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Not that long ago I was a writer of interesting and engaging educational programmes. Fortunately, that is no longer the case. The programmes that I wrote and shared with a team of teachers were generally well accepted and the feedback offered was always politely positive. I enjoyed writing these programmes but in recent times I have enjoyed even more stepping away from this process and in doing so empowering the team of teachers that I learn with. The programmes that this team produces far exceed the quality I could ever have hoped to produce but more importantly the students are benefiting from their experience of highly engaged and thus engaging teachers.

Closed down April 2011. Watch here for availability of video: The Department is making all 3,500 15min Teachers TV programmes and related content freely available on a non-exclusive basis. In return for undertaking to stream the programmes free at the point of use, you would be allowed to use the Teachers TV content commercially in the UK and in other countries. A full copy of the distribution agreement will be available to download. Details of where you can access digital versions of the programmes will be published here shortly.

Identifying what our children need to learn is one of the most important processes within education. For the teacher this is the question they engage with as they design their teaching and learning units. By no means is this an easy task and the teacher must balance multiple factors to ensure that the programmes they design provide their students with the learning they require. Even the most effective sequence of lessons is of little value if what it sets out to teach has little importance in the lives our learners are likely to lead. 

"A multi-national European study, looking at over 5,500 students, has found that a novel school intervention programme can not only improve the mathematics scores of primary school children from disadvantaged areas, but can also lessen the achievement gap caused by socioeconomic status. Known as the Dynamic Approach to School Improvement (DASI), the programme is based on the latest findings in educational research. Rather than a one-size-fits-all, top-down approach, DASI works by first assessing a school to identify the specific teaching areas that could be improved and then implementing targeted measures to improve them. This process involves all members of the school community, including teachers, pupils and parents, with support from a specialized Advisory and Research Team."

"Crickets are small programmable devices that can make things spin, light up, and play music. You can plug lights, motors, and sensors into a Cricket, then write computer programs to tell them how to react and behave. With Crickets, you can create musical sculptures, interactive jewelry, dancing creatures, and other artistic inventions -- and learn important math, science, and engineering ideas in the process. Crickets are based on more than a decade of NSF-funded educational research. Lifelong Kindergarten researchers collaborated with the LEGO company to create the first "programmable bricks," squeezing computational power into LEGO bricks. This research led to the LEGO MindStorms robotics kits, now used by millions of people around the world. While LEGO MindStorms is designed especially for making robots, Crickets are designed especially for making artistic creations. Crickets were refined in collaboration with the Playful Invention and Exploration (PIE) museum network, and are now sold as a product through the Playful Invention Company (PICO)."

The OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) has just published Let's Read Them a Story! The Parent Factor in Education. The document is worth looking at in its own right both as educators and as parents. I have one quibble with it - which you may read about in my blog-post. Thanks!

The benefits of embedding the teaching of writing into the curriculum have been advocated by educators and researchers. However, there is currently little evidence of embedded writing instruction in the UK's higher education context. In this article, we present a case study in which we report the design, implementation and evaluation of an academic writing intervention with first-year undergraduate students in an applied linguistics programme. Our objectives were to try a combination of embedded instructional methods and provide an example that can be followed by lecturers across disciplines and institutions. Through the integration of in-class and online writing tasks and assessment feedback in a first-term module, we supported students' writing development throughout the first term. We evaluated the effects of the intervention through the analysis of notes on classroom interaction, a student questionnaire and interviews, and a text analysis of students' writing and the feedback comments over time. The evaluation findings provide insights into the feasibility and effectiveness of this approach. The embedded writing instruction was perceived as useful by both students and teachers. The assessment feedback, whilst being the most work-intensive method for the teachers, was valued most by the students and led to substantial improvements in the writing of some. These findings suggest that embedded writing instruction could be usefully applied in other higher education contexts.

The current programme of information and communications technology (ICT) study in England's schools will be scrapped from September, the education secretary has announced. It will be replaced by an "open source" curriculum in computer science and programming designed with the help of universities and industry.

