From The Cotswolds, UK to Boston, USA

I haven’t devoted as  much time to the blog as I should but I’ve noticed that many bloggers begin with an apology for not posting recently so perhaps I’m not so out of step… Anyway, the start of a new term, new opportunities and new challenges after a summer of relaxation, work and mixed weather. During the break, I tried to combine all three in one mini-project where I took advantage of the gaps in the summer rain to do a bit of walking and record progress using some easy-to-use GPS and then post to a free website service – the result: The Cotswold Way…

I would have tried the same thing to record my journey when I was lucky enough to visit Boston, USA to provide some training and insight on UK education. Northwest Airlines (bless it) decided to lose my luggage (containing the GPS tracker) for 48 hours though, so that didn’t work out. Boston’s a great city to visit though and well worth spending a day following the Freedom Trail and taking a boat trip to George’s Island.

That’ll do for now…

BETT 2009

Always exhausting but always somehow invigorating, BETT’s a chance to meet up with old and new friends, see some new things, and mix the social and the business. I spent much of the week working with RM on its Shaping Education for the Future programme – speaking at a couple of seminars and supporting the exhibition area.

RM Shaping Education for the Future

So, I didn’t get a chance to see as much of the show as I’d like but there’s never enough time anyway. Maybe we need a permanent educational exhibition area along the lines of the National Self Build Centre?

Samorost with an educational twist

I wrote a while ago about the willingness and ability of current generations to discover rules, procedures and properties for themselves, often in computer games.  Samorost and Treasure Box were a couple of enjoyably surrealistic examples. Interesting to see the makers of Samorost commissioned by the Beeb to produce a revision tool for 11-year olds. The combination of problem-solving and answering curriculum-based questions is a bit clunky but Questionaut is a treat nonetheless…

Questionaut

No time to read?

Although the National Year of Reading is about, er, reading, it’s also about the general encouragement of things bookish. Maybe this helps explain this rather defeatist comment from the organisation, “With such busy lives many people no longer have time to sit down with a book.” Hmm…

Still, the offer of a week of daily audio books for free download is a good promotional tool.

Our Future?

The 2007 PowerPoint presentation, “Shift Happens” by Karl Fisch had a huge impact on educational thinking and is still a strong agent to provoke discussion about the shape of education in the 21st century. It’s very US-centric, of course, and presents the case from an adult perspective. But what if children themselves asked these questions? That’s the aim of this short and provocative video…

(the right) Primary Schools for the Future

Building Schools for the Future is an ambitious programme to rebuild or renew every secondary school in England over a 10-15 year period. It hasn’t got off to the best start though and there has been a lot of criticism about its pace and complexity, and the suitability of some of the resulting new buildings. Let’s hope the same doesn’t happen with a plan to rebuild, refurbish or reorganise England’s primary schools. It’s been good therefore to work on some of the content for this site that helps schools and authorities plan successfully for primary schools of the future.

When praise backfires?

What do you think about these comments?

• “A teacher who praises a child may be unwittingly sending the message that the student reached the limit of his innate ability, while a teacher who criticizes a pupil conveys the message that he can improve his performance even further.”

• “Offering praise has become a sort of panacea for the anxieties of modern parenting.”
• “It turns out that the ability to repeatedly respond to failure by exerting more effort—instead of simply giving up—is a trait well studied in psychology.”
• “Students turn to cheating because they haven’t developed a strategy for handling failure.”

Read the rest of a fascinating article here.

The word “satisfied” gets a new definition

According to Lord Adonis (last week on Radio 4’s PM) parents were ’satisfied’ [sic] with the current process for getting an SEN statement for their children. Tell that to the 100+ parents who commented on the PM blog in angry response. Their comments are well worth a read and capture the essence of an absurd and unjust situation.

Discovering rules

Perhaps one thing that distinguishes the last generation or two from previous ones is their willingness – and ability – to discover rules, procedures and properties for themselves. Not sure if it’s a reluctance to be told things or more a sign of a liking for active learning and active discovery. In computer gaming, for example, the rules are there to be discovered (and broken). A couple of enjoyably surrealistic examples that don’t feature pneumatic tomb raiding women are Samorost and Treasure Box. Delightfully infuriating…

Without words

If my last post was about words (and animations), this is about pictures. With no text, other than setting the scene, Vulcan & Vishnu tells a story simply, with characterisation, humour and thoughtfulness. Would work great in the classroom too.