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10 May 2015

Farewell to the old, greetings to the new!

This MirandaNet web site is now in archive, using the URL mirandanet.org.uk. A brand new site is available from our original URL mirandanet.ac.uk, but you will be able to browse this archive version (which itself contains archive material!) for the foreseeable future.

And it is not an entirely 'dead' archive! Most of the links which display old Members' details have been de-activated, along with the joining and logging in routines. The case studies and articles are still live, but can only be edited by the Admin. If any member wishes to withdraw their permission for any published item on the site, please contact the editor using the link below.

The main focus of MirandaNet now is the new site, where news and diary items will be published.

Thanks to everyone who has supported me in my editorship of this wonderful organisation over the past 15 years. It is time to hand over to younger blood.

Francis Howlett
Former MirandaNet Editor
10th May 2015

7 May 2015

Tablets for Teachers!

David Fuller, one of our senior Fellows, is now a trainer for the Tablet Academy, who are MirandaNet associates. He’s just let me know that whereas teachers pay £105 to attend the Tablet Academy regional roadshows, they take away a free Windows tablet of choice worth £170. Some schools send several teachers where they have a strategic plan to bring in tablets in the next academic year.

The roadshows are being held in Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Glasgow, Leicester, London, Cornwall Norwich, Reading and Blackpool from May and I’ve seen good reports from teachers. More information here: www.tablet-academy.com/win8edutour.html. They also do free professional development workshops in London in the use of tablets in school. Call Tablet Academy on +44 (0) 1384 573330

If you want to know more about the use of tablets in schools, David has published a study, Pop Up Classroom, making things simple with tablets, about Roadshow follow-up support in schools in Brighton www.mirandanet.ac.uk/casestudies/313.

We will also be publishing studies about Flipped Learning underpinned by the use of tablets in the Knowledge Hub on our beta site (ready soon).

2 May 2015

Joint International Conference Slovenia, 28th - 30th May 2015

Joint International Conference
Managing Sustainable Growth
Organised by University of Primorska, Faculty of Management, Slovenia
Professor Christina Preston and Dr Sarah Younie
on
Taking the Tablets Transforming teaching, liberating learners and engaging the community
Innovations in technology that enhance teaching and learning

Congress Centre Bernardin www.bernardingroup.si/en, Portorož, Slovenia.

http://www.mic15.fm-kp.si/

28th - 30th May 2015

Digital Futures: Shaping tomorrow's learning and teaching

Digital Futures: Shaping tomorrow's learning and teaching

ITTE National conference

Saturday July 4th 2015

Deadline for paper submissions: June 12th

Christina Preston and Sarah Younie, MirandaNet Fellows, will be speaking on:

Getting Published: MirandaNet Knowledge Hub. 

Marilyn Leask, MirandaNet fellow, will be speaking on:

The Power of Teacher Research

At £20 this is perhaps the conference bargain of the summer being subsidised by ITTE This year they are also offering a Pecha Kucha presentation format (basically a TeachMeet). Please see the web pages for more details including how to submit a conference contribution and how to book through EventBrite. A menu of options is available on the left hand side of the page. 

£20 only

The venue is:
Regent High School
Chalton Street, London NW1 1RX
Between St Pancras and Mornington Crescent Stations

 

3 April 2015

MirandaNetters speaking at events

30th April 2015

Professor Christina Preston will be speaking on e-learning strategies at the Forest School conference on 30th April that is aimed at school leadership/ those responsible for formulating information/digital strategy for  whole school and  e-learning/teaching & learning. We hope to see you there. You can book here:
www.forest.org.uk/conference/the-development-of-information-and-e-learning-strategy-in-schools-

23rd -26th April 2015

Dr Sarah Younie will be speaking on MOOCs at 13th International Colloquium on Innovation in Education: Personalisation: Who Do You Think You Are? Brescia, Italy

26 February 2015

Naace Strategic Conference 2015

Naace Strategic Conference returns to the East Midlands Conference Centre on 25th - 26th March 2015

'Failing to Succeed' 

Failure is the first step to success, and with a growth mindset ALL can succeed.

Schools leading with connected-world learning create high levels of challenge, develop resilience in adversity, lever creativity to exceed expectations and create a culture of collaboration in learning.

www.naace.co.uk/conference2015

MirandaNet members in 2 sessions:

Panel session 'Technology Impacts on Education That will Arrive Faster than Expected'

The panellists will discuss technology developments of huge importance to education, that are already visible but not yet properly factored into the strategic thinking of school leaders and ICT Co-ordinators.

In addition there will be 3 talks by MirandaNet members:

Listening to Learn 

'Reflections on Creating an Effective Learning Environment' LightSpeed - Dr Sarah Younie, MA Programme Leader and Principal Lecturer in Education Studies, De MontFort University and MirandaNet

'Using Open Media Resources in School' - Theo Kuechel, Educational Research and Consultancy, MirandaNet

'Shaping the Future of CPD: Looking at the Value of Web based Video in professional Learning' - IRIS connect: Dr Christina Preston, Professor of Education Innovation MirandaNet, University of Bedfordshire

Book here: www.naace.co.uk/conference2015

26 January 2015

A world-class teaching profession: UK Government consultation

MirandaNet members have been invited to reply to this consultation about the future of the teaching profession. The consultation is designed to find out if there is enough professional support for an independent College of Teaching based on research into internationally acclaimed education systems in Singapore, South Korea, Shanghai and in Finland. This will be given DfE backing if there is enough grassroots support and financial backing. MirandaNet have pledged some money already.

