Diigo In Education

Today I had the pleasure of joining over three-hundred educators for a day of learning and sharing. That this was a Sunday and that the event was organised as a free event for educators by educators speaks volumes of the quality and care that educators bring to their role. 

"Create polls and quizzes for your pupils to answer using their devices. Invite pupils to contribute to quiz questions and collect detailed data for assessment and feedback."

"With an increased awareness of the need to develop a more flexible approach in delivering 'value' to learning experiences and providing teaching staff with opportunities for greater creativity in the teaching process, then Edward De Bono's Six Thinking Hats (1994) may be a tool to help increase academic achievement and behaviours."

"Organising information to find clarity is key for making good decisions. This collaborative mind-mapping tool allows multiple users to work together to put together their ideas and resources."

"New research from King's College London finds that teacher assessments are equally as reliable as standardised exams at predicting educational success. The researchers say their findings, published today in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, question whether the benefits of standardised exams outweigh the costs."

"Every learning organisation has a culture. This forms an underlying set of values and ways of doing things which determines how practice is maintained, and changes resisted or embraced. This culture changes slowly over time and resides in the experience and experiences of staff and other significant stakeholders in the organisation. A wise leader, before embarking on significant changes, would do well to ensure they understand the cultural drivers of the particular school for these may accelerate, or hinder the pace and direction of change."

"Girls are more often bullied than boys and are more likely to consider, plan, or attempt suicide, according to research led by a Rutgers University-Camden nursing scholar. "Bullying is significantly associated with depressive symptoms, suicidal ideation, suicide planning, and suicide attempts," says Nancy Pontes, an assistant professor at the Rutgers School of Nursing-Camden. "We wanted to look at this link between bullying victimization, depressive symptoms, and suicidality by gender." In an examination of data from the Centers for Disease Control's nationally representative Youth Risk Behavior Survey from 2011-2015, Pontes and her fellow researchers conducted analyses of the data and found that more females are negatively affected by bullying."

Very simple graphic builder and easy to use

Concept mapping tool

Brainstorm online with bubbl.us. Easily create colorful mind maps to print or share with others. Almost no learning curve. Businesses, universities, and other schools are using bubbl.us worldwide to generate ideas, map out processes and create presentations.

"Teachers want to see more support for parents to help them resist the practice of 'off-rolling'. New research for Ofsted finds that a quarter of teachers have seen off-rolling - when a child is removed from the school roll for the school's benefit, rather than in the child's best interests - happen in their schools. Two-thirds of these teachers believe the practice is on the rise. The study, based on survey responses from over 1000 teachers, paints a concerning picture of the extent of off-rolling in England's schools. Teachers believe that parents with less understanding of the education system and their rights are most likely to be pressured into taking their child out of school."

"Research undertaken by University College in London has found that school break times in England have shortened, with infants receiving 45 minutes less per week, with their secondary peers losing 65 minutes over the same period. Researchers analysed questionnaires completed at 993 primaries and 199 secondaries in 2017 along with separate pupil surveys at 37 schools. These were compared with surveys in similar schools in 2006 and 1995. The report claims their results gave the impression that breaks were being kept as "tightly managed and as short as possible" and this meant pupils could be missing out on social development and highlighted how "school is increasingly the main, and in some cases the only, context where young people get to socialise"."

The message is now unpacked for the class. The jar represents our lives, and the challenge is to decide what we will fill our lives with. The large rocks represent those things which matter most in our lives. The gravel and sand the small things which occupy our time and keep us from what matters most. - How might this help us focus on what matters for our learners?

"Researchers from the Oxford Internet Institute (OII), part of the University of Oxford, used an eight-year survey of UK households (Understanding Society, part of the UK Household Longitudinal Study) to study how long teenagers spent using social media on a normal school day and their corresponding life satisfaction ratings. This is the first large-scale and in-depth study testing not only whether adolescents who report more social media use have lower life satisfaction but also whether the reverse is true. Before this study scientists had little means of disentangling whether adolescents with lower life satisfaction use more social media or whether social media use leads to lower life satisfaction."

"A new study from North Carolina State University finds that educating children about climate change increases their parents' concerns about climate change. "There's a robust body of work showing that kids can influence their parents' behavior and positions on environmental and social issues, but this is the first experimental study demonstrating that climate education for children promotes parental concern about climate change," says Danielle Lawson, lead author of a paper on the work and a Ph.D. student at NC State."

"From the outset, I want to be clear - Leonardo da Vinci, not Leonardo DiCaprio. But don't despair, there is a still a lot Mr da Vinci has to offer in our modern world, with many of seven key concepts that drove his inventive thinking still helping to influence our creative thinking. Ray Speakman and Ian Warwick, in their book, look closely at the seven key concepts that influenced da Vinci's life, and how they can make our own learning more original and thoughtful. The seven key concepts are no big secret, but the authors frame them into a modern narrative that makes understanding ourselves, nature and reality possible. Throughout, much is made of Leonardo's notebooks - the sanctuary where he noted his observations, thoughts and discoveries - where he was constantly pushing his understanding to the edges of what was possible during the period he lived. A lot can be learned from such an approach, as jotting down our thoughts, discoveries and inspirations can help us organise our minds - and could be beneficial for many young learners."

"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."

"When I look at my timetable for the week, it isn't the recorder practice which happens next door first thing every Monday morning which fills me full of dread, nor the infamous Friday afternoon slot which brings about a sense of foreboding. My true timetable terror occurs shortly after school on a Wednesday afternoon. The (unrelenting) weekly staff meeting should be a time to coordinate with colleagues, create inspirational ideas for the way ahead, and take key decisions for the future of the school. A chance to bring clarity to the chaos, and move the things forward."

"I never realised that doing group work could be such a controversial activity in teaching until I discovered Twitter! This post is not going to consider if you should use group work, but how to do it effectively should you choose to use it as part of your teaching repertoire. As a science teacher, group work is a given. It just isn't practical to equip every student with every piece of equipment they need to complete an experiment on their own. There is also the issue of time, space and safety, all of which, I feel, may be compromised if you have 28 overenthusiastic students trying to do an experiment at the same time."