educators

"It's the end of the first week of term and it has been so positive. I have tried to spend most of my day being the leader I want to be, engaging the 'spirit energy' (see Peter Drucker). I spent summer reflecting on my values and vision, and I'm fortunate to have been handed the reins for the Curriculum in my school. To realise the vision, I've employed the help of a team of subject leaders, and today I met with them for the first time. I knew this was probably our most important discussion; my opportunity to engage them in the future (see Steve Radcliffe, Future Engage Deliver), and so I spent the week prior to this discussing and reflecting with SLT to ensure I was ready."

Student happiness and motivation are so vitally important that without them, kids simply don't want to learn. If kids don't want to learn, then they won't learn. It's that simple.

"This is an amazing Google Docs add-on which allows you to make audio and other comments and feedback on students' work. It's a wonderfully easy way to mark homework and assignments. Students can also reply to feedback with audio comments."

"This is just about the geekiest site I have ever seen… and I love it. Learn how to code by designing the perfect programming to enable you to battle in a medieval realm. This site has been developed especially for children and begins with easy challenges and build to higher levels of programming skill. There is even a multiplayer area so users can battle with their friends."

"New rights and responsibilities regarding personal data are set to be released in Europe on 25th May 2018 under the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). For individuals, new rights are given by knowing what information organisations hold about you, and what they can do with it. Organisations have new obligations, including ensuring permission has been given to hold such data and responsibilities about the way the data is held. The changes affect everyone, including schools, educational companies, and individuals."

"A new study conducted among more than 177,000 students suggests that insufficient sleep duration is associated with an unhealthy lifestyle profile among children and adolescents. Results show that insufficient sleep duration was associated with unhealthy dietary habits such as skipping breakfast (adjusted odds ratio 1.30), fast-food consumption (OR 1.35) and consuming sweets regularly (OR 1.32). Insufficient sleep duration also was associated with increased screen time (OR 1.26) and being overweight/obese (OR 1.21). "Approximately 40 percent of schoolchildren in the study slept less than recommended," said senior author Labros Sidossis, PhD, distinguished professor and chair of the Department of Kinesiology and Health at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. "Insufficient sleeping levels were associated with poor dietary habits, increased screen time and obesity in both genders.""

"Lego seems to never wane in popularity and my class love it. This site allows you to convert a photo into a blockish Lego image - great for profile pictures and class displays."

"In a world first, breakthrough research from La Trobe University has shown that toddlers with autism are just as capable of learning important life skills through early-intervention delivered in mainstream pre-schools as in specialised settings. Over a period of three years, 44 children aged between 15 and 32 months were randomly assigned to classrooms that included only children with autism or to classrooms with typically developing peers."

"Drawing from almost 200 scientific studies on workplace meetings, a team of psychological scientists provides recommendations for making the most out of meetings before they start, as they're happening, and after they've concluded. Their report is published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Meetings are a near-ubiquitous aspect of today's professional workplace and there is abundant trade wisdom and written guidance about how meetings should be run. But, as researchers Joseph Mroz and Joseph Allen (University of Nebraska Omaha) and Dana Verhoeven and Marissa Shuffler (Clemson University) point out, very little of this guidance is informed by the available science."

"Two child-friendly music Apple apps. A sound sampler which record sounds and play them back to make interesting 'music', the other is drum machine. Supply your own earplugs!"

"Prowise has made all the unique education possibilities that Prowise Presenter has to offer accessible to everyone, for free. This applies to non-paying, paying and new users. From now on, everyone has free access to all the functionalities the education software has to offer. This way the company, based in Birmingham, makes progress towards their ambition to make digital education accessible for everyone, globally."

"Writing is vital to most examples of learning. It is how civilisation conveys information from generation to generation, it is how parents often communicate their needs and fears for their children as notes to the teacher, and it is how little Johnny/Jane tells you about what their cat and/or dog did at the weekend. Some people love writing, while others struggle with it, but everyone has to write to some degree in their daily lives, and all of this stems from their experiences in the classroom."

"What are those key phrases you hear from frustrated teachers in the staffroom during breaks? Or on those rare occasions, you get to meet up with teachers from other schools on training courses? For me it is the following: 'They give up so easily,' 'Where is their stickability?' 'Why do they fear making a mistake?' However it is phrased, you get the gist, that pupils today have no resilience, they aren't prepared to keep going in the face of challenge or set back. They can't think their way around a problem. In discussions with staff within my own school (a large primary in an area of high deprivation in the north of England) I am frequently asked how we can help these children. As part of our school's SLT I have already supported staff to make daring changes to our curriculum but we still seem to be falling short of what we state in our vision; that we want our children to become resilient learners, confident individuals, critical thinkers and lifelong learners. (Traits that I am sure many schools up and down the land wish for their pupils to develop.) Why are our pupils struggling with 'resilience'? What opportunities can we, as a school, provide our children so that they develop these skills? After reading the blurb and the introductory pages, I was, as you can imagine, excited to delve further into this book to see if it could answer some of my questions."

"Poignant environmental video featuring a destructive orangutan and a little girl. The cartoon highlights how the products we buy have an impact on the environment - in this example, on the rainforests."

"From now, Spotify users can follow and listen to UKEdPodcast episodes directly within the app, available on SmartPhones, desktops and Smart Devices."

"In his new book, Adrian Bethune explores different angles of the life of children who are of primary-school age. For example, in a fascinating first chapter, Bethune examines our tribal roots, tapping into our pupils' primitive social instincts and their powerful effects on wellbeing and ability to learn. Citing the work of Louis Cozolino (Click here to view The Social Neuroscience of Education: Optimizing Attachment and Learning in the Classroom by Louis Cozolino on Amazon UK - worthy of a read itself) a tribal classroom embodies tribal qualities including a tribal leader, cooperation, teamwork, equality, fairness, trust and strong personal relationships. Such qualities enable everyone to feel valued and a feeling of a big family, helping secure positive relationships - the role of the teacher in this relationship is to help pupils feel like they belong, which is fundamental to learning. Developing this tribal theme, Bethune the proceeds to share ideas to be implemented in the primary classroom to help cultivate such positive relationships, including the design of a team flag, greetings and endings, teaching social skills, and building humour and games into the setting."

"This is a great site to make interactive quizzes, diagrams and assessment resources. Choose the type of resource you want to make or search the shared resources from the community, then share with your students."

"There's a good reason why universities have spent the last few years dedicating precious resources and time to fostering a collaborative learning environment. Students who are encouraged to participate in discussions, work cooperatively in small-group settings, and actively engage with their peers are believed to gain not only the cognitive skills needed to survive in the professional workplace but also the interpersonal ones needed to thrive. And for many, the approach seems to be working. But is it working for all students?"