Responses to these questions by Wednesday 28th.
 
Q1. What are the greatest impediments teachers and schools face in regularly undertaking high-quality professional development?
Q2. To what extent, and how, do teachers currently evaluate their professional development? What would support more rigorous evaluation?
Q3. Where should the balance of responsibility lie between teachers, schools and Government for ensuring that appropriate professional development is undertaken? How, in the longer term, might responsibility sit with a new independent professional body?
Q4. Despite the growing reach of the Teaching Schools network, are there areas where coverage of schools would remain a concern? How could any gaps be addressed?
Q5. What should the funding criteria be for Teaching Schools wishing to draw on the new funding pot for professional development? Should there, for example, be a requirement for Teaching Schools to work with a predetermined proportion of schools which are not already “good” or “outstanding”?
Q6. Will teachers benefit from an online platform that collates and presents evidence-based best practice?
Q7. In addition to the proposals outlined here, what other approaches would help schools to remove barriers and incentivise effective professional development for teachers?
 
Please fill in your contributions here:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ZVYZTFV

You can read the full background to the DfE consultation and download the consultation document here:
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/developing-the-teaching-profession-to-a-world-class-standard

15 January 2015

MirandaNet at BETT15

BETT 2015

For MirandaNet members BETT15 will be for sharing and learning

We  will be Tweeting information all the time on  #mirandanet

Please sign up to get the news,  and make the news….

Amongst the members adding to #mirandanet will be:

@MirandaNet1 @MirandaNetter @sarahyounie @TrishCharlton

In emergencies text 07806669088, 07714 204 514 or 07801336048 for information about the MirandaNet programme.

MirandaNet on the DfE stand

MirandaNet FellowshipThe DfE panels and the Ask the Expert Pods are all on the DfE stand near the main entrance.

Eleanor and Rose will be on the BETT DFE stand  in MirandaNet t-shirts so you can leave messages about finding the MirandaNet team and meeting up with each other.

MirandaNet on DFE panels

Wed
1100 Dylan Jones: Eduvation Consultants
1200 Roger Broadie, Broadie Associates

Thursday
1100 Dr Sarah Younie, Director of Research and Innovation, MirandaNet. Reader at DMU
1200 Dr Christina Preston, Professor of Education Innovation, Founder of MirandaNet

Friday
1400 Dr Sarah Younie, Director of Research and Innovation, MirandaNet. Reader at DMU
1500 Adrian Hall, MirandaNet Director

Mirandalink in the Ask the Expert pods

Members will be meeting up in the  Ask the Expert Pods on the DfEE stand at BETT15 to exchange views and hold meetings. All members who join us will also be able to comment on the draft of our new website. The times are: 

We do hope to see you there.

MirandaNet BETT15 Seminars

1) Free professional development programmes in ICT

Where: Schools Learn Live: Secondary theatre
When: 10:00 – 10:45, Wednesday 21st January
At this session MirandaNet Fellows will explain how school leaders and teachers can make the most of opportunities for professional development through the free services...
Speakers:
Dr Sarah Younie, Reader in Education, Innovation & Technology  De Montfort University, MirandaNet Director of Research, Dr Patricia Charlton, London Knowledge Lab, Institute of Education, MirandaNet Senior Fellow
MirandaNet Senior Fellow, Christina Preston Professor of Education Innovation, MirandaNet Fellowship Founder.

2) The benefits for ICT teachers in joining a MOOC

Where: Theatre: Learn Live: HE Learning Value and the Future Workforce FE
When: 11:30 - 12:15, Wednesday 21 Jan 2015
At this session MirandaNet Fellows will talk about their partnership with EU colleagues from Catalonia, Greece, Slovenia and The Netherlands in designing a MOOC...
Speakers:
Dr Sarah Younie , Reader in Education, Innovation & Technology  De Montfort University, MirandaNet Director of Research, Dr Patricia Charlton, London Knowledge Lab, Institute of Education, MirandaNet Senior Fellow, Christina Preston Professor of Education Innovation, MirandaNet Fellowship Founder.

3) One term in: reviewing the new Computing Curriculum

Theatre: Schools Learn Live: Primary theatre
When: 16:00 - 16:45, Wednesday 21 Jan 2015

How are schools coping with the new Computing curriculum in England? What are the challenges, and how have they been, or could they be overcome?...

