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he job of teaching * Join in the discussion reddit this Comments (1) Wendy Berliner Guardian Professional, Monday 3 October 2011 18.30 BST Article history Teacher Daniel Hartley from Chulmleigh Community College, Devon. Photograph: Apex Back in the summer we decided here at GTN HQ that, with our membership rocketing, it was the right time to mark our first six months in operation with a survey to find out what members thought about teaching today. There were questions across a wide spectrum of topics and, at the end, we left a free text box for teachers to add any comments they wanted to share. It was the dying days of the summer holiday - August 25 - when it went out just after lunch. We knew the survey would take ten or 15 minutes to complete so we weren't quite expecting what happened next, but within those first few hours after its release, we realised you had started something big. By 10.30pm that night we'd had several hundred questionnaires back, which in itself was impressive with many teachers perhaps still away on holiday or back but busy preparing for the new term. The most impressive thing of all was the content of those text boxes. There was just so much of it. Some people wrote several hundred words at a time, speaking clearly from the heart and arguing cogently against the things they felt were going wrong in education. A love of teaching and vocational pleasure felt working with children and young people emerged but it was emerging from a fog caused by far less pleasant aspects of the job - disrespect from society and governments, bullying by senior management, other teachers, parents and students, despair at the parenting skills of some homes and despair with government targets and league tables that were funnelling education into an ever thinner tube feeding stuff that improved Sats and exam results rather than nourishing a lifelong love of learning. One former solicitor questioning the sense of the switch into teaching said: " M

"Use your voice to give students feedback about their papers in Google Docs. I've only played with this a little bit so far, but I'm really excited to be able to use Kaizena to give my students feedback this year. Being able to add links to resources and reuse those links for other students is so helpful."

A range of digital tools are listed that will allow students to reflect or comment on issues or put their own point of view. They are listed under headings such as writing, multimedia, speaking, performing/directing and artistic expression. Each offers a discussion about the strategy, the tools that could be used and ideas about measuring success.

You can now give students voice feedback about their writing in Google Docs.

when it comes to preparing students for success in the 21st century you not only have to think outside the ban, sometimes you have to dive in head first and break it. The following is a collection of ideas each teacher implemented to successfully break and/or work within the ban where they teach in an effort to empower students with the freedom to use their cell phones as personal learning devices.

"A collection of popular Android apps to help students with their writing. Using these apps students will be able to: access a wide variety of creative writing prompts, generate plots and outlines for writing projects, focus more on the writing task under hand using distraction-free editors and many more."

Every Year 8 student at Warwick Senior High School has been given an iPod to use during class and school hours to research, access school-created information and download relevant applications. Assignments and homework can also be completed online. A huge array of applications has been made available to download, enabling students to create practice tests, learn about percentages and translate voice recordings.

A safe way for teachers to text message students and stay in touch with parents. Free.

"My prediction is that if dictation technologies become less expensive and more widely available, and if it becomes normal to use them for everyday writing (such as email and text messaging), then students will grow disinclined to type their writing assignments, preferring instead to rattle off their compositions by voice. Educators will thus be confronting inescapable decisions about how they should respond to students' inclinations to write with dictation technologies."

"Handheld computers are everywhere. From mobile phones to handheld games, it's a very familiar sight to see people of all ages gazing into screens that they can hold. Schools are discovering that handhelds like iPod touch and iPad make great learning tools. In fact, handhelds can play a big part in project based learning. Not only do projects motivate students because they use exciting handheld technology, but they also lend themselves to student voice and choice. Watch or read below to be inspired to bring project based learning into your classroom, learn strategies for creating effective driving questions, and see how an iOS handheld can play a role in the the planning, research/investigation, and presentation of projects."

"You can now give students voice feedback about their writing in Google Docs. This short video will show you how. You will need to teach students how to hit the comments button to access the link to your feedback."

Peter DeWitt questions why we do not make better use of blogs to support learning. He provides a number of possibilities, including curation, media literacy, student voice, assessing learning, collaboration and artistic freedom.

"For the teacher, leaving a comment on students work is as simple as playing the slides and clicking on the text, voice or web camera comment button at the bottom of the page."

"A Community of Practice for teachers using edmodo. Work in Progress" This Wikispace from teachers in NSW covers About Best Practices edmodo and school safety edmodo for Student Voice Independent Schools NSW DEC Topics Parents Resource List School Directory School Policy School Subdomains Selling edmodo Teacher Stories Teacher Topics The edmodo FAQ Use Edmodo - Primary School Using Edmodo - General Using Edmodo - High School Using Edmodo - Special Needs

"At first Snozerr looks like most audio recorders, until you notice the button for the camera. This app gives you the ability to take photos while recording audio; each picture is timestamped to the point in the recording where the photo was taken, and you can easily synchronize the images with the audio for later playback. This combination of features makes Snozerr an ideal app for students recording lectures and workers recording presentations with lots of infographics. You can use the timestamped photos to target the interesting parts of the lecture and ignore the non-relevant parts. All of the voice and photo files created in one session are linked together, so it is easy to share content with your peers. The app also supports nested hierarchical organization, dual cameras, and sending files by email."

"Listen Current makes it easy to bring authentic voices and engaging non-fiction stories to the classroom. We curate the best of public radio to keep teaching connected to the real world and build student listening skills at the same time."

"Do Now is a new series of activities for students to respond to current issues through the use KQED's award-winning online media resources and social media tools like Twitter."

A great clean tool that could be used in Special Ed and Primary grades to support Literacy for those students who have difficulty writing/typing