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26 May 2006

May 2006 Newsletter

MirandaNet May Newsletter

Contents

Call for concept mapping papers- abstracts by June 6th

Fascinating cultural objects: multimodal mapping in teaching and learning

Special Issue
Reflecting Education Ejournal - http://reflectingeducation.net
Fascinating cultural objects: multimodal mapping in teaching and learning

The editors are MirandaNet members : Christina Preston, Christina Howell-Richardson, Avril Loveless and Di Mavers.

The aims of the volume include:
- making a contribution to the concept and mind mapping debate
- identifying similar visual research methodologies profiling the principles of emergent practice
- outlining the contribution of this methodology to the development of multimodal literacy in education.

You will find the rest of this call on

http://www.reflectingeducation.net/files/Call-Concept-Mapping.pdf

if you are interested in contributing. Please send expressions of interest by Tuesday 6th June to Christina Preston. These should be in the form of a 250/300 word abstract as well as an explanation of the technologies that will be used in the presentation of the paper if this is relevant. International contributions are warmly welcome.

Potential contributors who are using the software Inspiration for their study qualify for a free copy of Inspiration version 8. Contact Christina Preston for more information. All other Miranda Net members get a 15% discount.

Concept mapping workshops 17th June / 18th November, London

Fascinating cultural objects: multimodal concept mapping in teaching and learning

New attendees are welcome in this series of workshops: Saturdays 17th June and 18th November
Rm 413 - Institute of Education, University of London
20 Bedford Way, WC1A OAL (near Russell Square Station)
www.streetmap.co.uk

The programme on 17th June 2006 will include talks about concept mapping in classrooms from teacher experts, chances to contribute to a wiki on concept mapping, practical sessions in using concept mapping on the web and a demonstration of the uses of Inspiration version 8.

These workshops have been funded by Inspiration: http://www.inspiration.com/ie

See Christina's article on MindMapping: http://www.mirandanet.ac.uk/publications/mapping.htm

A public forum on multimodal and non-linear communication has started on the MirandaNet website which MirandaNet members are encouraged to join if you are interested in this area. Some papers abstracts and experimental studies are already published in the Inspiration e-journal volume of the MirandaNet Braided Learning ejournal (www.mirandanet.ac.uk). We will also welcome software reviews and summaries of uses of mapping in education from the wider community who do not wish to offer a paper. The most appropriate five papers in the MirandaNet Inspiration ejournal volume will be selected for further editing for the Reflecting Education ejournal.

A more detailed programme will be out soon. Contact me (Christina Preston) for more information.

New Macedonian Chapter

We are delighted to welcome a new MirandaNet Chapter, provisionally called MirandaNet Kazamandi, after a great Macedonian heroine, and also the name of a primary school, in Bitola. The Macedonian Chapter was set up following a visit to the south London MirandaNet school of Lawrence Williams by a group of educators from Skopje and Bitola Education Faculties. A return invitation to teach in Macedonia followed, and on 8th April 2006 Lawrence, and his wife Susan, flew out. They were very warmly welcomed by the Dean and teaching staff, especially by Daniela and Tatjana, and Susan Williams has written a detailed Report about the visit.
Lawrence Williams.

Susan has submitted her Report about ICT Education in Macedonia, and the lecture and other support that she gave to the two universities, as her 2,000 word Fellowship paper.
See: http://www.mirandanet.ac.uk/internat/macedonia_report.htm
and another link when you get there to
http://www.mirandanet.ac.uk/internat/macedonia_gallery.htm

MirandaNet in Monterrey, Mexico

Transforming teaching transforming learning, transforming lives

The Promethean Ambassadors for ACTIVlearning – teacher-researchers, academics and the MirandaNet project team – met in Monterrey, regional capital of Nuevo Leon province, Mexico from March 26 to April 1 for the third international workshop in the international ACTIVboard project funded by Promethean. The first workshop was held in London in January 2005, the second in Cape Town, South Africa, in July 2005. Olivia Flores, from the Ministry of Education in Nuevo Leon province in Mexico, is our liaison for the project. She organised a programme for us that started with traditional Mexican dancing, by students from a local school, combined superb accommodation, enjoyable meals and memorable locations, and ended with a day-long conference, where the Ambassadors presented their projects and findings to an audience of more than 600 teachers, academics and policy makers at Unidad Mederos, the Autonomous University of Nuevo León.

Monterrey lies in a bowl surrounded by spectacular mountains and is at the edge of the Chipinque National Park The first part of the workshop was at a lodge in the park, surrounded by pine trees, looking up to the mountain peaks and down to the city, whilst above us vultures wheeled in the thermals. We worked for three days sharing our findings and resources, then we travelled to an even more breath-taking location in mountain caverns – where, using ACTIVboards, we prepared a collaborative presentation for the public seminar.

