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May 2000
First of all - Congratulations to Robert and Michele Ellis on their new baby. This has marked a worrying outbreak of fertility among MirandaNetters - congrats to Colin Cadney and David Perry too! I note that Isobel's full initials will be IDE but assume this is pure coincidence and not work fixation taking over.. Talking of which, if this newsletter is late - yet again - I am employing the "Threshold Application Excuse Mk1". It has taken me days to pull together the stuff for my application and I still do not know if what I have written will push the right buttons to get me over. SEN Coordinators do not do the same kinda stuff as everyone else - at least I don't. I coordinate. I don't think anything any government has done to education has annoyed me so much for a long time. Think of the demotivation and strife when people do not get across the threshold. Anyway, enough - Tina will probably tell me to cut the foregoing so the other excuse is that I've been in Prague - and many thanks to Boba for her hospitality.
Jane's bit
Think.com
Listening to mirandalinks, personal emails, and talk at the Professional Development seminars, I'm beginning to wonder if think.com has lost it's grip on what young people find important. You only have to listen to mobile phone conversations to realise that it's not 'what you have to say' but 'where you are' that counts. It's got more difficult to know 'where you are' on the new version of the learning environment software.
Some people have been finding the new software less intuitive than before. Others say the transition isn't so difficult, but it's less easy to find your way around (navigation buttons change according to where you find yourself) and that the sense of community has been lost (no little faces to show who else is on-line).
Can we have some views from people who haven't responded so far - whether you like it or dislike it. There's a new button now on the front page at www.think.com which gives new users more information about the product. Read it; it's illuminating.
Links
The May Educational-site-of-the-Month has been awarded to Learn.co.uk - part of Guardian Unlimited; a new site, launched this May, that aims to offer UK school students and teachers top quality on-line lessons and learning materials. It's still being built, but is worth looking at. www.learn.co.uk
The Community-site-of-the-Month MirandaRose Award goes to Trace Online Writing Community - which exhibits good practice in the area of community-building and energetic support to learners in writing at all stages. trace.ntu.ac.uk
Your groups could take the on-line lessons in good writing at the Guardian site and then put them into practice at trAce.
And, as always, there are the new month's links at www.mirandanet.ac.uk/links/linksnew.htm
Site News
Remember to keep looking at the Diary which has details of MirandaNet and associated seminars on it. June offerings are:
- 5 June: Maintenance and Motivation of Online Communities
- 17 June: Developing Software Evaluation Skills
- 20 June: The Electronic Challenge
- 24 June: Rethinking Literacy in an Age of New Media
go to www.mirandanet.org.uk/news/diary.php for details and registration.
____Jane Dorner______
http://www.editor.net
Jane came up with a great idea on Mirandalink - a FAQ for Think - here is her starter.
Q1. I can't get think.com to remember my username and password?
A. No, it doesn't. I assume that this is a security thing for privacy on networks, but a dead bore for those with personal machines. You will need to remember your log-on ID.
Q2. How do you include live URLs in articles? It was easy before - there was a space at the bottom for up to 3 URLs. Have I missed something?
A. No, You have to add HTML coding to the article - like this: Please Sir Oracle's software converts that automatically to a live link when you save (i.e. the blue bit will be Please Sir). It's better in some ways because you can have the live link where you want in the article. But worse for people who would rather not learn to code.
Q3. I can't send email in Think.com
A. No, there's a bug at the moment.
Q4. Is there still a Scoop-type interface for pupils since for some it would make use of the system easier?
A. Yes. When you log in, you will see a Preferences button. Click on that and change the box marked Skin to show Scoop. This will be more familiar (though a darker purple than before). They're calling it Scoop Classic.
Q5. I can't find my way about. Where am I in the system?
A. You log in at your own personal space. It gives you a box which will have
'new' items in (currently everything is new at the switchover on 2 May). The
second box will show pages with higher 'hit-rates' than others - so you can
read what others (in your communities) are reading. The third box shows which
communities you belong to and what your status is. You can then go straight
into them. Try searching the big wide world of think.com too.
Q5. What's the Gallery?
