So Much to Learn...So Little Time

A Call to Lothian and Edinburgh Bloggers

A.nnotate a PDF document

I am putting a call out to bloggers in Edinburgh and the Lothians for feedback on their school week, particularly in the secondary sector.
Aberdeenshire are currently "consulting" on the new Curriculum framework with regard to A Curriculum for Excellence. One of the proposals, and the one which is bound to generate the most discussion is that to unify and change the arrangements of the school week.

As you guys down there have this in place can you shed any light on how it has affected teaching, learning, collegiate working and childcare issues amongst others.

consultation acfe

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Some nice videos from the Beeb, 'specially with my nice IWB

BBC - Learning Zone Clips Library - Secondary Search Results

BBC - Learning Zone Clips Library via kwout

Those nice people at the BBC have published a whole swathe of videos in their Learning Zone pages.

There appears to be a nice selection of ones in French and German, which I shall be hoping to use on my new IWB...when the projector decides to work.

languages bbclearning

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A 21st Century Agreement...when it concerns them

I consider myself fortunate to live in Scotland and work in the Scottish education system. We have a very grown up contract implemented in 2002 called A Teaching Profession for the 21st Century (aka McCrone.) It brought far reaching changes to the teaching profession in Scotland.
One of these conditions is that of working at a time and place of our choosing. To quote Part 2 Section 3 paragraph 7 of the SNCT Handbook of Conditions of Service:

3.7 All tasks which do not require the teacher to be on the school premises can be carried out at a time and place of the teacher’s choosing: teachers will notify the appropriate manager of their intention in this respect.

In effect this means that if we have a free period at the end of a day for example and are not needed for cover or a meeting etc we are not obliged to be on the premises. In other words we are to be trusted to do what we have to do, but can do it at a time and place which is most convenient. (This was not the case when I worked in Barnsley.)

Today, though, has seen some  difficult to comprehend decisions being taken on high. Tomorrow the janitors, technicians, cleaners etc in TGWU, Unite and Unison are taking industrial action. This means that the school keyholders and integral members of the fire evacuation team (janitors are not on site) thus creating a health and safety risk. Thus school is not open for pupils. However Headies have been told in no uncertain terms that schools will be open and that teaching staff WILL be present.  This leads to the  situation that a colleague who has non-contact time from lunchtime on a Wednesday could, under normal circumstances when kids are in, request to work at a time and place of his choosing for the rest of the day. Tomorrow he cannot, even though there are no kids present because he risks disciplinary action.

Colleagues are being forced to travel 40+miles to get to school when they could quite easily carry out tasks at home, really environmentally friendly

The one and only reason I think of for this decision to deny our contractual rights is one of public image. The authority wants to be able to say that after having 6 weeks off we are making sure that teachers are working (or at least in the workplace.) I personally have a stack load of stuff I could do at home such as finishing off the plans for our Connecting Classrooms partnership or rerecording some podcasts.

Maybe you think this me just being arsey and that I should live in the real world but what is the point in having a very decent conditions of service document if our leaders think they can just take unilateral decisions because they perhaps don't like a particular part.

So I shall be going into work tomorrow, under protest, and I shall have to find some other way to support my fellows trade unionists.

Go Animate

Via Ollie  I have got wind of Go Animate. Here'e my feeble 10 minute attempt whilst watching the rowing in Beijing, BUT it shows what you can do in a short time...classroom here we come.

La Rentrée...hmmm!

I consider myself a glass half full kind of bloke and usually look forward to the beginning of a new school year, mainly because I'm excited about the things I want to get up to in my classroom.

This session really should be the same: I've got a new smartboard in my room to play with (when the projector gets fixed/ replaced) and we are finally going to get our teeth into ACfE.

So why am I not quite so fired up as usual. Here's why: I have a sneaking suspicion (and I am very willing to be proved wrong) that our experience of ACfE is going to simply be some kind of statistical analysis of curriculum areas where results are "best" and this will determine in some way or form how we are going to proceed. I suspect there is going to be a ridiculous amount of paperwork which will have little or no effect on classroom teaching and learning.

But if I generally have a Postitive Mental Attitude about change why am I so glum abot this. Well, our headie (of all of 18 or so months) is off to a bigger school (more money) and we are getting another rector from another school as head to tide us over whilst a permanent boss is found, in the meantime we also lost our senior depute to promotion. Therefore I wonder who is going to have the drive and motivation to push forward the far reaching innovative changes that I feel ACfE demands.