Chairperson: Terry Freedman, Independent Educational ICT Consultant, MirandaNet Fellow

Speaker(s):
Rachel Jones, Elearning coordinator, King Edward VI School|Dr Sarah Younie, Reader in Education, Innovation & Technology , De Montfort University & MirandaNet Director of Research |Tim Cross, Strategic Leader, Leigh Academies Trust|Ian Sillett, Education Advisor, onefourseven

4) Behaviour change: Creating a community to encourage educators to adopt technology and change their pedagogy

Theatre: Tech in HE
When: 10:30 - 11:15, Thursday 22 Jan 2015

Hear from our experts:

Chairperson:

Tim Marshall, CEO, Jiscom (Jisc Commercial Limited)

Speakers:
David Walker, Head of Technology Enhanced Learning, University of Sussex|Gavin Brooks, Chair of Technology Enhanced Learning Strategy Group/ Pro-Vice-Chancellor, University of Reading|Margaret Cox OBE, Professor of Information Technology in Education, King's College London, Senior MirandaNet Fellow|Kevin Morton, Senior Lecturer, University of Brighton|Jaya Kannan, Director of Digital Learning

5) The FUTURES debate-Bring your own device

Theatre: Bett Futures
When 15:50 - 16:50, Thursday 22 Jan 2015
Bring your own device continues to be one of the most debated and controversial topics in the world of edtech. Love it or hate it,...
Chairperson: Ty Goddard, Co-Founder, The Education Foundation
Speakers:
Kate Broadribb, Senior Leader of Learning, Wildern High School|Fraser Speirs, Head of Computing and IT, Cedars School of Excellence|Roger Broadie, Pioneer of BYOD, Naace, MirandaNet Fellow

BETT information

 Basic CMYK

Our associates, GroupCall, have sponsored the BETT15 map which is here

You register for free tickets here.

You can download the BETT App here

Tips on Survival at BETT15

Some great tips on survival here by IRIS here! @iris_connect stand E360

IRIS_TAG_RGB_LRG_007

Terry Freedman, Senior Fellow, has also written some articles to help you around BETT15

“Enjoy”, says Terry, “If you have any comments about it, please let me have them via email or our contact form. If you go to Bett, please consider sharing your thoughts with other readers, by contacting me using the link above. You can write a few paragraphs, a few bullet points, or ask me for more detailed guidance. The main specific things I’d say is please include links when you refer to a product or service, and please don’t say anything that could land either of us in the libel court.” Terry Freedman’s Getting the Best out of Bett 2015.

Dominic Norrish’s article has also been recommended on Twitter

*Incredibly* useful guide to  by  => What to see at BETT if you’re planning a 1-to-1 project

If you want to know more  about the new release of MirandaNet Lightspeed research Go to Stand A380

Lightspeed logo hi-res

22 December 2014

Workshop: "Towards tomorrow's successful digital citizens"

A policy think tank that moves beyond digital literacy and coding
London Knowledge Lab, Tuesday 24th February, 2015
MirandaNet, IFIT, ITTE and International Baccalaureate in partnership

In the coming years we need to move beyond digital literacy and coding. Instead, we need to consider how to introduce young people to the kind of digital wisdom that will enable them to be successful citizens in tomorrow’s constantly evolving digital landscape.

The four organisers of this event, and the organisations to which they belong, share a common interest about how we could seek to develop tomorrow's successful digital citizens. The day will involve a series of short presentations, discussions and panels. It is also anticipated that some attendees may be able to join online.

24 November 2014

MirandaNetter from Pakistan visits England

Lubna Bashir Malik enjoyed a full programme of school visits and workshops when she visited England in October. Lubna, an Educational Technology Trainer from the City School System in Lahore, Pakistan, enjoyed her experience. "This was a great learning experience for me to take back to Pakistan where using technology in education creates a buzz. I feel interacting with different learning communities not only helps us to exchange ideas but it also brings us nearer to sharing thinking patterns. I learnt much from the What the Research Says session at the London Knowledge Lab about the potential and impact of Technology Enhanced Learning(TEL) and about the potential of partnerships between practitioners, industry and the research community. Although teachers are the main force in creating a meaningful learning environment I realised that building a social capital network will enable them not only to keep pace with the change but also to be the source of change. The second session at the LKL about planning lessons and courses with pedagogy in mind opened a wide array of perspectives within my own context and for education in Pakistan also."

Find out more about the next What the Research Says session in our diary.

7 October 2014

Third International Learning Design Challenge: Move-It-Online

Please join us for our Third International Learning Design Challenge: Move-It-Online

Led by Professor Diana Laurillard from The London Knowledge Lab, Institute of Education in collaboration with Building Community Knowledge, MirandaNet, Creative Digital Solutions and Hands-ON ICT project.

The Aim

Our 3rd online International Learning Design Challenge is about understanding the impact of taking teaching and learning activities online. We will provide ways of describing and planning effective teaching ideas, especially those that illustrate ‘pedagogically purposeful uses of technology for learning’. The Challenge is to transfer this to your own optimal way to move it online.

What will you get out of the design challenge?

  1. Free CPD
  2. Collaborating with others on a learning design challenge that is useful to you
  3. Learning from your peers while contributing to changing and reshaping education that has international potential
  4. Experimenting with our international learning design tool
  5. Experimenting with our CRAM tool
  6. Contributing to international community knowledge about teaching with technology
  7. Being part of a MOOC
  8. Getting “Badged” recognised: There are up to 4 badges for this event. But there is some hard work to be done to get them. Are you up for the “move-it online” challenge!!!