John Eccleston, Group Training Manager of Promethean, provided continuous professional development for all of the participants, who left the workshop with significantly enhanced skills – and Promethean accreditation!

A range of evidence had been collected by the teachers, video clips, flipcharts, pupil work and case studies. All of this was used to create the group presentation at the Autonomous University of Nuevo León on the Friday. Georgia Kalkanis, John Eccleston, Manuel Fernandes, Sylvia Rojas, Christina Preston, Olivia Flores and John Cuthell also presented work. John Eccleston’s expertise ensured that things ran smoothly. The audience were particularly appreciative of the presentations and the evidence presented.

The teacher-researchers and university researchers have been collecting data since the project started in 2005. By the end of the first twelve months of the project, in March 2006, evidence was building from schools in all four continents – China, Mexico, South Africa and the United Kingdom – that ACTIVboards were acting as a catalyst for change in learning and teaching.

Read a brief report on the visit here:
http://www.mirandanet.ac.uk/associates/promethean_ambassadors_monterrey.htm

Findings from the first year of the MirandaNet/Promethean Ambassadors project
http://www.mirandanet.ac.uk/associates/promethean_ambassadors_findings.htm

Action Research Project Conference in Mexico Begins to Reveal Key Findings
http://www.mirandanet.ac.uk/associates/promethean_findings.htm

Thanks must go to Olivia Flores, who organised the accommodation and social programme in some spectacular locations, and to Promethean Technologies for supporting and funding the project.

John Potter took a lot of photographs: some can be viewed at http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnp_p/

Interactive Whiteboards in Initial Teacher Training and Beyond

The professional organisation for Initial Teaching in IT (ITTE) would like your comments on IWBs. We will publish the results in the newsletter. Graham Jarvis the Chair tell you about the questionnaire for MirandaNet members

During the last few years Interactive or Electronic Whiteboards have grown in popularity in schools. My impression is that this more so in Primary than Secondary schools-but I have no specific data evidence to support this-it is, however, supported by the feedback I have gained from my trainees.

As part of my role of training teachers I want to know and understand how IWBs are impacting on teaching and learning. I want to get behind the commercial hype and understand how the next generation of teachers perceive IWBs and in what ways they are using them during their school based placements.

I also want to know if trainees are receiving training during their university courses and if they have training during school based training placements. What IWBs are available and used? How are they used and do trainees use the ready made resources available or make their own to support specific contexts?

If you are involved in Initial Teacher Training, use IWBs in your teaching, or are involved in an advisory capacity in ICT I would be grateful if colleagues would support my survey by completing the questionnaire which can be found at www.tascampus.org.uk. Some of you may work outside the UK and wish to contribute. I would welcome your perspective as well.

On visiting the site you can access it by going to the top right hand corner and clicking on Create new account. Complete the simple form with a User name/Password/email address/home address. When this form is submitted you will automatically be sent an email. Click on the URL link or copy and paste it into the URL address. This will take you to the site where you can enter your User name and Password. The survey is on the left hand side of the front page under Mirandanet members.

All questions should be answered in order for you to submit the survey.

Thank You
Graham Jarvis
Chair of ITTE (Association for IT in Teacher Education)

How do we know or measure what effect ICT is having on achievement levels?

During April there was a fascinating debate on the impact of ICT on achievement and learning. The debate was started in the NAACE discussion lists, but it was very quickly picked up by MirandaNet members. The simplistic notion that the only significant impact of ICT that we ought to be measuring was very quickly kicked into touch by the membership, who contributed some extremely pertinent observations to the debate.

John Cuthell
http://www.mirandanet.ac.uk/fellowship/measure_effect.htm

PELRS project – Developing Pedagogies for E-learning Resources (PELRS)

www.pelrs.org.uk

Bridget Somekh was the first academic that MirandaNet invited to run a workshop in 1994. Her PALM project in the early nineties provoked our interest in action research which we now call practice-based research. Bridget has sent us the summary of findings of her latest project called Developing Pedagogies for E-learning Resources Project (PELRS for short). The report praises teachers for their keenness to challenge a narrow and transmissive model of teaching and learning. The results provide some thoughtful pointers about the 'innovative' pedagogy which is possible if teachers are well supported in making changes in classrooms.

http://www.mirandanet.ac.uk/publications/research.htm
Christina Preston

Enhancing Learning Through Technology

A new book jointly published by one of our Fellows Dr. Daithí Ó Murchú Ph.D and Elsebeth Korsgaard Sorensen with contributions from Fellows Norbert Pachler and John Cuthell

Elsebeth Korsgaard Sorensen , Daithi O Murchu; Aalborg University, Denmark; Gaelscoil Ó Doghair and Hibernia College, Ireland
Information Science Publishing
Hard Cover (ISBN: 1-59140-971-3)
Soft Cover (ISBN: 1-59140-972-1)

Digital technology for learning enhancement has been accepted in all levels of education, incorporating the ambitions of challenging traditional educational paradigms for the purpose of stimulating change and bringing about an innovation in the design of curricula.