I want ACfE to change the way education in Scotland is delivered, not solely in how we assess or categorise students but how educators work (together!) Sooooo, I think I am going to have to be a little creatively subversive in this and just simply ensure that creativity, imagination and enjoyment are watchwords in my class. Can I do this? Yes I think so.


Hmmm I feel a bit better about going back already. Blogging=catharsis

Typical Englishman abroad...Steve Maclaren

I didn't think Steve MacLaren could sink any lower after the umberella incident however he has shown himself to be somewhat idiotic.
Rather than learning Dutch it seems he has decided that the way to communicate with a fluent English speaking Dutch interviewer is to speak slower and put on a Mike Myers-like Dutch accent. Utterly ridiculous and supremely funny but unfortunately sterotypically representative of the average brit abroad. When are we going to really learn the importance of learning another language...We have a long way to go I feel.
Way to go Steve

Benebet.com | Steve McClaren regarding FC Twente Champions League draw

Caught In The Act

This is what I caught my three little bandits up to AFTER they had finished the washing up. (I cheated a bit and added better sound...naughty me.)

Music is "Seka Seka" by Marechal

Animoto for Education

Great news for animoto fans in education. The folks at animoto have finally launched animoto for education, which allows you (AND YOUR STUDENTS) to create free unlimited videos.
Brilliant.

Introducing Animoto for Education « From The Guys at Animoto via kwout

Adam's Utterings

Mobile post sent by chuffin using Utterz. Replies.  mp3

Guided Tours of Huntly in French

It seems ages ago that I blogged about an idea I had to get my S4 pupils to create resources that could, eventually with some finessing, become resources available to French speaking visitors to Huntly.

As usual the best laid plans never quite work out as intended, but we have managed to put together something. Preparation of this has been dragged out by trips, sports days, college taster days etc., etc and pupils have got fed up of me reminding them that page 131 of Equipe will be of invaluable assistance. The original idea was for the kids to record their guided visit, but time ran out. However, as is often the case a relatively simple solution presented itself via the web. Readthewords.com, a text to speech service which read english, french, spanish and german...and it free. I think the voice quality is not bad at all and the recording can be embedded or downloaded to an mp3 player perhaps.

The other part of the -plan was to create a google map for each group's tour. Sounds simple doesn't it? Well maybe not too simple, but something which should be do-able by "digital natives" (sorry Marc Prensky but this weeks lessons are proof positive that kids still have to be "taught" some of these skills, that they are not simply born knowing how to deal with these things.

Anyway, the first thing each group had to do was to create a google account. Quite straightforward if they have a personal email address accesible in school (hotmail, gmail, yahoo etc), impossible if relying on school email because the required verification message takes over 24 hours to navigate its way through the server filters. Next challenge was simply to use the interface. The screens in the ICT room were a bit on the small side and didn't make the task 0f positioning placemarkers all that easy.

Another challenge which needed a solution was that of photos. For IPR reasons I didn't want to (couldn't) use photos already on the web and each group needed photos of their places to visit to add to their map. I had wanted to send them out with their camera/phones and take their own pics, but on taking advice I found I would have needed 6-7 adults so ensure an adult accompanied each group...grrr! So what did I do? Got on my bike and killed 2 birds with one stone. I was going to do some training at lunchtime so I just did a bike ride around Huntly and took the pictures myself. I then uploaded them to drop.io. The beauty of dropio is that not only is it free (up to 100mb) but you can get embed codes for the pictures, but also I was able to write the instructions as a note added to the drop...not that any of the pupils actually seemed to read them, plus ça change.

Thus the kids were free to use photos which they could then embed on their placemarkers. Luckily (for me) no one got as far as adding lines on their map, because that can be a pain.

Having gone on about all the problems faced I am really pleased with the results. If time had allowed I would have spent more time in the computer rooms and gone through all the skills needed to do this before letting them start the task itself.

I'm not sure whether I was surprised or not but the girls engaged more with this activity. The boys were really quite frustrating at times, constantly opening up new windows to play games. When I asked whether they had ever done anything "creative" on their computers at home not many were able to answer yes, mostly content to play games.

As I said at the beginning the idea has not quite turned out as expected but here is an example of what one group created. Perhaps in the future, now I know the issues involved, my classes can produce a resource which visitors could access on their mobiles via the web so as to enable them to follow the maps and listen to the tours at the same time...I'm thinking it might be something my Higher class could get its teeth into when we get to this topic area.

Let me know what you think. How could this be improved on?

Here is what Sarah, Louise, Samantha and Katrina came up with. (Thanks to Juliett in Readthewords for her lovely voice.)

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