Who should do the challenge?
This challenge is open to all participants who deliver education to all sectors both formal and informal, so for example why you might join the challenge:

To sign up and find out more

The Challenge

Our Move-it Online challenge is to invite you to design and plan for the optimal use of learning technology in your own context, with the help of two new tools for teachers:

  1. the Learning Designer, for designing, sharing and reviewing learning experiences that may be conventional, blended, or wholly online;
  2. the Course Resource Appraisal Model (CRAM), for planning and estimating the learning benefits and teaching costs for a session or module, that may be conventional, blended, or wholly online.

Overview of the Schedule

Starts 30th October for introductions and starter packs with your plan for each week
Live online events from 1:00-1:45 pm (UK time): November 3rd, 10th, 17th, 21st, 24th and December 1st
Live online discussion forums from 1 pm Thursday 13th November from 1:00 pm
Up to 4 open badges: Move-It-Online Designer, Move-It-Online Experimenter, Duo Move-It-Online and Move-It-Online Discussion Champion 

We hope you can join us on our 'Move-It-Online' challenge.

Any questions/comments about the event email us or send a tweet.

Best wishes from the Learning Designs Team

Download a PDF File of this item

26 September 2014

What the Research Says Event: The Potential and Impact of Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL)

MirandaNet collaborated with and supported this event at the London Knowledge Lab on 26 September 2014 that follows up on a series that began in 2012 based on a short discussion document titled “Technology can help us learn faster, better, deeper …” So, where are we now in 2014? Perhaps there are more questions than answers but evidence is emerging showing us where the right kind of context of use of technology does illustrate impact on learning. But what is the right kind of context of use? Can this knowledge be shared?

If you cannot come to this event at LKL join us online as part of our MirandaNet Mod series for a "What the Research Says Event" for The Potential and Impact of TEL on Teaching and Learning.

Started on 26 September, comments are still open

https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?sid=2007016&password=M.7D9625102F69D5E22B59FE601A39D3

Your point of view matters. Deep learning and TEL: Do they have a future together?
Give your views by completing the survey. https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/7KGDYWQ

Comments online discussion and have your say if you prefer open discussion: 
http://futurelearningspaces.wordpress.com/the-potential-and-impact-of-tel-on-teaching-and-learning/

Details of the presenters are available at:
https://www.lkldev.ioe.ac.uk/lklinnovation/the-potential-and-impact-of-tel-on-teaching-and-learning/

This what the research event explores, discusses and debates: how can teachers use old and new learning technology to drive learning innovation and discover what works and why? What is the potential and impact of technology on teaching and learning experience? What is the evidence that pedagogies using technology help us learn any better?  What are students’ expectations of learning through technology? How might we facilitate students to reflect on the role of technology when learning?

MirandaNet will be debating the research they have done with  IRIS Connect, LightSpeed and Groupcall in particular who will demonstrate their products along with BrainPop, Tablet Academy and EU Handson ICT.

The event will include more presentations, demos and discussions to exchange experiences of the challenges faced in education, and to test how well and where technology help teachers to discover and create innovative learning experiences. And what is the view of the students? Are they equipped to get the best out of this kind of learning?

What does the evidence tell us about the types of teaching and learning taking place?

What is “it” that makes a difference to classroom and online teaching learning?

What are students’ learning expectations from digital technology? What are teachers’ learning expectations of digital technology?

25 September 2014

HandsOn ICT MOOC on October 27th 2014

MirandaNet are partners in the third pilot of the free EU Handson ICT MOOC ( Massive Online Open course). On the 27th of October we will launch the third edition of the Learning Design Studio for ICT-based Learning Activities MOOC. The course will last 5 weeks and a group of facilitators will support you in the task of designing your own learning activities and lessons. The course will be offered in six languages: English, Spanish, Catalan, Greek, Slovenian and French.

The features of the course are:

Details of participation: http://handsonict.eu/join-the-mooc/
If you would like to take part to gain accreditation as a MOOC efacilitator follow this link: http://handsonict.eu/join-us/

4 July 2014

The ETAGs submission to UK Ministers: Gove, Hancock and Willetts.

You will find our website, MirandaNet Transforming Education; making policy here. We think this should be the beginning of a wider engagement in commenting on existing policies and developing new ideas and approaches collaboratively. Ministers are also looking for schools with good practice to visit. Please send suggestions: christina@mirandanet.ac.uk

etag_mission

 

MirandaNet members have done more for the ETAGs submission to the three UK Ministers than was probably required. In fact, we have not only submitted to ETAGs but created a website of though- pieces and an overview of where members think policy should be heading in the future based on our collaborative past and present knowledge and experience.

Many thanks to the members who joined in the face to face and online knowledge creation events. If we do nothing else but start the process of creating, supporting and participating in creation of a large scale data hub for Education based on the principals of data management services for advancing teaching and learning this will be a huge contribution. This critical paradigm shift will enable the UK to maintain and be Education leaders. However, this decision requires putting education, the learners and the teaching professionals centre stage. Building around such decisions, such as CPD, shared knowledge and practice through the large communities and networks that exist will be essential. Any systems set in place must work beyond a particular government.

