I’m exploring the key principles that define and underpin the concept of life long learning in the UK.
I used a target diagram but I’m not sure how easy others would find it to interpret. I often have this problem with visual representations. I know what I mean but will anyone else?
A 16 year old has made a wooden bike. It doesn’t sound that impressive until you realise that even the chain, gears and connectors are all made from wood. What an amazing achievement! Doesn’t he look proud?
This is an example of the kind of authentic assessment products the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme produces. Tom says often the students are brilliant anyway and the programme just allows them to shine.
Marco’s work seems to support that theory. You can read his own description of the process here in Lee Valley Tools Woodworking Newletter.
So not only has he built a wonderful product, he’s shared exactly how he did it with an expert audience. Shame they don’t have comments enabled on their site really. But that’s just me being picky 
Tom says:
The International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme culminates in each student completing a personal project which is “a significant piece of work that is the product of the student’s own initiative and creativity……
He says he just wanted to try something challenging.
I wonder what he’ll do next
Tonight is Burns Night and ex-pat Scots all over the world will be eating haggis and toasting the bard. I can’t help but wonder what that gloriously irreverent poet would have made of all the mad trappings of a classic Burns Night.
Anyway, enough of my babble! If you want good resources for using Burns in school you could do worse than start with
The National Burns Collection.
Lovely resources, download-able packs for different key stages, virtual tours of various Burns Museums.
The National Library of Scotland
Lots of images and scans of original materials, chronological account of his life in various places, audio available.
One of my ancestors (a Kirkpatrick) attended the first ever Burns Supper in Burn’s birthplace in Alloway.
My grandmother (a Wilson of that ilk) in a fit of ‘cleaning’ before moving to a new house in 1958 threw away a ‘Kilmarnock edition’. (1786 published by John Wilson of Kilmarnock only 600 copies ever printed “Scottish Poems by Robert Burns”)
When I was a child my parents used to disappear to Caledonian Society ‘doos’ on the Saturday nearest Burns Night. This usually involved my father donning his kilt, (not the dusty coloured one that smelled of bracken that he occasionally wore from choice when we were ‘up home’ on holiday) but the ‘dress Lindsey’ one and a velvet jacket. My Mum wore a white frock with a sort of sash of tartan over one shoulder, (a plaidie - but a sort of fake one, no use what so ever in the North West rain!) a big fancy broach with an purple stone pinning it to the frock.
My dad said he felt a bit silly in that get up, though he was usually gallant enough to say my Mum looked lovely. He wasn’t a Highlander after all, but a Lowland Scot. Just like Burns himself. Still Burns liked to romanticise the noble Highlander and I suppose he’s partly responsible for the spread of the belief that that’s the true version of Scottishness. Most of it came later with Queen Victoria and all that Balmorality but Burns was there at the start of it.
All that tartan, all those formal speeches! If I believed in an after-life, (slipping quickly past that topic!) I’m sure he’d be wetting himself laughing at what it has turned into.
I’m having a trip to the theatre. Breaks like this are one of the joys of living in London! Let’s face there have to be some compensations or how would anyone survive the daily grind here?
I’m going to see Wicked, which is a sort of prequel to the Wizard of Oz. When I was a kid I loved the Oz books. An American friend of the family bought me the whole set and I devoured them. As I read the books before I saw the film I was never as enchanted by it as most people were. The pictures in my head had been much more vivid! I have a really vague early memory of a Theatre in Education company doing an extract at my primary school which was quite magical but still not a patch on the complexity of the books. Later I saw a staged version of the film in Nottingham with Charlie Drake playing the lion. He was spellbinding. Tiny man - huge stage presence, totally eclipsing the rest of the cast. So much so that he’s all I can remember of the play!
So I’m wondering what I’ll make of this production. The videos on Youtube look and sound pretty good and people in my network on Twitter seem to like the show.
Drew had a bright idea (he seems to be full of those - see Andy’s blog). A book group on Twitter. A few hours after it’s birth the group is forming and evolving on a wikispaces wiki. The thing I love about this is that it is at heart a constructivist response to Twitter. It’s not “How can we use this for education?” It’s “Let’s make something and record our learning along the way.” What’s not to love about that?
