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22 July 2005
Mid-Summer Newsletter
Collaborating on the boundaries of the possibleBath 1st and 2nd September 2005
The first day of the workshop will be an opportunity for us to debate some of the issues we face in integrating computers into our schools and communities. The second day will be dedicated towards building exchange projects between the delegates and looking for ways of funding them.
Colleagues from the TTS, the DfES and BECTa will join us in the discussions alongside company partners, Aston Swann, Inspiration, Microsoft, Oracle and TAG, who will also show their products in the Electronic Workshop. We look forward to seeing colleagues in Bath. If you still need to book please use the booking form.
The Basia Korczak Award
At the Bath workshop, we will remember with much love, Basia, who died two years ago of cancer, just a year after her husband. Basia was given a fast track Fellowship because of the quality of her innovative and inspiring work. We also remember her warmth, sense of humour and hard work.
In Basia’s memory we would like to honour someone who uses computers creatively to stimulate teaching and learning and/or to make changes in the schools or the community.
Anyone in MirandaNet can send nominations for the Basia Korczak Award to Christina. If you are not sure about the person you have in mind please discuss this on email with Tina.
Inspiration and Kidspiration – A new MirandaNet partner
Free software for members
Many Fellows use Inspiration for concept mapping and over the years we have made a colleague of Mark Oronzio the Senior Vice President in the US. Mark has been working with visual learning and Inspiration Software(r) education users for over 12 years. Learning from educators in the US, Canada, UK and Australia, he has developed a deep understanding of the value of visual learning and of best practices for effective integration of graphic organisers into the curriculum. Mark is a graduate of Florida Atlantic University, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology.
We are now pleased to welcome Inspiration as a MirandaNet partner. Inspiration which now has 15 million users worldwide is a flexible tool which can be used to develop ideas and organise thinking which we are now using widely for research and evaluation tasks in our project. Concept mapping seems to be particularly useful in encouraging teachers to analyse their learning progress in courses and in practice based research projects.
Several members are also using Inspiration in the classroom as a powerful support for critical thinking, comprehension and writing in all curriculum areas for students age 10 to adult. Kidspiration offers pupils ages 4 to 10, the ability to build early literacy skills and understand new concepts by using visual diagrams to combine pictures, text and spoken words.
Inspiration fits in well with the MirandaNet multimodal and multimedia learning agenda because it supports visual learning techniques, graphical ways of working with ideas and presenting information as well as teaching students to clarify their thinking, and to process, organise and prioritise new information. Graphic organisers reveal patterns, interrelationships and interdependencies. Using Kidspiration, younger pupils represent ideas with symbols and learn the relationships among them by graphically linking them. Teachers and students in the secondary and further education sectors use Inspiration across the curriculum to support activities such as brainstorming, diagramming, planning, concept mapping, organising and outlining. With Inspiration and Kidspiration, teachers of all age levels and curriculum areas can integrate visual learning into instruction.
MirandaNet Fellows and Scholars can have a free copy of the software by sending 500 words on the ways in which they want to use the software to Christina
Digital communities, technology and education seminar 22nd June
So many people came to this seminar that we had to find a bigger room. Not surprising when we had four of our digital heroes speaking, Gunther Kress, Institute of Education, University of London, Bridget Somekh and Di Mavers, Manchester University and Niki Davis, who is both at Iowa State University and Institute of Education, University of London.
John Potter, Goldsmiths, put special effort into making this a sharing session since we also had many experts in the audience from the US, Denmark, Japan, Barcelona and Brazil. We are going to continue to use these sharing techniques in Bath.
You can listen to a streaming audio recording of part of these sessions (or download the audio files) by visiting:www.mirandanet.ac.uk/news/seminars_audio.htm
MirandaNet Academy, Bath Spa University
Interactive Whiteboard seminar in Bath - June 9th
Steven Coombes, the MirandaNet Academy director, hosted this event. Thanks to him and to John Cuthell, Marion Scott Baker and Jon Allen, a consultant from Promethean, who made this seminar very stimulating. MirandaNet members attended from a wide area around Bath.
Marion Scott Baker, the head of Cheam Preparatory school, talked about learners’ abilities when they come in to school. This was illuminating about the ways in which home life has changed over the years. Children now learn very differently and need more visual stimulation, even for learning to read.
The audience were particularly keen to have more information about the ways in which Marion Scott Baker uses the Prometheam ACTIVboard and software with early years learners.
A report on WCCE 05 Stellenbosch, RSA by Lawrence Williams
We were all delighted to see so many MirandaNet members and UK colleagues at the WCCE conference that only runs every five years. We were especially delighted to see teachers from our Elapa project in Free State.
