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7 January 2006
January 06 Newsletter
MirandaNet BETT06 news - Olympia 11th – 14th JanuaryCome and find us on Stand P30 National Hall where we have mounted a Mexican exhibition
Come to MirandaNet stand P30 on the first floor in the National Hall (same place as last year) where we have mounted a Mexican exhibition. We are displaying the interactive ENCICLOMEDIA software which is being used in Mexico to engage school children in their history. Olivia Flores, John Cuthell and Felipe Bracho will be there to talk about our three year programme of practice-based research with teachers in Mexico, China and South Africa with Promethean ACTIVBoards.
Ask us about how you can get involved in our new projects. Dr Steven Coombs, Director, MirandaNet Academy, Bath Spa University, will be ready to answer your questions about planning practice-based project work to achieve accreditation. We have developed a range of pathways that do not involve writing an academic essay.
Recent project are:
Cultural and community-focused projects
The World Ecitizens charity set up by the Miranda Net Fellows in 25 countries to give young people a voice on citizenship in a global context.
Innovative new schemes and projects
Inspiration Concept Mapping
We have a working group running about visual literacy with particular reference to concept mapping. The next meeting with Inspiration is at 2:30pm after Jane Finch’s presentation on the TAG Learning stand, F50, at 2:00pm. All MirandaNet members are being offered 15% off the software on the TAG learning stand so do go over and explain who you are. You can get a flier on our stand.
Our next visual literacy workshops are on 24th/25th February at the Institute of Education, University of London and April 27th /28th at Bath Spa University.
You can download the TAG offer from here (PDF file, 500KB).
BETT06 MirandaNet events
Wednesday 11th January 4:15 pm in W23
Working with Interactive Whiteboards
Early practice based research findings about teaching, learning and attainment from teachers in China, Mexico, South Africa and UK.
5:00 pm Mexican reception
On MirandaNet stand P30 in the National Hall (after our seminar) Mexican reception. Join us for a meal afterwards.
Thursday 12th January
We shall be holding meetings for invitees on our stand during the morning
10:00am - WE Trustees
11:00am - The English Heritage Lottery Fund bid
1:00 pm - EU Comenius – Gruntvig – 6 country network.
BETT Contact details
Stand No. P30 National Hall
Christina Preston 07 8 01 336 048
Modupe Opaleye 07 916 274 142
Diary Dates for MirandaNet for 2006
February 24th/25th - Institute of Education, University of London
Visual Literacy workshop
March 2nd – Torquay
MirandaNet NAACE Keynote
March 22nd - John Cuthell giving a paper in Florida at SITE06
March 31st - Monterrey
Presentation by Chinese, UK, South African and Mexican Fellows about the use of digital tools in transformational learning.
April 27th/28th - Bath Spa Visual Literacy and IWB programme
May 30th - June 2nd EU Comenius meeting in Friesland
Including the launch of the new MN website.
Hold your diary for our next workshop !
We have not been able to find a location in Prague at the right price in October 2006 half-term. We are now researching February half-term 2007. Bozena Mannova will be in touch in February with the plans. This will be a week of school visits, workshops and a public seminar of members’ achievements. We will send letters of invitation to anyone who you think will fund you for the important iCPD event which aims to set up joint projects between global partners.
Braided Learning – MirandaNet eJournal volumes
We are now establishing editors and peer reviewers for the various volumes of our eJournal. If you would welcome this chance to review colleagues’ case studies and mentor teachers as writers please get in touch with Christina Preston. Reviewers will be offered training if required. It’s a good way of keeping up with leading-edge practice-based evidence. Editing can be done online of course.
Follow this link for the for the eJournal (www.mirandanet.ac.uk/ejournal) (Please note that the GTC journal has been renamed the Teachers as Researchers eJournal.)
Forthcoming editions of Reflecting Education
We are very proud of the five Miranda Net Fellows who contributed to the first volume of the IOE journal Reflecting Education. This is a free eJournal which MirandaNet members will find interesting. MirandaNet is planning a new volume for 2007 based on our Visual Literacy workshops. We are thinking about doing this as a wiki. Get in touch if you would like to be involved. This is possible online. More about this after BETT06.
New Developments in the STAR Project: AS Level English Work
Lawrence Williams, our star globalist, reports For the last five years, the Holy Cross School in south London has been working with NASA scientists in Cleveland, Ohio, to develop new ways of teaching and learning science. The STAR Project has run very successfully in Year 7 throughout this period, with some outstanding examples of drama, art, narrative, and descriptive work being posted on the NASA STAR web site.
