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8 September 2003

SEPTEMBER NEWSLETTER

TWO NEW SCHOLARS – TRACEY HOWLETT SUNLEY

Tracey graduated in 1997 from Leicester University with a B.Sc in Psychology. Her final year dissertation looked at issues of gender and the Internet in relation to student teachers attitudes and confidence. Currently, she is writing up her PhD thesis (part-time). The research examines gender, attitudes and motivations in relation to Internet use in adolescent children, primarily in educational contexts. Tracey currently works for Becta in the Broadband unit, mostly involved in Research liaison and connectivity issues.

VERONICA BACON

Veronica was briefly involved with MirandaNet whilst Head of Business Studies at Tolworth Girls. Sadly due to ill health she was unable to complete the requirements but it did launch her into IT including some discrete IT teaching at Sparsholt College. She is now working part time delivering Applied courses to 14-16 in Leisure and Tourism, Health and Social Care and from September Business Studies. Castledown School, a small rural school in Wiltshire has recently set up a Video Conferencing room. They are looking for schools home and abroad that may have similar facilities. They are also looking for public and private sector businesses interested in having input via videoconferencing into their Vocational Courses.

If anyone can help Veronica, she can be contacted via her email.

CHILEAN CHAPTER – MISTRAL, ENLACES

For our World Ecitizens Chapter we have added another name, Mistral.

Juan Enrique Hinostroza, who has been a Fellow for many years tells us how our Chilean chapter got its name.

The name of our project Enlaces, means links and connections. Now we have added "Mistral", because of Gabriela Mistral, a Nobel Laureate, who is one of Chile's most distinguished writers. After an early love affair, tragically ended by the untimely death of her lover, she lived a life of self-described desolation, yearning for, but never experiencing motherhood. She turned her personal tragedy into beautiful poetry which offers intellectual and spiritual love, compassion, and courageous nurturance to others, especially children or others in need of protection.

I Am Not Alone
The night, it is deserted
from the mountains to the sea.
But I, the one who rocks you,
I am not alone!

The sky, it is deserted
for the moon falls to the sea.
But I, the one who holds you,
I am not alone !

The world, it is deserted.
All flesh is sad you see.
But I, the one who hugs you,
I am not alone!

Gabriela Mistral: Tiny Feet (1922)
How does the poet make the child's tiny feet express its suffering?

A child's tiny feet,
Blue, blue with cold,
How can they see and not protect you?
Oh, my God!
Tiny wounded feet,
Bruised all over by pebbles,
Abused by snow and soil!

Man, being blind, ignores
that where you step, you leave
A blossom of bright light,
that where you have placed
your bleeding little soles
a redolent tuberose grows.

Since, however, you walk
through the streets so straight,
you are courageous, without fault.

Child's tiny feet,
Two suffering little gems,
How can the people pass, unseeing.
(Translated by Mary Gallwey)

We hope you like our ideas and we would like to hear about more reasons for World Ecitizens and MirandaNet Chapter names.

PROMOTION FOR JOE NUTT

Joe Nutt joined Teach First in June as a professional and ICT tutor. He is tutoring Teach First participants full time during their inaugural summer institute, at Christ Church University College Canterbury, and will be guiding many of the participants, including a specialist ICT group, through their first year in London schools.

Teach First has attracted a lot of publicity, besides almost 200 of the brightest graduates in the country out of the 1300 who applied. What has attracted them is the career flexibility the organisation offers, when they sign up for two years teaching in a challenging London school, but are also offered business training and valuable links with some of the UK‚s most prestigious, corporate recruiters. It is undoubtedly a radical solution to teacher shortages in some of the capital‚s most deprived schools, and with cross party support, and the backing of the TTA, it may even have the potential to revolutionise the entire teacher training business.

USING THE INTERACTIVE WHITEBOARD

Four terrific articles on using Interactive Whiteboards sent to us by Marion Scott-Baker, a MirandaNet Fellow from Cheam School, and her staff.

They can be downloaded from
http://www.mirandanet.ac.uk/ftp/InteractiveWhiteboard.doc

Marion Scott-Baker is working with John Cuthell and his team on the uses of IWB. Details of more seminars follow.

