educators

"At the time of publication, it was leading up to 100 years since the cessation of fighting at the end of the First World War. The destruction of life, lands and families finally ceased for a couple of decades and bringing to mind the conflict of modern-day young generations is still important as lessons can be learned from those tragic battles."

8 Child-friendly coding projects with examples on Scratch

An online music maker. Choose the note on the keyboard and then draw the melody on the screen.

"This is a superb site and download where you can make 3D animated cartoons by selecting your props, characters and locations and then use blocks to programme how things move and interact in a similar way to MIT's Scratch. You can upload your creations to the website to share. There are a set of challenges to try and you can even remix animations designed by other users."

"Listen or download audio of 100 characters of text in many different languages. Perfect for language students engaged in self-directed study."

"In the week when the OECD published their latest report, noting that educational disadvantage starts from the age of 10 (click here to read the story) across many countries, and widens throughout students' lives, it is clear that many societies still have a lot to do. Whether the disadvantages are down to family circumstance, race, gender (identification), wealth and socio-economic background, or a distinct lack of opportunity and belief in oneself - what can education and educators do to help bridge the divide that allows opportunities for some, more than others?"

"An open source computer monitor system which allows you to see and control the your pupils' computers from one central teacher device."

"Strong relationships between teachers, parents and students at schools has more impact on improving student learning than does financial support, new research shows. Social capital is the name scientists give to the network of relationships between school officials, teachers, parents and the community that builds trust and norms promoting academic achievement."

"In our school this year, we are focusing on raising the attainment of boys in relation to their female peers. This is by no means anything new; the gender gap is an entity that has plagued school results for as long as I can remember (and probably long before that). I should say that our boys perform better than national averages, but do not perform as well as the girls. You might be sat there in the same position. You've got an interesting situation in your school, where girls are outperforming boys, it features prominently on your School Improvement Plan (SIP), and you've read all the new books on the subject etc."

"A great YouTube channel which aims to make information beautiful through superb graphics and narration. The videos are mostly about science."

Free online magazine for educators

"A major study into maths attainment has found that boys and girls perform equally in the subject, dispelling long-held myths around gender and education. The first UK-wide research of its kind for 13 years was carried out by Keith Topping, Professor of Educational and Social Research at the University of Dundee, and education assessment company Renaissance found differences in maths attainment between girls and boys to be almost negligible. The study also found that regular and high-quality maths practice improves outcomes across the board and that primary pupils outperformed secondary students, with better attainment scores."

"Only one in 30 children does the recommended amount of daily physical activity, new research suggests. Guidelines from the Chief Medical Officer say people aged five to 18 should do at least 60 minutes of "moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity" every day. Previous research has often used less than seven days of data on children's activity and created an average based on that."

"A set of Shakespeare resources, including podcasts, historical materials, and even online digital versions of the bard's texts."

"During the last 18 months, I have served as the mathematics teacher for an alternative high school in Nederland, CO. Our school operates with three full-time instructors and several support staff who teach various electives. One unique feature of our school is the advisory program. New students, within the first week of attendance, must interview each staff member. This provides an opportunity to meet every adult in the school and assists in the advisor-advisee matching process. The students provide three choices of adults to serve as their advisor until graduation."

"As a technology teacher, I always keep looking for new tools to excite my students. During parent-teacher conferences, when a parent comes and asks me how's their child doing at my subject I almost always say, "Everyone is good at technology" or "All of them love ICT lessons". But when I'm alone, I reflect on these statements many times. If everyone already loves technology and is good at it, then what am I here for? What's my role? This is a generation of digital natives. You show a two-year-old how to scroll through the camera roll of your phone once and they won't ask you again. This makes me question my validity again and again."

"A superb site which takes learners through a carefully constructed and practical course of coding in many different programming languages. There is an accompanying Apple app to get you started."

"Why teachers should embrace digital devices in the classroom"

"A fascinating 3D globe which shows air currents and lots of other data. View in real time or review past data. A must use site for geographers."

"Much attention has been given to the reasons why so many teachers leave the profession. Workload, lack of independence, and bullying from senior 'leaders' and other issues are cited as reasons why lots of teachers will not see their 5th year in the classroom. While some of these are difficult to mitigate for individuals, there are practical things that schools and teachers can do to help teachers with all of these pressures and create a supportive culture to stem the flow of good teachers leaving the profession."