Lawrence Williams commented on our reactions, “ When I first saw the list of the UK delegates who were attending the Stellenbosch Conference, I was amazed to see how many had links of some kind with MirandaNet. All but a few presenters were friends and colleagues of long standing, or were known to me through on-line discussions. Stellenbosch seemed like a home from home!”
Tina has the CD-ROM of all the papers although they are hard to search because there is no indexing. They are just recorded as single files. However you can find the titles and the authors from the UK on the list here: www.mirandanet.ac.uk/WCCE05.htm
Stellenbosch papers by MirandaNet Fellows:
The MirandaNet Model Preston, C.; Wegerif, R.; Cuthell, J.
Seeing the Meaning. The Impact of Interactive Whiteboards on Teaching and Learning. Cuthell, J.
World Ecitizens: a workshop. Preston, C.
Introducing Computers to Teachers. Preston, C.; Wegerif, R.
Online Communities as a catalyst for creativity in the English Primary Context. Turvey, K.
The STAR Project. Williams, L.
Effects of ICT. Do we know what we should know? Cox, M.
An investigation into the use of PDAs in Higher Education to support the flexible learning of undergraduate dental students. Cox, M.
What is Content? Selinger, M.
New ways of teaching and learning in the digital age. Somekh, B.
What works and what does not work? An International Panel. Davis, N.; Karpati, A.; Selinger, M.; Preston, C.
The Friesland Learning Network. Lepeltak, J.
There were still not many teachers who could get the time off to go. Tina would love to see more MirandaNet Fellows on platforms and is trying to find funding to make this happen. Let her know if you have any good ideas.
STAR teacher, Lawrence Williams, shows what can be done for the school when senior management understand the power of this kind of exchange connection. As you know Tina will always write letters of invitation to our teachers which try to explain the value to the school - not least the raising in self esteem and the continuing professional development for our classroom teachers. Over to Lawrence for his report. This might just be enough to sway your Head next time – or get them to come too!
My own paper was written jointly with Ruth Petersen, NASA Digital Learning Network, who unfortunately was unable to attend, though we had presented STAR together in Prague (2002) and Seattle (2003). My session was linked to a paper from the University of Wollongong, Australia, about electronic discussion forums, because ePALS now forms an important new aspect of the STAR Project. It was also linked to a second paper from the Centre for Educational Technology, University of Cape Town, about teacher training on line, which is another new development that we have incorporated into STAR. I was pleased to hear STAR described variously by delegates as ”exciting….. innovative…. .inspirational”.
It was a great pleasure to be able to build on our work in the Republic of South Africa, begun by MirandaNet, last October, under the eLapa Project, and it was a privilege to be invited to support the new educational initiatives that would result from the Stellenbosch Declaration. Our work, both in the schools and with teacher educators, came together powerfully. But much more still needs to done.”
Teacher Research on-line from Sarah Fletcher
Sarah Fletcher has become a fast track Fellow by submitting her inspirational 2,000 words submission as soon as she joined. Her submission is a good model for what you can do to get your fellowship. Tina does not put any constraints on what you write although we do peer review and send you suggestions for improvements. The reason she does not put restrictions on this is because you do enough tests attached to criteria. This is your chance to express yourself freely about the interests you have which are in line with our current mission statement.
You will be able to meet Sarah at the Bath workshop. Meanwhile here is a chance to join in Teacher Researcher forums.
There is an increasing amount of interest in teacher research as a form of in-school continuing professional development as you can see from http://www.TeacherResearch.net. With its news and events section you can keep up to date with local, national and international events. TR.net has a large archive of superb teacher research. Do look at the section for Bitterne Park School in Southampton. There's advice about research mentoring and a link to a JISCmail discussion forum so we can discuss how we might support and sustain teacher research in the future.
To get the ball rolling Sarah has put forward three simple questions -
Why do some teachers do action research and not others?
What is meant by 'high quality' teacher research?
How can teachers' research be made more visible so it can be shared and critically engaged with?
To have your say, please join in the Teacher Research Discussion list.
With recent contributions from teachers, academics and policy makers, with papers to review, news of conferences and more - please join us.
Centre for the Use of Research and Evidence in Education (CUREE)
Members of MIrandaNet may be interested to know what the CUREE centre can offer to support those engaged in doing and/or using educational research. Members doing practice based research projects should also find this information very useful.
What is CUREE and what does it do?
CUREE supports (and has supported for several years) a number of national programmes and organisations in order to improve practice and policy and to help to raise standards.