Enhancing Learning Through Technology identifies and presents the latest research on theory, practice, and capturing learning designs and best-practices. It demonstrates significant and innovative ways of improving learning processes through responsible integration of technology.

New Fellows

Wilma Clark

Wilma is an ICT teacher at Tonbridge Grammar School and is currently studying for a PhD on the topic of Learning Spaces and Knowledge Acquisition through the use of new technologies at the Institute of Education.

She is currently evolving for the Mirandanet Non-Linear Mindmapping workshop series which aims to produce a series of publications for a special issue of the journal Reflecting Education.

Congratulations to Wilma, who becomes a Fellow this month, following her delivery of a very interesting look at the use of mind-mapping in the classroom, based on a case study:
Go to Wilma's Case Study

Michael Lightfoot

Currently I am working as a senior education adviser at Enterprise MPC, doing a lot of development work on our learning platform, LP+, based on Microsoft Learning Gateway and providing education advice on the company's Building Schools for the Future (BSF) and Academies programme.

I have been involved wholly in ICT in education for about the past 5 years arising from my involvement with Pearsons in Cambridge and the development of their InConText materials for the NOF programme, although I have had ICT in education as part of my broad portfolio as a free lance education consultant and OFSTED inspector for the past 15 years or so. I came into the wonderful world of technology in education through my working professionally in technical theatre and a subsequent teaching position in theatre technology at The Central School of Speech and Drama. (but that was 20 years ago !)

My first degree is in Pharmacology and over the years I have spent a fair amount of time as a jobbing science teacher, trying to encourage recidivist colleagues to incorporate more ICT in their day to day lessons!

Over the past five years I have worked as a free-lancer and an employee for a number of well-know household names in the world of ICT education - Viglen, Time, CTAD, TAG - and I'm a great fan and advocate of Inspiration (which I see features strongly on the Mirandanet website). As well as the UK work, I have undertaken assignment on ICT in basic education and in Vocational Education and Training in a number of former Soviet Union countries - Uzbekistan, Ukraine and Armenia.

At the moment we are in the late stages of a couple a major BSF projects in the North West of England - on the brink of becoming the Preferred Bidder (we hope) on one of these projects.

My personal and professional interest centres upon the CPD and culture change which are essential pre-requisites for successful e-Learning to take place, both in and out of educational establishment. Much of our current bid work is placing a strong emphasis on this - largely overlooked, in the context of BSF -centrally important component.

Here is my case study for my Fellowship:
http://www.mirandanet.ac.uk/casestudies/mnet/179

Jocelyn Pride

Jocelyn Pride is a Year Six classroom teacher / Year Six Coordinator at Scotch College, Melbourne, Australia. Her numerous years as a practitioner both in Australia and internationally, led her to studying robotics as part of a master degree at The University of Melbourne. She considers robotics to be a perfect activity to complement all aspects of the curriculum as well as an opportunity to break new ground in the use of technology. Jocelyn has presented academic papers at national and international conferences. She is presently working on linking the use of interactive whiteboards with robotics.

Jocelyn's classroom a technologically enriched experience and her philosophy centres on self esteem underpinning all education. Joycelyn will be visiting UK schools in June.

Jocelyn deservedly gains her Fellowship from the article ‘From Girls to Boys - Tell me and I’ll forget. Show me and I may remember. Involve me and I’ll understand’

http://www.mirandanet.ac.uk/casestudies/mnet/184

Jack Whitehead

Jack Whitehead has worked on his research programme into the nature of educational theory since 1973 as a Lecturer in Education at the University of Bath. Following his first degree in Physics and Chemistry Jack studied the philosophy and psychology of education for his Academic Diploma and the psychology of education for his Masters Degree. In his doctorate he develop the idea that each individual could produce their living educational theory as an explanation of their educational influence in their own learning, in the learning of others and in the learning of social formations. He has been using ICT in developing multi-media accounts to show the meanings of embodied values of humanity in explanations of educational influence. You can access his doctorate and the 20 living theory doctorates he has supervised to successful completion over the past ten years at http://www.actionresearch.net. The latest of Jack's publications with Jean McNiff is Action Research Living Theory (London; Sage) and you can see some of the influences of the creative engagement of other practitioner-researchers with these ideas in the Action Research in Guyuan section and in the work supported by Jacqueline Delong in Canada from the front page of http://www.actionresearch.net. You can engage with Jack's ideas in the guest e-forum for the 7th World Congress on Action Learning Action Research and Process Management at http://www.wcar2006.nl/forum/viewforum.php

