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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

"This week on Tech Weekly with games editor Keith Stuart we take a look at an emerging trend in games, where smartphones and cutting-edge robotics are used to create more socially inclusive and dynamic games. Joining Keith is Guardian writer Alex Hern; Iain Simons, director of the GameCity festival; and Jonathan Smith, games producer for Lego. The panel discuss why the screen is only a part of the gaming experience - and why small-scale, cheap robotics will open up a new world for developers. Also this week: Guardian tech writer Samuel Gibbs meets Ian Bernstein, co-creator of the robotic toy ball the Sphero, to find out about the evolution of the robot in gaming."

Interesting discussion about the future of gaming beyond 'the screen'.

Interesting article from the Guardian. "The effect of banning mobiles was the equivalent of an extra week's schooling over the academic year, according to the research. It also found that the ban had a greater positive impact on students with special education needs and those eligible for free school meals."

"If Google+ were a social network, you'd have to say that for one with more than 500 million members - that's about half the size of Facebook, which is colossal - it's having next to no wider impact. You don't hear about outrage over hate speech on Google+, or violent videos not getting banned, or men posing as 14-year-old girls in order to befriend real 14-year-old girls. Do people send Google+ links all over the place, in the way that people do from LinkedIn, or Twitter, or Facebook? Not really, no. There's a simple reason for this. Google+ isn't a social network. It's The Matrix."

"Schoolchildren are at risk of having their online activity tracked and monitored for targeted advertising by internet firms through free cloud based education services. A survey has found that many parents do not know about data mining - the process of tracking email and web browsing habits in order to target advertising - but once they do they have grave concerns for their kids' online privacy, and believe schools need to do more to protect it. The survey commissioned by American IT industry group SafeGov asked 1000 Australian parents about their knowledge of data mining."

"How will mobile phone technology such as Google Glass - the wearable gadget that searches for whatever we look at - and social networks like Facebook and Twitter influence our searches? Should we be concerned that sensitive personal information is being filtered through a small number of companies?"

"This advert for the Guardian's open journalism, screened for the first time on 29 February 2012, imagines how we might cover the story of the three little pigs in print and online. Follow the story from the paper's front page headline, through a social media discussion and finally to an unexpected conclusion"

"Google's new Wi-Fi dongle streams music, video and games to the television, but it's part of a wider battle to control entertainment in the living room"

"Analysis of millions of tweets finds more precise use of social media which seems to contradict idea that Twitter users want to share everything with everyone"

Past scandals, bad photos, critical comments: the internet has a long memory. As the EU considers the 'right to be forgotten', we investigate the growing business of online reputation management - and learn how you can airbrush your own past

"We have a romantic attachment to skills from the past which are no longer relevant on a curriculum for today's children"

The smartphone market is expanding at an astonishing rate, but is it damaging creativity and innovation on the web?

"Digital maps on smartphones are brilliantly useful tools, but what sort of information do they gather about us - and how do they shape the way we look at the world?"

"Anyone with a good digital idea can create a successful online business. So are the 'Makers', who are harnessing these new technologies, helping to reboot the manufacturing industry?"

"Google is 15 years old today. To celebrate, here are 15 facts you probably didn't know about them."

Google is 15 years old today. To celebrate, here are 15 facts you probably didn't know about them.

"It was 25 years ago today that Tim Berners-Lee suggested the creation of the world wide web. As the creator speaks to the Guardian about his hopes for its future, we look at the triumphs of accessibility and challenges to openness that mark the history of the web"

"Minecraft - 'a game about breaking and placing blocks' - is one of the world's biggest-selling computer games. When Jane Costello wanted to find out why her son Otis, eight, was so smitten, she quickly found out about its infinite possibilities"

"Forget devices, the future of education technology is all about the cloud and anywhere access. In the future, teaching and learning is going to be social, says Matt Britland"

it may turn out that removing a body that was meant to make it cheaper for schools to get computers, allows them to get a wider variety. And for children preparing for a computer-driven world, it might will be a boon if it can bring a more creative approach to how they use the machines in schools.