Tuesday, 26 February 2008
LSN
Just recieved an email from the KSSP part of LSN this morning saying that most support ends in March. But not a lot on what takes over other than a link to the excellence gateway - strange!
Tuesday, 12 February 2008
Astonishing press coverage of 16 year old school leavers
In todays Daily Mail.
p12 - pupils in big schools are doomed to failure - a focus on those 78000 pupils who leave without even the basic qualifications.
p19 - tories pledge to get Jeremy Kyle generation into jobs - main focus of the story is dissaffected young men and the growth of NEETS
p24 - head of eton calls for overhaul of GCSE - do 6 instead of 16 plus a range of other interetsing stuff. You don't have to test and examine everything.
p29 - the Hair and Beauty diploma that doesn't actually involve cutting hair - comment of the new diplomas.
Four stories, all focussed on 16 year olds and with a clear tendency towards fising the problems of low achievement.
p12 - pupils in big schools are doomed to failure - a focus on those 78000 pupils who leave without even the basic qualifications.
p19 - tories pledge to get Jeremy Kyle generation into jobs - main focus of the story is dissaffected young men and the growth of NEETS
p24 - head of eton calls for overhaul of GCSE - do 6 instead of 16 plus a range of other interetsing stuff. You don't have to test and examine everything.
p29 - the Hair and Beauty diploma that doesn't actually involve cutting hair - comment of the new diplomas.
Four stories, all focussed on 16 year olds and with a clear tendency towards fising the problems of low achievement.
Friday, 8 February 2008
Using games for learning
An interesting poll by YouGov on behalf of RM shows how something can be spun in each direction.
RM says "There is a strongly expressed interest in using these for learning, with 30% saying they would like to use video games to help them learn, 20% an MP3 player and 18% social networking sites".
Now I'm quite diappointed at some of these figures. Given that virtaully every teenager has a games player of some description, only 1 in 3 want to use it for learning and an even lower number for sites such as MSN.
There's been loads of talk about how msn and bebo and myspace can be used for learning, perhaps all of us "advisers/adults/teachers/commentators" shouldn't bother as I think the spin on this story is that teenagers don't want to use their technologies for learning. Games are games they appear to say, now leave me alone whilst I play!
RM says "There is a strongly expressed interest in using these for learning, with 30% saying they would like to use video games to help them learn, 20% an MP3 player and 18% social networking sites".
Now I'm quite diappointed at some of these figures. Given that virtaully every teenager has a games player of some description, only 1 in 3 want to use it for learning and an even lower number for sites such as MSN.
There's been loads of talk about how msn and bebo and myspace can be used for learning, perhaps all of us "advisers/adults/teachers/commentators" shouldn't bother as I think the spin on this story is that teenagers don't want to use their technologies for learning. Games are games they appear to say, now leave me alone whilst I play!
Friday, 1 February 2008
Independent reports backs creative use of ICT
Extracted from the excellent http://www.merlinjohnonline.net/ site.
Yet again, another indepdnant reports that states that using "cutting edge creative technology to work with some of the most challenging students" really does work.
Some comments and they aren't out of context at all.
“We did a big push on digital creativity, cutting edge stuff,” he says. “Kids were getting into podcasting really early, and we were using podcasting in teaching.”
“And I think these tools can do it. They ensure that kids will get it right.”
“Now when children become successful they feel better about themselves, and they stop ‘effing and blinding’ and doing all the things that, in the context of our work, get them excluded from mainstream schools. In the long term we don’t want them marginalised, so if we can help them believe they can learn, and be successful, they can then learn new behaviour and then learn to be sociable and the whole thing follows itself. What’s wonderful is, in the video clips you can see children talking about how it has impacted on them.”
It makes me even more convinced that what we are doling is right - we just need to get it to students!
Read the full report by clicking the merlinjohn link above.
Yet again, another indepdnant reports that states that using "cutting edge creative technology to work with some of the most challenging students" really does work.
Some comments and they aren't out of context at all.
“We did a big push on digital creativity, cutting edge stuff,” he says. “Kids were getting into podcasting really early, and we were using podcasting in teaching.”
“And I think these tools can do it. They ensure that kids will get it right.”
“Now when children become successful they feel better about themselves, and they stop ‘effing and blinding’ and doing all the things that, in the context of our work, get them excluded from mainstream schools. In the long term we don’t want them marginalised, so if we can help them believe they can learn, and be successful, they can then learn new behaviour and then learn to be sociable and the whole thing follows itself. What’s wonderful is, in the video clips you can see children talking about how it has impacted on them.”
It makes me even more convinced that what we are doling is right - we just need to get it to students!
Read the full report by clicking the merlinjohn link above.
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