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End-February 2003
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MIRANDANET END-FEBRUARY 2003 NEWSLETTER
1. NEWS FROM MIRANDANET COLLEAGUES AWAY FROM HOME
We asked for a news item from Richard Robinson who has moved to George V School in Hong Kong and this is what he sent. He would also like news from home. Contact him at ginger_richuk@yahoo.com
Teaching in Hong Kong.
Having spent four excellent years teaching at Boston Spa Comprehensive School in Leeds I decided to fulfil a personal ambition and work abroad for a while. I accepted a job with the English Schools Foundation in Hong Kong.
I arrived in August of last year to teach at King George V School which is on the mainland side of Hong Kong, in Kowloon.
The school is funded part by student fees and partly by the Hong Kong Government. The school does not select by ability. The only criteria is that students pass an English Language test. Of the 1,500 students, about 85% are Hong Kong returnees, essentially students who have returned to Hong Kong after living abroad, often in Canada or the USA. The remaining percentage is made up a variety of nationalities.
Teaching in the school is quite different from England. There is calm atmosphere that pervades throughout, if a student is running in the corridor it is a rare sight and usually because they think they might be late for a lesson! There is a respect for teaching and teachers within the school and in Hong Kong in general that is very refreshing - when people find out that you are a teacher they are genuinely thrilled and impressed.
It was impossible not to arrive with preconceptions, and I expected the academic level to be far higher than in the UK. On reflection that was naive, and incorrect. The amount of work that the top students put in, though, is quite unbelievable, indeed many have tutors outside school for the main subjects. This is all tied in with the expectations and pressures they face to get the right grades. I had one student who sat her IGCSE English Language Exam in November and got an 'A,'. However she asked if she could resit as she felt she should have got an A*!
However one of the growing issues in the school is the increasing number of students with EAL support needs. I teach a bottom set in Year 9, and whilst the behaviour is not an issue, there are many who are incredibly weak and need an awful lot of support.
I had intended to keep my links with MirandaNet during my time here. However my first set back was the news that Think.com is not, as yet, allowed to be used in China.
This is a real shame as I think the situation here would help it work wonderfully. Broadband is the norm in Hong Kong, so connection is effortless. This was always the biggest stumbling block when I used it in Leeds, as students lost interest waiting for the dial-up connection.
I have noticed that students use computers in slightly different ways here. Whilst there is the usual use of Messenger and social emails, there are groups of students who create write magazines about their mutual interests, there are also far more students with individual websites and much more use of the Internet as a normal extension to their studies.
There is also a big desire from the ESF to widen its links with the local Chinese schools and I think this could be one way of aiding that.
And the school is very well-resourced too, with digital cameras, video-cameras and an editing suite. So it would be great if we could get involved somehow!
Rich Robinson
2. TOOLS FOR SCHOOLS MOBILES DONATED BY TOSHIBA a report by LIZ SMITH
Toshiba Laptop Project
I am using 10 laptops donated by Toshiba with two disaffected groups. The first is a group of year 11 students. These students are foundation level entry, however with extra support in class and after school I am hoping to enter a handful for the intermediate exam in order for them to achieve the possibility of GCSE grade C.
The year 11's used the laptops to write up their handling data coursework. Half way into the coursework, after the students had planned their ideas and processed their data, the laptops were introduced. The motivational effect of the laptops was immense. The concentration of all students had doubled. They were all 'glued' to the screens, deciding how to analyse their results. Giving them the responsibility of taking their laptop home over a weekend was also amazing. Students who previously had not completed homework without any threats of detention, or phone calls home, went out of their way at the end of the day to come back to Maths and collect their computer, so they could complete the work.
The second group is a year 10 group. They will be using research skills to demonstrate their understanding of new topics, and by using new skills and Powerpoint, explain to their peers. I'll let you know how this shapes up.
3. TWO NEW SCHOLARS
Dr Daithí Ó Murchú, from TCD and MIC, Ireland says he has had a busy year starting with his secondment to University of Limerick's Teacher Preparation College, being a Research Fellow in Trinity and gaining an Honorary Doctorate from the USA.
Daithí hopes to meet some old contacts again at SITE 2003 where he will be presenting papers on a wide variety of topics, co-presenting with Roberta, Dean, Jani, et al. and also co-presenting with Eileen Freeman TCD. He is also presenting a paper on IT, multimedia, Culture and minority languages.