Education and its needs are long term and if nothing else is possible then resources built by society should be accessible by the society if they are to bring national and international benefit.

Such a change in policy setting will require privacy and citizen rights of access and protection of use to be set at the foundation. Companies and governments making inappropriate use of the data should be held to the highest accountability.

9 June 2014

ETAGS submission meeting on June 13th at London Knowledge Lab

The four topics are: connected institutions; servers and infrastructure;understanding and accrediting learning; and the wild cards. MirandaNet is planning a response that includes your views and experience. Please sign up to  the drop in meeting at the London Knowledge Lab on 13th June, Friday to develop our response to government. 1000-1600 in the Eventbrite link if you can: http://www.mirandanet.ac.uk/researchexchange/meetings-2014/

8 June 2014

Croydon, the Silicon Valley of South London

Croydon Tech City LogoThe Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, is not only investing money in Croydon’s bricks and mortar but also in the digital infrastructure of this London Borough. On June 6th, Professor Preston, the founder of MirandaNet, who has lived in Croydon for more than 40 years, joined London’s foremost property developers, policy-makers and tech entrepreneurs to discuss Croydon’s place as London’s second ‘Tech City’. Croydon Tech City that ran the conference is an organisation and community that aims to make Croydon an accommodating home for early-stage digital and technical startups.  Speakers from the area covered four topics:

  1. why Croydon Tech City works for us;
  2. infrastructure and Investment in Croydon’s tech ecosystem;
  3. what it takes to create a tech culture; and
  4. creating the next generation of coders.

You can read more here http://croydontechcity.com/future-tech-city.php

6 June 2014

Croydon Tech City

Christina Preston is speaking at the digital hub launch event for Croydon Tech City, Friday 6 June 2014.

18 May 2014

Brush up your skills in learning design

Interested in brushing up your skills in learning design, ICT for 
teaching and learning and creativity techniques?

16 May 2014

Literacy from Scratch

Algorithms and 5 year olds?

Many Head Teachers have been dismayed by the seemingly impossible demands of the new Programmes of Study for Computing. Can their ICT teachers now, suddenly, develop a wide range of new skills in Computing? Can pupils aged only 5 years really understand, write, and debug computer programmes?

Can pupils:

The answer is quite simple: Yes.

Read what Lawrence Williams has to say about this on his new website devoted to 'Literacy from Scratch', that is using the software tool 'Scratch' to explore literacy, along with art, biology, maths - in fact everything!

15 April 2014

MirandaNet and the Thai Ministry of Education

Dr Sarah Younie organised an international meeting with the Thai Ministry of Education and delivered a presentation about MirandaNet and education research networks on 15th April 2014.

MirandaNet and the Thai Ministry of Education

10 April 2014

London Book Fair

Professor Christina Preston is speaking at the London Book Fair on April 10th in the conference What Works (you can download the conference flier). Successful Education Policies, Resources and Technologies. She will be talking about Lessons from the MirandaNet Fellowship that she founded in 1992. Her topics will be the MirandaNet heritage as well as the future of this professional organisation. A key point that she will make is about the value of the website to educators all over the world. Around 205 unique visitors visiting the site each day, each making an average of two visits and viewing an average of over 11 pages. This is an unusually high number for such a site. Some of our visitors are clicking away an extraordinary number of times. The relatively low number of hits compared to the relatively high number of pages is also evidence of the high number of pages viewed per visit: the average number of hits per visitor is around 10, whereas a single page view on MirandaNet would typically have between 20 and 30 hits. MirandaNet members are engaged in a redesign of the website. In the future they plan to post even more information from members about digital technologies in teaching and learning that will increase the readership who are keen to read the views of practitioners. Download Christina's PowerPoint Presentation (3MB).

18 February 2014

MESH Spelling Guide - Invitation to Participate

A worldwide network of teachers and university teacher educators is experimenting with publishing information about effective teaching in a new form to support teachers (in training or experienced) in accessing quality assured research-based knowledge throughout their career. The resources, called MESH Guides, provide access to research to underpin professional judgement but are written in a way that easily translates research into practice.

The MESH Spelling Guide is now live, and teachers and students are invited to investigate and evaluate the resource and thus help the developers to refine and improve it.

More information...

1 February 2014

MESH Guides

MirandaNet Fellows held a MESH event at BETT14 on 23rd January led by Professor Marilyn Leask, editor in chief of MESH guides (www.meshguides.org) and Sarah Younie, chief editor of MESH ICT. MESH is the Education Futures Collaboration Mapping Educational Specialist knowHow initiative. Marilyn is campaigning to support professional judgement with evidence just as doctors do by publishing their evidence globally.  MirandaNet Fellows are embarking on a series of MESH pathways to add to the existing pathways of knowledge that make up a quality assured 'wikipedia' of professional knowledge for teaching. By attracting this kind of collaboration from educators MESH provides scalable and cost effective technology to enable educators to engage in research collaborations and publications around topics they consider will make a difference to student's learning.

