teaching.mrbelshaw.co.uk

That I don’t like giving homework is well documented on this blog. A few years ago I had the opportunity to visit the International School of Toulouse (IST), an Airbus-funded school which has had a 1-to-1 laptop programme for around 7-8 years. Students there are assigned homeworks far from the ordinary type served up in the average school. Their work has stimulated my thinking…

Read the rest of this entry »

BoingBoing, a website which proves to be an interesting diversion at times, has a post Homework sucks in which they look at the findings of a book entitled The Case Against Homework. It’s argued that homework stresses children and is a factor in childhood obesity. Now there’s an interesting link. As many of you will be aware, I’m pretty much completely against compulsory homework, so I may be purchasing this book… :)

Last week there was a program on BBC ’s Panorama programme (Wi-fi: a warning signal) about the dangers of wireless networking in UK schools. Although I didn’t see it, from what I hear it was scaremongering and talked of the potential long-term adverse effects of the use of such technology. A few people have asked my opinion. Well, here it is: wi-fi signals are less than 0.1 watt and are spread out over a fair range. Kids routinely hold mobile phones up to their ears. Which is going to cause the most damage? As Professor Malcolm Sperrin is quoted as saying, “It’s impossible to prove that something has no effect.”

Some readers may be interested in a post entitled Coursework 2.0 that I’ve made over at edtechroundup.com. In it, I look at three examples of educational technology that can improve coursework trips: tools such as Twitter, the use of a wiki, and sharing (and geotagging) photographs. :D

Heard of Montessori schools? Not entirely sure what they’re about? There’s a fairly good basic overview in this recent article. You might want to then have a look at the Wikipedia entry and perhaps the website of the Montessori Foundation. It’s certainly something I’m looking into for my son’s education. That is, unless I decide to keep him at home until about 7 years of age… ;)

I went for an interview for a Head of Department job at a school I shall not name. I withdrew from the selection process as I didn’t feel I would be happy and successful at the school. On the day it’s a gut feeling that makes one decide. Upon reflection, however, I’ve boiled it down to five important elements… :p

Read the rest of this entry »

This is probably old news (I’m behind on my RSS feed reading), but I’ve just come across TeacherShare.org via a pingback to this blog. It’s basically a del.icio.us-style social bookmarking website for educators, powered by a customised version of Scuttle. I’ve come across the latter before and considered setting up an internal school-based system. TeacherShare seems to have a bit of traction: 9746 bookmarks at the time of writing! :)

Sorry for the lack of updates recently. I’ve got an interview today, potentially one next Wednesday and I’m sorting out my Year 10 coursework. Oh, and I’ve had massive problems trying to get my new Nokia N95 to play nicely with Orange. Normal service will soon be resumed… :p

If you’re not too busy at 6pm GMT on Sunday 13 May 2007 (that’s 7pm for us in the UK on British Summer Time and perhaps a different time where you are) then I’d like to invite you to participate in a NextGen Teachers Skypecast. All you need to do is visit the NextGen Teachers Social Network closer to the time for further details. The topic of conversation? Collaboration! :D

A quick tip for those who use the excellent Wordpress to power their blogs: pressing a combination of buttons can make your WYSIWYG editor display another row of icons, giving greater ease-of-use and functionality. If you’re using Firefox on Windows, it’s Alt+Shift+V; for Internet Explorer on Windows it’s Alt+V; for Firefox on the Mac it’s Ctrl-V; unfortunately it doesn’t work on Safari… (via justsome.com)