He is also VP of Human Languages forum SITE and EU Virtual School Network and MyEurope. Papers up to June 2003 will be in The USA, Lisbon, Athens and at the UNESCO PaxCultura conference, Wales.
Take a look at his website if you wish - www.gaelscoil.com - and see samples of the work she has done with and for teachers and some papers presented.
William Tate is the Principal at Aughnacloy Primary School,County Tyrone in Northern Ireland.
He has been teaching from 1977, is a Member of the Chartered Management Institute and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He is past President of NAHT, Northern Ireland and an Honorary Student Stranmillis College Student Representative Council.
He has led his school to achieve the following:
Investors in People
Southern Education and Library Board International Curriculum Award
Allied Irish Bank Better Ireland Community Award
Marcel Rudloff Award for Reconciliation Strasbourg
Chairman Aughnacloy and Truagh European Studies Schools Project Cross Border and Cross Community
He is very interested in all things computer
www.aughnacloyprimaryschool.org.uk
We look forward to seeing the case studies on projects that these new scholars will be providing as their qualifying route for Fellowship status.
4. HERMITAGE SCHOOL AND REBELLION IN MULTIMEDIA CITIZENSHIP PROJECT
Hermitage School in Wapping, in conjunction with the Creative Partnerships initiative, has linked up with Rebellion, a computer games company and filmmakers, Mark and Mmoloki, to initiate a citizenship project that will allow schoolchildren to learn about social issues and express them in comic strip and film forms. MirandaNet is supporting this venture.
The project will focus on the important issue of homelessness, investigating how people end up living on the streets, what homeless life is like and how people are able to reintegrate into society after a period of destitution. This project will be an important part of the school's citizenship syllabus, as well as an aspect of the creative arts curriculum. Pupils will learn how to understand the causes of social problems such as homelessness, and how society can help people who find themselves in this unfortunate situation.
Pupils will be encouraged to read the stories of three homeless people, and will learn all the techniques and steps involved in turning them into comic strip stories, including drawing, inking and colouring, with the assistance of professional comic artist and youth worker, Steve. At the end of the project, pupils will have created a complete comic story, which will be published on the web.
Pupils will also have the chance to create a film on the issues of homelessness, working with filmmakers Mark and Mmoloki. They will be taught how to use a video camera, and will learn a number of filming techniques that will allow them by the end of the project to have completed a film that documents the project.
Part of the project will involve pupils going out of school under the supervision of a teacher to study life on the streets and to video material for the film aspect of the project.
Hermitage School 0207 702 1037
5. FREE NOF TRAINING ON-LINE MATERIALS
Gill Deadman, Lewisham LEA writes :
Lewisham LEA, Goldsmiths College and Lewisham College (Talent Consortium) are NOF providers who, since 1999 when the training programme started, have published their NOF training material with free access to all. These can be found at : www.talent.org.uk.
6. TWO NEW WEBSITES TO LOOK AT
We have two new websites representing two new MirandaNet chapters, Mulan in China and the Bangladesh Chapter.
Zhang Lingdi from the Beijing Academy of Educational Science is the leader
of a team of Chinese teachers who visited schools during BETT03 and made MirandaNet
connections.
www.mirandanet.org.uk/international/mulan.htm
Shahjahan Siraj is Chair of the new Bangladesh Chapter. He is interested in being involved with Mara Chrystie and the " Active Citizens, an citizenship project for schools Domex'. The similar Bangladesh project title is "ICT learning for working class children".
Shahjahan Siraj
Team Leader, Drik - Multimedia
Online editor, Banglarights.net
House 58, Road 15A (New)
Dhanmondi R/A, Dhaka 1209, Bangladesh
Tel: (880-2) 9120125, 8123412, 8112954, Office Fax: (880-2) 9115044
www.drik.net
www.banglarights.net
www.chobimela.org
www.mirandanet.org.uk/international/bangladesh.htm
7. THE NUT-E-CLUSTER PROJECT
This project involved five rural schools in Hampshire using video
conferencing to help both pupils and teachers to collaborate with their
peers. Do have a look at this
www.ictadvice.org.uk/index.php?section=no&rid=669
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