Jack’s paper for his Fellowship:
Constructing Living Educational Theories From Action Research With Others In Enquiries Of The Kind, 'How do I improve what I am doing?'
http://www.mirandanet.ac.uk/casestudies/mnet/185

Sue Williams

Sue gains her Fellowship by writing up her experiences in Macedonia, including the ways in which Mirandanet has so far, and will in the future, be supporting them.
http://www.mirandanet.ac.uk/internat/macedonia_report.htm
and another link when you get there to
http://www.mirandanet.ac.uk/internat/macedonia_gallery.htm

New Scholars

Brian Brooks

I am a mathematics teacher in the UK independent sector with departmental responsibility for ICT development and for training my departmental colleagues in ICT use for mathematics teaching. In June, I will be running a regional conference for mathematics teachers to share their experiences of using ICT in the classroom. I am a member (and may become chair) of the Mathematical Association's subcommittee on spreadsheets, and am working on a book on the use of spreadsheets in the mathematics classroom at GCSE level. One of my particular interests is in the potential of relatively open software such as Excel and dynamic geometry software such as Cabri-Geometry. The great strength of these packages is that they empower teachers to generate resources that suit their own teaching style. Many more focussed resources are frustrating in that they demand that the teacher adapt his or her style to the resource: what they gain in immediate availability with little effort they lose in lack of applicability and flexibility.

Steve Bunce

I work as an ICT Consultant for Northumberland. From a teaching background, I moved into the consultancy role with the creation of the former Key Stage 3 strategy, now Secondary strategy. This has provided many opportunities to guide and develop ICT teachers through coaching and training. My interest in teaching methods and styles led to involvement in the Pedagogy and Practice for ICT publication from the DfES.

Creativity using ICT has helped to produce exciting lessons and resources for multimedia, control and datalogging; sample case studies of which have been published by NAACE in their focus magazines.

I have a keen interest in thinking skills and interactive technologies, such as interactive whiteboards and voting systems; this has led to the development of a ‘Thinking through ICT’ course, which I am currently working on.

As part of my consultancy, I am now carrying out action research with Newcastle University. A new area of interest is the implementation of the EPICT, European Pedagogical ICT qualification for the professional development of teachers. I am really excited by the work of MirandaNet and look forward to being part of the community.

David Hidajatoellah

I have read educational psychology, educational science and linguistics at university. I have also read pedagogy at an institute for higher vocational training. Apart from that I'm a qualified English teacher as well as court translator/interpreter for both English and Norwegian. I have worked as a court translator/interpreter for 6 years. I have translated many different texts, books, articles et al for the last 10 years. In regard to this my areas of expertise have become/are medicine, (bio) chemistry, biology as well as law. I have taught English to pupils in secondary education. I have been involved in teaching NT2 pupils (Dutch as a second language) as well as training Dutch as a second language teachers. During my training as linguist I specialized in second and first language acquisition. In the last two years I have worked in the Medialab on educational games for low literates and university students. In 2004 - 2005 I worked on a game for low literates so as to help them function better in a company. This project was a direct result of the heightened interest in the Netherlands for low literacy which stemmed from the targets outlined in Lisbon in regard to the knowledge economy in Europe. I'm currently working on the development of a mobile educational game for low literates and first year university students of Media and Culture. This project is a joint effort by the University of Amsterdam dept. Media and Culture as well as the Waag Society (new & old media company). The prime educational objective of the latter being to teach the 1st years students by way of an interactive mobile game how cultural, social,economic, historic, governmental as well as political dimensions interact and influence one another in the urban setting. The game focusses on an area in Amsterdam called Nieuwendijk which has a rich history of cinemas. The students have to learn for instance that the geographical position of a cinema is linked to urban planning and a social/cultural climate. I have also developed lesson materials for different target groups and developed/helped set up two four training programmes. The most recent being a programme for an institute for higher vocational training which is aimed at training newly arrived (inexperienced) teaching staff. They are coached during this training programme by the current teaching staff. The purpose of this programme is to teach newly arrived teachers the basics of pedagogy and educational science.

In regard to the request for (ideas and) projects relating to educational mobile games for slow learners and university students which I posted on the BECTA ICT Research Network. The results/tips that came forth from the contacts within the mirandanetwork were most helpful. Thanks.

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