Last term, Autumn 2005, the project was extended into Year 12, where Lawrence Williams is developing AS level English coursework with one of his classes. There are two pieces of work required. One is a narrative piece about a journey to Europa, Saturn’s most intriguing moon, where life may well exist. The second is a “process” piece within which the students record how they have learned to develop their ICT skills, their narrative work, and the inclusion of accurate NASA science data in their stories.
Actively supporting this work is Joe Kolecki, NASA Mars Pathfinder scientist, Ohio, who is working as an on-line tutor to this London AS Level group. Questions about mathematics, scientific problems and points for general discussion are sent to Joe by email. His detailed and helpful replies are then printed out and discussed, so that each member of the English group can develop scientific accuracy within their narratives, as well a s a broader perspective on their work.
We plan to post some of the finished work on the MirandaNet site, later in the year.
dICTatEd - we need another 1,000 primary respondents - can you help?
Bob Fox is currently doing an analysis of the explanations that 'primary folk' (teachers, students, etc) have provided for why ICT should not be an essential component of education - however, we need another 1,000 responses from primary folk to increase the power of this analysis.
We need your help - if you teach Primary ITE then please tell your students about the dICTatEd questionnaire and get them to fill it in. It takes 9 minutes (approx) to fill in the entire questionnaire - which you can access here.
If you don't teach primary folk don't worry - we would still like you to ask your students to play - we will be moving on to look at secondary folk's explanations in the not too distant future.
Filling in the questionnaire should stimulate your students' thinking about why they are using ICT in their own teaching - and can provide the focus for interesting debates within your courses.
If you would like to be able to see your students' (annonymised) responses then email me, Peter Twining, with your name, email address, and the name of your institution and I will create a hot link into the questionnaire specifically for your organisation. If your students then use that link to enter the questionnaire I will be able to extract their data and send it to you (in an excel spreadsheet). Check here for a full list of all the folk who are currently collaborating on dICTatEd - you too can be part of this!
New MirandaNet Chapter in Macedonia?
It’s Lawrence again!
Following the very successful day’s ICT training visit of a Macedonian educational delegation to Holy Cross School, a new link has been established with the University of Bitola, Macedonia. Lawrence and Susan Williams plan to visit the Education Faculty in Bitola in April 2006, to help support ICT education at the university, and to help them set up a new MirandaNet Chapter. In the meantime, MirandaNet will be offering the Macedonians web space as a way of supporting their movement towards MirandaNet Fellowship.
Lawrence Williams
New Fellows
Dr. Sylvia Rojas-Drummond
See her article published in the electronic journal of MirandaNet in the new area for Mexico.
New Scholars
Christina Howell-Richardson
Christina Howell-Richardson is a Research Fellow at the Expert Centre, University of Portsmouth. The centre is a research unit, with a remit to investigate and promote the use of learning technology in higher education, and in the health-related sciences in particular.
Christina is an Applied Linguist and an Educator, and is especially interested in applying linguistic theories of discourse to understand how technology is used in teaching and learning in higher education. Another interest is the development of pedagogical models for group learning in virtual environments.
Her current post is a re-entry to full-time work after spending eight years based at home, raising children, writing a PhD and working as a materials developer and part-time lecturer at the Institute of Education. Previous posts include a lectureship in Applied Linguistics at the University of Surrey and a Teaching Fellowship (Applied Linguistics) at Edinburgh University.
Dale Jones
I work for Shropshire Local Authority as a Hands On Support Consultant for Secondary Schools, supporting the embedding of ICT into subject teaching. This involves supporting teachers in whatever area of ICT they wish to address, including the use of digital video to support performance analysis and self review, innovative use of ICT to support creative and factual writing, using online learning environments, use of subject-specific software and ICT tools and the development of learning situations that make appropriate use of the ICT tools available. Prior to this I worked as ICT Co-ordinator in a rural Shropshire secondary school where I developed the online presence and VLE using open source software. The continued development of contemporary technologies to educational uses is where my main interests lie, enhancing and extending learning experiences through ICT and furthering semantic social networks to build sustainable learning communities.
I am studying for the MSc in Educational Leadership and Management at University College, Worcester. Prior qualifications include an HND in mechanical engineering, a BSc in Secondary Mathematics (QTS) from the University of the West of England and a Postgraduate Certificate in Professional Studies in Education from the Open University. I am married with two children Aneurin and Rhiannon, aged 3 and 2.
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