A key feature of their summaries is that wherever possible they present teachers with ideas to try out in their own classrooms, highlight small-scale action research they might try for themselves and make suggestions for peer working with colleagues. CUREE’s own website provides more details of this work and also presents a range of links to helpful publications: http://www.curee-paccts.com/index.jsp
Their various research products are published on a number of websites, including:
General Teaching Council (GTC) Research of the Month
Department for Education and Skills (DfES) Research Informed Practice
National Education Research Forum (NERF)
Partnership between CUREE and Networked Learning Communities Learning Exchange Online (LEO)
In their Research of the Month summaries for GTC they illustrate key points for learning with teacher case studies.
Since 2001 they have conducted three systematic reviews in collaboration with the Evidence for Policy and Practice Information and Coordinating Centre (EPPI-Centre) relating to the impact and processes of continuing professional development (CPD) on teaching and learning in the 5-16 years age range. Two have so far been published and can be accessed on the Research Evidence in Education Library (REEL) database
The reviews have become a major source of influence for government and other CPD providers.
New Fellow
Sarah Fletcher
Sarah is a passionate teacher and mentor! She has taught students between 8 and 19 years old for over 20 years in schools and her mission in joining Mirandanet is to raise awareness about the role of mentoring as professional development. She is an independent consultant in educational mentoring as well as a p/t senior lecturer in mentoring and induction at Bath Spa University. Her website and discussion forum keep her busy when not having fun doing photography and gardening!
New Scholars
Audrey Bowser-Brown
I am currently a doctoral student in Curriculum and Instruction at Iowa State University, and a recent graduate in Educational Leadership from Arkansas State University. As a former business education teacher, I am convinced that teaching with technology integration is a remarkably effective way to teach instruction. I have a passion for teaching and truly enjoy working with preservice educators. I hope to someday become a scholar in multicultural education, with emphasis on the use of technology in teacher education. My scholarship focuses on the implications of digital equity and the use of innovative technologies to engage preservice teachers in teaching and learning exemplary instruction within diverse classroom environments. My current research examines the racial disparities of the digital divide as it relates to contemporary issues of technology access affecting minority students' educational opportunities.
Roger Carlsen
Roger Carlsen holds the rank of Associate Professor at Wright State University in Dayton, OH, USA where he has taught since September 2000. He serves as lead teacher and program advisor for WSU's graduate educational technology programs. During the past 4 years Dr Carlsen has written or taught the following courses: Technology in Education, Telecommunications in Education, Grant writing and Program Evaluation, Multimedia Materials in the Classroom, Web Applications and Online Learning, and both Entry and Exit Seminars. Over more than 30 years, Roger has taught more than 25 different courses. He is on the Editorial Committee for the Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education (SITE). His interests include The Role of Technology in Education, Global Education and Schools of the Future, Web-based Educational Applications and On-line Learning, Essential Conditions for Successful Infusion of Technology into Education, Program Evaluation, and Statistics.
John Impagliazzo
John Impagliazzo is Professor of Computer Science at Hofstra University, New York, where he had served as its department chair and the director of its graduate programs.
John is very much involved in computing history. Currently, he is chair of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) Working Group 9.7 on the History of Computing and is an active member and treasurer of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) History Committee, the oversight committee for the IEEE History Center. The website is an expression of his enthusiasm for computing history. He recently helped publish two books for IFIP where he served as co-editor; their titles are History of Nordic Computing (2005) and History of Computing in Education (2004).
Some of John's current professional activities include serving as a consultant and expert for various countries regarding curricula, accreditation, and other activities, serving as an ABET (formerly the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology) accreditation evaluator and team chair, and serving as the editor-in-chief of inroads - the SIGCSE Bulletin (the publication of the Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education). John also represents the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Education Board on the Computing Curricula (CC2004) Task Force and previously chaired the Accreditation Committee of ACM for twelve years. He was also represented the IEEE Computer Society on the computer engineering (CE2004) Task Force where he served as a principal co-author and editor for that effort. Additionally, John is an Associate Editor of the Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Engineering, under the development of the John Wiley publishing company. John enjoys classical music, museums, and philately.
Philip Rees
As a team leader for ICT in an inner London secondary school I have had responsibility for two years for training Beginner Teachers and Newly Qualified Teachers. I saw a use for a checklist which could be used to provide documentation gathered for assessment of learning during a lesson. I have focussed attention on plenaries which through a simple tick-list against class names could be used to inform progress against lesson objectives/assessment milestones. Though a simple tick-list exercise it can build up to provide evidence of pupil progress and moderation of future lessons. I would like to research the effects upon pupils and teachers as I introduce it throughout the department using an electronic format for convenience.
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