A. Everything you have written is stored in the Gallery - and you can manage it from there. At the moment, everything you had published before is published now. If you want to withdraw an article from public view, but keep it in your Gallery, you must do each item one at a time (there's supposed to be another way, but it doesn't work). Go into your newspaper and select Edit Paper, choose Edit Row and remove the article which you don't want on your paper. An archive version will stay in your Gallery.
To see what's in the Gallery, sort the contents by type and or name - click on the top row heading words and it will sort.
Q6. What does, 'Enter an name for you place' mean in the About section?
A. The Help files online leave much to be desired. We need to wait until the software has matured a little.
So far no one else has posted FAQs but there must be loads. You don't need the answer - just the question - but if you post it with FAQ in the message header then we could get them all together and bung it up on Think - or MirandaNet's home page. Hopefully others will have the answers!
From Basia
Information, Education, ICT, Italy
Luigi Macri teaches English in an Italian secondary school. He is actively involved in ICT projects and the integration of ICT to teaching. He is looking for two or three European partners to set up a new project about information, education, new technologies and the Internet. If you are interested, contact him as soon as possible:
luigimacri at libero.itLuigi A. Macrì
Revision Software
Tina prompted responses when she asked about revision software.
BBC Bite sized revision is well spoken of. MFL and Science (Physics) praised in particular by Jeremy, who is just starting his GCSEs. www.bbc.co.uk/education/revision/
And the GCSE English, English Literature and Business Studies info also gets a very big thumbs up at Holy Cross.
Thank you - I'll endorse that!
BBC Bitesize has TV programmes, a large website and print resources for GCSE revision across 11 subjects and CD ROMs for maths and science. We also produced this year for the first time resources on TV, the internet, CD ROM and in print for the National Tests at KS3 called KS3 Bittesize, and for KS2 called Revisewise. For websites across all phases please see www.bbc.co.uk/revision
69% of GCSE students have used some of the Bitesize GCSE resources and research undertaken by Durham University showed that student's grades increased between one half to a whole grade if they used Bitesize. We've also had a lot of positive endorsement from teachers and students.
I understand that Letts have the highest print sales.
If it helps I'll see if someone can get some quotes for you.
(from the BBC I guess!)
NOF Training
Lilia got everyone going with her request for recommendations for NOF trainers! Remember, Lilia wants primary training.
RMs Window Box training for primaries is very good. They have a support site with all sorts of lesson plans and things. www.wbol.co.uk - have a look - there will be information there.
RM's Training is called the Learning Schools Programme and is provided in conjunction with the Open University. it is possible to gain accreditation towards diplomas etc. It is more than just Window Box. They are also the recommended provider for Newham LEA and many, many others. As the the actual quality of the training or materials I don't have any first hand experience. However, feedback seems to be positive from the two or three schools I know of who've started with it.
I hesitate to mention a provider that I have had some involvement with, but as I'm secondary, and Lilia's request was for primary, I feel I can be slightly unbiased when I say that Talent has got some good stuff for the primary sector. The approach is a mixture of a short taught course, web-based distance learning materials, on-line conferencing (using web-based First Class), and school based classroom support. From the limited feedback I've heard from the primary users, the face-to-face aspects are particularly helpful - they get support, rather than being told to 'get on with it'. It is an LEA based scheme, restricted to schools in the area around the London Borough of Lewisham in SE London (see the red folder for exact details of which London Boroughs are served), but it has the enormous advantage over other NOF providers (are they unique in this?) in that you can 'try before you buy' - if you have the web address, you can read all the materials.
Have a look at www.talent.org.uk
I'd welcome personal feedback about these pages, which I can feed into the Talent production team to make this an even better resource.
I asked a group of headteachers at a meeting yesterday about their experience with NOF training providers. There are mixed feelings about the University of North London, we've found it terrible and aren't going to ask teachers to attend future sessions. There was strong enthusiasm for CLPE, we might use them next time. People liked it because it wasn't based on distance learning.
I was shocked to find I was the only person speaking out against performance related pay...
Lilia's school is equipped with iMacs....
Being an iMac school are you also on the MIPS list (Macs in Primary Schools - MIPS at onelist.com) and/or part of the Macintosh Learning Community (mac-learning-community at mailbase.ac.uk)? You might want to ask if they have any experience of RM providing NOF training to non-standard sites!
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