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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

"Quandary is a free, online game that engages your students in ethical decision-making and develops skills that will help them recognize ethical issues and deal with challenging situations in their own lives. This page brings together all the information you need to successfully implement Quandary as part of your teaching, including a handy teacher guide, classroom implementation video, lesson plan and worksheet. We've also mapped the game to the Common Core standards. And don't forget to head over to the teachers' forum to share your own ideas and discuss tips and techniques from other educators."

"Enter an equation, choose some settings, and graph it. There are a number of functions you can use to plot, you can save the graphs to use later (in documents, worksheets, etc.), you can create a permanent link to them to share with others, and a few other nice little things (like getting a quick graph by going to an address like http://graphsketch.com/sqrt(x) )."

"Students can experience new cultures, history, and understand the world in better ways with virtual reality, augmented reality, and wearables. Teachers are using these technologies to send learners on virtual field trips or getting students to keep track of their steps, cardio, and health with fitness bands. These technologies help engage learners by providing sensory learning and sparking curiosity and imagination. For your next classes, go beyond getting students to read and learn only from worksheets and books. Integrate virtual reality, augmented reality, or wearables to create meaningful learning experiments for students. This post has a slide presentation (free to download) followed by bookmarks filled with activities and resources."

"Free education resources for Teaching. Standards-aligned and customizable." Free Online Textbooks, FlashCards, Exercises, RWA's, Simulations

"The Physics Classroom is an online, free-to-use physics website developed primarily for high school physics students and teachers. The website features a variety of sections intended to support both teachers and students in the tasks of learning and teaching physics."

"Derrick Waddell created a Facebook template for historical figures to leverage student interest. This template, available through the Google Docs public template gallery, asks students to complete a Facebook profile for famous people throughout history with a place for pictures, an "about me" section, a friends column, and a map to plot the travels of historical figures. It will not result in an actual Facebook account being created."

Amazing concept, building on what some teachers probably already managed to do with a pencil and paper worksheets but with an online language that some students will be already familiar with.

Hooda Math believes in math learning through play. Mr. Edlavitch credits board and card games for his early enjoyment of mathematics. Hooda Math believes free online math games can do the same for students today.