Technology and teaching - two words that seem to fit together perfectly today for most teachers and learners. So much so that a slew of new blogs have come on board to talk about education technology - or, edTech. This list of the 50 best education technology blogs are not inclusive, as there are so many new blogs available; however, if you look at links provided by many of these blogs to other edTech blogs, you may learn about even more blog that you aren't reading yet.

"Teachers in England are being invited to join a professional development opportunity through EarthEcho International sponsored by the Northrop Grumman Foundation. The 'EarthEcho Expeditions: What's the Catch?' programme leverages the rich Cousteau legacy of exploration and discovery to bring Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education alive for today's 21st-century learners and their educators. The free, expenses-paid opportunity is planned to allow secondary school teachers to participate as Expedition Fellows to learn first-hand from scientists and engineers the consequences of fisheries mismanagement and how this can be changed for the better with new technological approaches and discoveries."

I am participating in European SchoolNet's SMILE programme. It is a Facebook sponsored project around digital citizenship. This is a very short introduction.

PISA data. Freely available statistics on education Welcome to MyPISA, ACER's official website for the management and implementation of the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). This website consists of publicly accessible web-pages that you see right now, and secure pages designed for the exclusive use of those people directly involved with the implementation of PISA."

A free design course to encourage programmers/hackers into developing solid design skills, but most of the content is relevant to anyone wanting to improve their design skills (covers design in general including industrial design, web design, UX, etc). Some excellent resources are already available.

"An easy to follow design course for hackers who do amazing things. Receive a design lesson in your inbox each week, hand crafted by a design pro. Learn at your own pace, and apply it to your real life work - no fake projects here."

In 2011 footballer Xabi Alonso gave an interview to the Guardian on his experiences as a young player moving from Spain to Liverpool.  He describes the most significant difference here. I don't think tackling is a quality," he says. "It is a recurso, something you have to resort to, not a characteristic of your game. At Liverpool I used to read the matchday programme and you'd read an interview with a lad from the youth team. They'd ask: age, heroes, strong points, etc. He'd reply: 'Shooting and tackling'. I can't get into my head that football development would educate tackling as a quality, something to learn, to teach, a characteristic of your play...

Educational software that teaches students computer programming in a 3D environment ... for free!

This is a superb resource for making 3D storyboards and animations. The programme is a little complicated and is designed to be used by older children. It feels similar to Google SketchUp and it will have your class enthralled for hours with creative writing and animating fun. A large download, but worth it. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Video%2C+animation%2C+film+%26+Webcams

A collection of simple Makaton signing videos from the BBC's outstanding children's programme Something Special. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Special+Educational+Needs

"Like reading, writing, and arithmetic, web literacy is both content and activity. You don't just learn "about" reading: you learn to read. You don't just learn "about" arithmetic: you learn to count and calculate. You don't just learn "about" the web: you learn to make your own website. As with these other three literacies, web literacy begins simply, with basics you can build upon. For some it can lead to a profession (i.e. becoming a computer programmer) while for most it becomes part of the conceptual DNA that helps you to understand and negotiate the world you live in."

An excellent article about the importance of web and digital literacies.

Browser add-on for searching more efficiently. Works with Chrome, IE, Firefox. Export results to Evernote, Easybib, Google Docs, Diigo etc. 

Interesting you should bookmark this now. This was in my aggregator today from the Programmable web blog: http://blog.programmableweb.com/2010/07/12/mine-the-information-behind-the-search-with-these-apis/

This isn't just about online learning! How many of these roles do you fulfill as a teacher, "facilitator," or admin? How successful have professional development efforts been in getting teachers to try out new roles? How successful have they been in getting kids to try out some of these roles? What other roles are there for students?

Article comparing the lack of knowledge about the role of the educator at the moment with the blame put on 'bad teachers'.

what the humanities could learn from computer programmers