REMINDER - INTERACTIVE WHITEBOARD SEMINARS

MirandaNet is in the second stage of a research and development project with Promethean and MirandaNet Schools. John Cuthell, Chair of MirandaNorth, has already reported on the first stage.

MirandaNet members will be welcome at these seminars which are the last in the series.

Session 4
Tuesday September 30th at the University of Huddersfield
Presenting the case studies.

Session 5
Friday November 21st at the University of Huddersfield
Presenting the case studies (2).

Full details will be on the MirandaNorth website.

or contact : Dr. John P. Cuthell

ADVERTISING ON SCHOOL WEBSITES

MirandaNet members may be interested in a discussion on the NAACE link.

Ian Baker had an interesting conversation with a Primary School headteacher about whether to have commercial advertising on their school website? The issue that this head was pursuing was whether a school should be allowed to make a financial gain from advertising.

Sandra Stow replied that she did not have any direct experience of advertising on school websites but had previously worked for many years supporting schools with producing their own newspapers, which often included advertisements and schools sometimes made a small profit on production. If done well, this was a learning point for the children running it as a mini enterprise. There was never any issue about the school having made any kind of financial gain. She wouldn't see ads on websites as any different to this, except that it was likely to be more for the purposes of raising money than a learning experience for the children (though it could also be the latter).

Schools seem to spend huge amounts of time trying to raise money by various means and Sandra sees no reason why gaining some of it from advertising/sponsorship on the website or in a school newspaper or in a school brochure should be a problem from the financial gain point of view, depending on who is hosting the school website and under what conditions. Schools would need to check out policy with them first. Where, for example, web space is provided free of charge there may be an objection to a free school service being used as a vehicle for commercial advertising space on the web - which the host company might otherwise sell to them.

But Sandra feels that there are two other key issues to consider as well - and these are to do with content rather than finances. One would be to do with the kind of ads the school felt it wanted to accept and whether there were companies or products with whom it might not want to be associated. She would suggest ads aimed at parents and not directly at children.

The other point is that it would need to be clear what was advertising on the website and that the school did not necessarily endorse or particularly promote the company or product above any others. The school may well want to adopt some form of policy/code of practice which sets out what it would consider acceptable.

Leon Cych commented on a project where shopkeepers were asked for advertising but the adverts had to be designed by the pupils.

They wrote about how they would use the profits in the newsletter. It was a fairly cross-curricular exercise. The pupils were closely supervised and approached local shopkeepers directly with a teacher.

Leon thought teachers should risk take in this way but help with guidance every step of the way and monitor carefully. “I’m not advocating a completely cavalier attitude” he added.

It's an interesting issue! Any comments from MirandaNetters?

Ian Baker, ICT/E-Learning Adviser, Schools Branch, Wiltshire LEA
Sandra Stow, ICT Consultant
Leon Cych

Laptops for Teachers

As you know MirandaNet has a long history in the use of mobiles for teachers. Toshiba have remained loyal supporters of our Fellowship. They are one of 28 companies to take part in the Government s highly successful Laptops for Teachers initiative which commenced in June 2002.

The new three year Framework Contract awarded to these suppliers improves on the contract awarded last year by requiring them to provide a warranty that will survive a supplier's insolvency. The need for robust warranty arrangements has become more apparent over the last twelve months and Becta has responded by making it a mandatory requirement for all new entrants to the scheme. LEAs that purchase under the new Framework Contract can do so secure in the knowledge that the laptop warranty will be protected for the full three year warranty period irrespective of any unforeseen future developments in the IT supply market.

Stephen Lucey, Director of Educational Technology, Becta, said: “Securing the inclusion of independently guaranteed warranty provision from the educational ICT supplier community represents a significant step change and will allow LEAs and schools to buy with confidence.”

Becta has undertaken an accreditation exercise evaluating suppliers on their commercial and financial strength and value for money. Part of the process involved the submission of laptop models for evaluation; Becta tested the system build quality, length of battery life and particularly the suppliers' technical support capability.

Becta will undertake an ongoing contract management role as part of the initiative to ensure that the high standards demonstrated by the suppliers are maintained for the duration of the initiative.

In conjunction with this announcement came news that the new Laptops for Teachers Initiative website has been launched.

The site has had a completely revised information architecture and design with many improvements to the catalogue and registration functionality.

In connection with computers do not forget the refurbished stock at Tools for Schools.

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