This MESH  event was held in partnership with British Education Suppliers Association (BESA) whose companies are looking at HandsOn as a potential tool for teacher training in their ICT products in the future. 

20 December 2013

MirandaNet at BETT14

BETT the Educational Technology ShowWe have an exciting programme in store for you all at BETT14. If you have never been to BETT before, then why not give it a try this year. This is the exhibition which embraces every aspect of educational technology, and which is buzzing with events, seminars and demonstrations to help you get up-to-speed whether you are a student-teacher, a teacher, a lecturer or a practitioner, author, consultant, or just someone who is interested in education.

MirandaNet will be based upstairs in the MirandaNet Lounge, Gallery Suite 4 of the Excel Exhibition Centre in London's Docklands, and this is where our series of 'MirandaMods' will be held. There are events on every day - see the programme guide for full details.

In addition, MirandaNet is leading a major event on the BESA Stand (C380) on Thursday 23rd January from 12:00 to 13:30, where Dominic Savage, Chair of BESA, will welcome visitors to an introduction to the MESH Guides.

The Exhibition is from 22nd - 25th January 2014. You will need to register to attend the exhibition, and this is best done in advance on the Exhibition web site.

18 October 2013

Teachers suggest that web based video has the potential to improve classroom practice and pupil achievement

MirandaNet Fellows have been working with Graham Newell at IRIS Connect on a small pilot study on web-based video. Evidence is emerging on how this kind of system can have an impact on the effectiveness of professional development programmes and on pupil achievement.

Read more...

Web based video

Teachers suggest that web based video has the potential to improve classroom practice and pupil achievement.

MirandaNet Fellows have been working with Graham Newell at IRIS Connect on a small pilot study on web-based video. Evidence is emerging on how this kind of system can have an impact on the effectiveness of professional development programmes and on pupil achievement.

Impressive results were observed by teachers themselves in the following key areas: a sense efficacy; confidence; professional collaboration; sharing; developing professional capital through communities of practice. Most importantly, the teachers were expressing, almost unanimously, pride in taking ownership of their own learning agenda.

In addition, evidence appears, even in these early stages, showing that half of these professionals already perceive that the improvements in their own professional practice are having some impact on their pupils’ performance and behaviour. These results provide valuable evidence for school to consider if they want to improve the quality of teaching, raise standards and utilise pupil premium effectively.

Overall, there are high levels of agreement amongst the ninety-nine teachers who have used this web-based video over a month for improving their own practice and performance. This level of agreement suggests that this innovative video tool should be considered for use in school based professional development programmes where ever possible and appropriate.

We are interested in applications for volunteers for a second stage of research. In this stage we will analyse the questionnaire data in more depth and triangulate these perceptions with other measures. The aim of this second stage will be to look more deeply into the potential of the IRIS Connect intervention to improve pupil achievement. It will investigate in depth the practices in schools where improvements are already measureable in the areas of SEN, Inclusion and overall behaviour.

16 October 2013

MirandaNet associates are looking for schools to work with on action research pilots.

MirandaNet Fellows are keen to involve members in pilots who are:

Involvement in these pilots also includes CPD and publication opportunities.

Contact Dr Christina Preston, Founder of MirandaNet and Professor of Education Innovation at University of Bedfordshire: christina@mirandanet.ac.uk

More information...

10 September 2013

HandsOn Computing and ICT

Hands On LogoMirandaNet Fellows will be in Barcelona at the end of September at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya for an EU HandsOn Project meeting about developing a MOOC for teachers' interactive CPD in ICT and Computing. A MirandaMod will be held on 25th September to explore issues around the use of MOOCs. The partners are in Catalonia, Greece, Slovenia and The Netherlands. The Handson Blog provides information about what has been achieved so far. The HandsOn partnership is now looking for teachers to act as mentors and to comment on the MOOC environment and the teaching tools.
If you are interested please contact Professor Preston. christina@mirandanet.ac.uk

Implementing learning platforms in schools and universities: lessons from England and Wales

Dr Sarah Younie and Marilyn Leask, both MirandaNet senior Fellows, have recently published a paper about how learning platforms are used differently. Major findings were that teachers want and need continuing professional development (CPD) in relation to their knowledge of learning platform uses both technically and pedagogically, but this support and training is patchy and not always available at the time of need, in contrast to provision in universities. With respect to barriers: inter-operability problems between commonly used management information systems and the learning platforms were reported as hindering development of practice. In university/school partnerships, a key finding is that access rights to university platforms by school partners and to school learning platforms by university partners are limited, which is an issue surrounding the successful outworking of learning platforms.

You can find a free eprint of the journal paper here.

1 July 2013

MirandaNet Programme for ITTE Conference (July 9th)

Our programme
The programme on July 9th starts with three MirandaNet symposia These activities provide us with an opportunity to understand members’ points of view and use them to influence policy on the use of digital technologies in education especially the new Computing Curriculum. The titles are:

In this context, the symposia are designed to come to a group view about the most important issues on the topic that have been will raised when they consider all the speakers’ perspectives.

