → Engage for Education | Tue Feb 21 14:51:58 +0000 2012

    The Doran Review is currently gathering evidence and wants to hear from as many individuals and organisations as possible to help inform its work.

14. edmodo – a VLE for teachers who don’t like VLEs
    → Keynet | Tue Feb 21 10:47:05 +0000 2012

    Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) are now seen by many educators to be an essential element of modern teaching and learning. They are ubiquitous in further and higher education. In England and Wales every school is required to have a VLE and in Scotland, all schools have access to Glow Learn, a free VLE provided as [...]

15. Global citizenship development opportunity for teachers
    → Engage for Education | Tue Feb 21 10:44:04 +0000 2012

    The Global Teachers Programme run by Link Community Development Scotland is designed to help embed global citizenship in schools and includes a five week placement in Uganda.

16. Eternal Copyright? Fair Enough!
    → John Connell: the blog | Tue Feb 21 09:38:55 +0000 2012

    .… it’s clear that our current copyright law is inadequate and unfair. We must move to Eternal Copyright – a system where copyright never expires, and a world in which we no longer snatch food out of the mouths of our creators’ descendants. With eternal copyright, the knowledge that our great-great-great-grandchildren and beyond will benefit [...]

17. Social Media in Education Round-Table
    → John Connell: the blog | Tue Feb 21 06:53:48 +0000 2012

    With a genuinely stellar cast leading the discussion, GETideas.org is running a virtual round-table on ‘Social Media in Education: what’s working and what’s not’. Those involved include great educators and communicators such as Ron Burnett, Judy O’Connell and Anna Batchelder. The debate got under way with Mary Anne Petrillo asking some interesting questions: Should researchers, [...]

18. The holy curiosity of inquiry
    → John Connell: the blog | Mon Feb 20 18:58:18 +0000 2012

    It is in fact nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of education have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry.…It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty. Albert Einstein Technorati Tags: [...]

19. Scotland and PISA 2012
    → Engage for Education | Mon Feb 20 17:30:37 +0000 2012

    Scotland is one of 65 countries worldwide taking part in the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).

20. Big History
    → Experimental Blog | Mon Feb 20 16:49:08 +0000 2012

    <iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/YG5LFLrQePI" width="640"></iframe>
    

    Winging its way out to Directors of Education and Headteachers tomorrow a superb opportunity for three schools and the science and social science departments ...and more

    We have been invited as a Nation to participate in the pilot roll out of the Big History Project
    Funded by Bill Gates directly through Bill Gates Catlyst Three. This is a superb opportunity to be part of a cutting edge,  project based learning,  global project - that fits very well with a Curriculum for Excellence
    
    
    The SQA and The BIg History Project  invite applications to be part of The Big History Project and join pilot schools in Australia and USA

    • We are looking for three secondary schools in close proximity to each other - this is stipulation from the Big History Project.
    • Funding is available for two teachers from each school to attend the programme induction in Seatlle, USA between 22-25th March 2012.
    • These teachers will be a Science Teacher and a Social Subjects Teacher ( the curriculum leaders).
    • Participating schools need to deliver the Big History programme as a pilot from September 2012 to a 2nd or 3rd Year cohort  and provide feedback where appropriate.  
    • Participating schools will also be expected to carry out a curriculum mapping exercise for the Big History Project materials to the experiences and outcomes of CfE.

    
    You can find out more about the Big History Project here www.bighistoryproject.com/
    You can hear a message from David Christian to Scottish Schools here http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/video/b/video_tcm4687443.asp
    
    Pilot schools will gain experience of working with global partners on a new and innovative multidisciplinary curriculum.
    
    To apply for this opportunity - we need  an Education Authority’s nomination of three suitable schools.  The project will meet the travel and subsistence costs associated with the programme but will not provide cover costs for the  induction programme.
    
    Applications will be screened by panel drawn from SQA, Education Scotland and The Big History Project.
    
    Applications should consist of one side A4  with  a simple statement  from each of three nominated schools on Why the Big History project appeals to them.  
    
    Attached to the application we need  a name and short resume of  the Science and Social Science Teacher nominated to take part in induction programme.from each of the three schools. Given the tight timescale on this nominees need to hold a full British Passport.
    
    Applications close on Monday 5th of March - successful applicants will be contacted to make travel arrangements on 7th of March .
    
    Applications should be emailed to Liam.Priest@sqa.org.uk

     

    A special thanks due to @olliebray and @islayian for spotting this opportunity and making the introductions that made this happen
    
    

21. How the other half lives with liturgy ...
    → blethers | Mon Feb 20 16:23:52 +0000 2012

    Last week I spent some time in interestingly erudite company thinking about Liturgy. I tend to feel, on these occasions, like the class idiot - the one who asks the questions no-one else does - but in fact this time I felt I had prepared rather more than usual by reading up on the background and rationale behind our 1982 liturgy, and I realise now that as a result of the two days of meetings I'm still thinking about what we do .
    
    I can't begin to plunge into the detail, but things that stuck include:
    The perils of over-specificity even in poetic images in liturgy.
    The fact that clergy tend to have a different view on the above from laity simply because they repeat it with greater frequency.
    The 1970 consecration prayer is much improved by removing some of the parenthesis and repetition of ideas and the archaic pronouns and verb forms.
    I found myself objecting less vigorously than has become my wont when we used the 1970 liturgy on Sunday.
    I enjoy the company of academics, while recognising how studiousness has never been my forte.
    I don't want to sit any more exams, even to become officially a Lay Reader.
    "And also with you" is as weak a response as it always seemed to be.
    It's usually clergy who insist that a Service of The Word is an acceptable substitute for a Sunday communion service - usually when the Reserved Sacrament is involved - bearing in mind that this is a service they need never attend if they don't want to.
    Once you start worrying about gender bias in liturgy you realise how useful the word "God" is. But "man" is still a no-no, whatever men say about mankind...
    
    I'd better stop. But it's always fascinating to step out of my own worship zone and realise what other Episcopalians take - or do not take - for granted. Andrew's recent post touches on that, interestingly. It's hard work being part of a huge, sparsely-populated - let alone priested - diocese. But every time I step out of it I'm reinforced in one central idea.
    
     I wouldn't be anywhere else.