Here’s a few of the advantages we’ve already come up with:
twitterbookgroup ยป home
Advantages of a Twitter Book Group
Brainstorm your thoughts below
- Being able to effectively synopsis your thoughts in 140 characters requires higher order thinking
- It is is more inclusive of those with lower bandwidth capabilities or do not have computers they can use cell phones
- Contributions can be made “on the go” via cell phone
- It would potentially allow a greater number of people to participate
- It could encourage participants to read off line.
- It will further the growth of the Twitter network.
If you can think of any others or you just want to get involved, get along to the wiki, put your name down, start following @bookgroup (and the other participants) and get yourself a copy of this month’s choice:
It should be a great way of discussing a book, whilst building a network and learning the power of Twitter. See CoolCat Teacher’s Blog about it as well.
I love global collaboration projects. They are such powerful stimuli for children’s learning. I’ve been keen on them ever since I first found Flat Stanley and I even initiated a small scale one as part of my degree.
You don’t have to be the class teacher to initiate this sort of thing. If a TA or a Learning Mentor is prepared to see it though the teacher is often delighted to let them. It would make a lovely action research project. Note the exchange is of “stories, photographs or podcasts” so not too tricky, even better if your class is doing something like “The Travels of Barnaby Bear”.
There’s a flyer to download and print on Sylia’s blog and more details on the Teddy Bears Around the World Blog
I was always the one playing with the cardboard box, wonder what that says about me?
It’s a serious point though. I used to get annoyed by learning facilitators saying:
“That’s an interesting site (and/or) application - how could we use it for education?”
Now I find myself wondering the same thing, rather than just getting on and using whatever it is.
I’ve just discovered a paradox though. Although new things come and go, I’m pretty faithful to my chosen tool set :
Starting to think I’m a dinosaur except for the most recent addition:
Twitter - microblogging since March 2007
Back in early (Jan 2nd!) 2005 I created the Classroom Displays Group on Flickr as part of an ILM in my Year 2 research. The whole topic ended up taking over my degree
So here’s my advice to anyone in Ultraversity wondering what to do for their research. Choose something close to your heart, make something real that has a chance to make a difference to your own and other people’s learning, and don’t be discouraged if you have to wait to see its real impact. Impact doesn’t arrive to order. It’s subtle and difficult to pin down - especially online.
Classroom Displays Flickr Group - started Jan 2rd 2005
231 Members
1,283 Images
And here’s what some of the members have said:
Thanks for creating this group. What a great idea. We all know how long it can take to think up a display, let alone make one. It is so inspiring to look at everyones ideas and to share my own. Teachers are such creative people!
Then:
This site has given me inspiration and allowed me to see so many other creavtive souls. I am now designing ideas for displays and more able to delegate them to people in my team. So in effect I still get to be involved. Some of them I will definitely be having hands-on involvement.
We have requests from just about every dept in our school now. Word got out that teachers shouldn’t be doing it all, (the 21 tasks!) so I am planning 7 displays for Richard III (all the English dept are doing it), Of Mice and Men, a Cirque Du Freak display, a Roald Dahl display, The Wild West, 2 “Holes” displays, a display based on “Rabbit-proof fence”, something for “Stone Cold”, a display for a Carol Ann Duffy poem, 2 horror themed displays, a drama display based on “The Ballad of Charlotte Dymond” , lots of literacy word walls and 3 science displays. Plenty of photo opportunities for the rest of the term.
Oh to be busy…What I like about this group is how you can see how people interpret things visually and try things out.
And just today:
I would like to say a great big thank you to everyone on this site - i’ve just moved into a new year group and having to design and put up loads of displays when you’re only just getting used to the planning is a daunting task! You’ve all made it so much easier and have motivated me.
Thanks again
Nice to be thanked but even nicer to see the group growing and blossoming just as I hoped it would 3 years ago
I blog here and at the Classroom Displays Blog I am also involved in Usefulwiki- educational resources wiki