Threaded through all the symposia will be a theme of creativity in learning using digital technologies concluding with a MirandaMod.

Digital Pedagogy and Creativity
In the MirandaMod we will ask colleagues to concentrate on ways in which digital technologies can be used to promote creative thinking and practice in schools.

Joining details
Theo kuechel (theo.kuechel at gmail.com) will provide information on Mirandalink and Twitter on how to log on to  the live video stream, the connections for the concept map and how to join in the MirandaMod online in Google Hangouts. There are only six places  for contributors -  let Theo know if you want to speak.  Of course the  Hangout will be broadcast live and anyone can watch from anywhere, and will also be available on YouTube after the event.

The programme for our day can be found on the MirandaNet Research Exchange with the draft ITTE programme to download if you are staying all x3 days...

23 April 2013

MirandaNet Report into Nursery Furniture

It doesn't always have to be IT-based! MirandaNet has just published an interesting report on some delightful furniture ideas for young learners. At the end of the summary there is a link to the full report, as well as a link to a summary of the discussion that the grown-ups had about kitting out IT rooms.

15 April 2013

Miranda's submission to the ICT curriculum consultation, UK

Thanks to the members from many countries who have been involved in face-to-face and online sessions over the last year about the ICT curriculum changes in the UK. You will find the report and all our background resources and materials by following the link. It makes for interesting reading.

10 March 2013

Christina Preston wins Naace Lifetime Achievement Award

Naace Lifetime Achievement Award LogoThe MirandaNet Fellowship is very pleased to announce that Naace has just awarded MirandaNet's founder Christina Preston its special Lifetime Achievement Award. The citation reads: “Winning this award is a measure of the esteem with which the Naace community holds the contribution that has been made to our mission of advancing education through the appropriate use of ICT. This award is made by the Naace Board of Management.”

11 February 2013

ICT or Computing?

Viewed from New Zealand, the ICT curriculum in England looks like a political football. Comment on what Noeline Wright from New Zealand thinks about the arguments in England over the ICT curriculum. Read more...

30 January 2013

Professor Preston interviews Bob Geldof

Exploring Education Futures Series

Christina Preston posing questions from the MirandaNet Fellowship membersDr Christina Preston, Professor of Educational Innovation at the University of Bedfordshire, interviewed Sir Bob Geldof in a session named after his song, ‘The World is Calling’. This interview at the opening the four-day international MirandaNet Fellowship event, Exploring Education Futures, in London’s Docklands at the end of January, was sponsored by GroupCall, a MirandaNet associate. An amusing and eloquent speaker, Bob regretted that he had gained very little from school. Poetry excited him in English lessons and he can still recite passages he learnt now. But otherwise he found that he had little interest in other subjects and failed to pass any examinations. He admitted he was not easy to manage in school, but also felt that teachers should try to accommodate pupils with his special gifts rather more sympathetically than they treated him. Read more...

10 December 2012

BETT13 Programme

Wednesday 30th January

Thursday 31st January

Friday 1st February

Saturday 2nd February with World Ecitizens

24 November 2012

ICT Themes that matter

MirandaNet themes that have emerged from our November unconference in Bedford are:

You will find the latest coverage on www.mirandanet.ac.uk/researchexchange/articles

Miranda’s ICT curriculum

Miranda’s ICT curriculum
MirandaNet Fellows Ian Lynch and Theo Kuechel have coordinated the MirandaNet submission to the British Computer Society on the ICT curriculum based on responses from a working party at the Bedford unconference in November. www.mirandanet.ac.uk/researchexchange/articles/our-ict-curriculum

17 November 2012

Letter from the Minister of State for Schools to MirandaNet, ITTE and Naace

MirandaNet, ITTE and Naace have received a reply from David Laws, Minister of State for Schools, in response to a joint letter to Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education, detailing our concerns about the new plans for teacher education in the the field of ICT. Comments are invited to christina@mirandanet.ac.uk.

12 November 2012

Links to resources from the Conference

Links to the resources from the Exploring Education Futures Conference held at Bedfordshire University this November.

15 October 2012

Making Your Research Count

Technology Mediated Learning Research Seminar on 24th October at King's College, London: "Making Your Research Count - using Web 2.0: the Education Communities platform" with Marilyn Leask and Christina Preston. See Calendar for full details.

3 October 2012

Beyond Social Networking

Dr Christina Preston, Professor of Educational Innovation at the University of Bedfordshire, spoke at the Gaudy Celebration for St Hilda’s College, Oxford, England.

Her title was Beyond Social Networking: the impact of digital innovation on learning.

1 October 2012

MirandaNet Conference

5th, 6th and 7th November 2012: Exploring Educational Futures: linking digital technologies, grassroots practice and the making of policy

Make a difference! Speak at this conference. More information...

19 June 2012

A new-look MirandaNet

It's a while since we made any substantial changes to the layout of MirandaNet, and it's time we let some more air into the look. Added to which, the proliferation of Word Press installations on the site has made navigation increasingly difficult. We've had a go at introducing a universal 'skin' for all the different sections, and have started to populate this with the most important of the existing pages. So if you explore for long enough, you will soon find yourself back in the 'old look' site!

