Evangelist
This sketch from the always excellent Gaping Void got me thinking, are there some teachers you shouldn’t bother pushing even the best technology at?
This sketch from the always excellent Gaping Void got me thinking, are there some teachers you shouldn’t bother pushing even the best technology at?
At the end of an ordinary Year 9 lesson on scatter graphs I had a flash of inspiration and remembered the fantastic Gapminder World tool courtesy of Google and Gapminder. For the uninitiated this is a dynamic graphing package populated with a range of data about countries covering the last 30 years. You choose two…
David is one of our greatest games designers, I was excited to hear him talk as I’ve been playing his games since the 80s! What motivates kids today? Fame, money, instant gratification. Not hard work and days of graft. So are today’s kids doomed? Games are a great weapon for education, as Dawn greatly pre-empted. Games…
This Thursday I have an interview for the post of Director of E-Learning at a local High School. Inspired by Doug Belshaw’s recent interview/blog/twitter success, (congratulations again Doug!) I would appreciate my personal learning network’s help! I have to present for 10 mins and also teach for 30. My presentation is on “Your Vision for…
“I often refer to Animoto as a gateway to "real” video projects. Animoto makes it very easy for anyone to create a great-looking video.“ Richard Byrne on Animoto for iOS. Good point, great product, good app. Our Humanities department in particular are using this to create fantastic, engaging videos for topics and even for types…
Assessing without levels – Milestones At our school we took the decision last Summer to embrace the opportunities available to move away from National Curriculum levels. Our approach isn’t revolutionary, but I think it’s worth sharing. Background I personally felt that there were numerous issues with the old NC levels. They were not as well…
How accurately can we set targets and predict performance of pupil’s exam attainment? At this time of year the pressure is on teachers and leaders in school to know exactly how their young people will perform in the GCSE exams that they are currently sitting. There is an expectation from leaders, governors and of course…
When I think about the schools I have taught in and especially my current school there are teachers that don’t respond as fervently as others towards technologies being brought into the classroom. Whether those tools are being used to gain a pupil’s interest, enhance our teaching or promote learning some teachers just prefer to stick with what they know that works, even if it might only be the blackboard and a stick of chalk.
Pushing technology into classrooms to benefit teaching and learning will only result in some people drawing back through nonchalance or skepticism. Those of us who are interested in it need also to show that it works , that it is effective and that it can help to raise standards.
I guess it’s the same as any ‘different’ way of teaching, if you can’t show that it works in your own teaching, you’re not going to get far!