Do let us know what you think, and make suggestions for improvements. Use the Contact form, or email the editor at mirandanet.ac.uk.

10 June 2012

Is there an alternative to PowerPoint?

MirandaNetters have had a good discussion on this topic. Interim summary published on the Research Exchange.

20 January 2012

MirandaNet associate Radiowaves win the BETT12 ICT Company of the Year Award

We're extremely pleased to announce that Radiowaves won ICT Company of the Year (Less than £1 Million) at the 2012 BETT Awards in London. This is a fantastic achievement for Radiowaves and MirandaNet are very proud to be associated with this company.

Radiowaves has won the ‘ICT Company of the Year’ at BETT, the world’s largest technology in education show. The judges, including key government agencies, teachers and local authority representatives, commented:

“Radiowaves is an innovating company which has taken an unusual route to generating revenue which combines the best of traditional business practises along with sticking to the spirit of Web 2.0 innovations. Its combination of user generated material and corporate links makes an excellent model for other companies.”

Ray Barker, director of BESA added:
"The BETT Awards are now the standard by which the UK and international education industry can recognise and reward valuable and innovative resources."

Read more about Radiowaves on MirandaNet.

1 August 2010

Society 21

Society 21 is an international community of practice created by Professor Marilyn Leask, Professor Sonia Blandford and Christina Preston with the support of key MirandaNet Fellows.

1 February 2010

ICT Excellence Awards

ICT Excellence Awards – now open for entries!

Is your school or organisation making a huge difference with technology? Is ICT transforming the way that learners learn, parents communicate and staff work? If so, then Becta wants to hear from you!

Now entering their fifth year, Becta’s ICT Excellence Awards provide a great opportunity not only to celebrate the amazing work of schools, local authorities and other supporting organisations but to share the experiences of those at the forefront of the use of technology in learning.

If you want to share your story or that of a school or organisation that you know, the ICT Excellence Awards 2010 are now open for entries.  For more information on the categories and criteria, and to access the online entry forms, go to www.becta.org.uk/excellenceawards. The deadline for entries is 24 March 2010.

1 November 2009

MirandaNetters travel the world

Christina Preston and other MirandaNetters will be travelling to far-flung places next year (2010). If you would like to get in touch with her in Portugal, USA, Australia, New Zealand or Japan, don't hesitate to get in touch with her via her usual email address, or the web contact form.

March, Portugal: IADIS International conference e-Society 2010 (www.esociety-conf.org) Porto, Portugal on 18th – 21st March 2010. Keynote Christina Preston

March-April, USA: SITE10 Conference (http://site.aace.org/conf) San Diego, USA on 29th March - 2nd April 2010. MirandaNetters John Cuthell, Christina Preston, Sarah Younie, Marilyn Leask and Niki Davis will all be attending this conference.

April, Australia: ACEC2010: Digital Diversity Conference (https://acec2010.info) Melbourne, Australia on 6th – 9th April 2010. Christina Preston and Marilyn Leask will be attending this conference.

April, New Zealand: Christina Preston will be in Christ Church, New Zealand visiting Professor Niki Davis (9th – 14th April). Get in touch if you can meet us here.

April, Japan: Christina Preston and Marilyn Leask will be in Tokyo visiting our member Hiro Tanaka (23rd – 25th April). Get in touch if you can meet us here.

1 May 2009

World Mobile Symposium

MirandaNetters, Christina Preston, John Cuthell, Theo Keuchel, Leon Cych, Drew Buddie and Allison Allen presented a joint paper at the mobile learning conference on 27th March at the WLE centre, Institute of Education. You can download their paper and presentation here:

Several European colleagues were also presenting. You will find the presentation by António dos Reis, Graal Institute, here:

http://olcw.thegraal.net/diversos/mlearning_london/mlearning_london.html

19 March 2009

World Ecitizens Mosaic Workshop

Children from Westborough Primary School, Lancaster Special School and the local Mosque class in Southend-on-Sea proudly display the mosaics they created for the children's ward in Southend-on-Sea Hospital. The workshop was organised by MirandaNetter Mara Chrystie.

10 December 2008

MirandaNet at BETT09

MirandaNet at BETT09 14 -17 January 2009

Come to the MirandaNet stand S97 in its usual place on the first floor in the Grand Hall Gallery, Olympia, London. You will find our usual friendly welcome, and there will be MirandaMods held at various times, plus a couple of not-to-be-missed seminars.

Full information on our BETT09 pages.

ALT-C 2009:

First call for papers and abstracts for:
ALT-C 2009: "In dreams begins responsibility" - choice, evidence, and change

8-10 September 2009, Manchester, UK

www.alt.ac.uk/altc2009

Keynote speakers:

Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University, USA.

Terry Anderson, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Distance Education at Athabasca University, Canada.

*ALT welcome submissions of two broad types:*

-  Full 5000 word Research Papers, for publication in the peer-reviewed Proceedings of ALT-C 2009, with a 350 word abstract (taken from the paper) and a 200 word presentation overview both of which will appear in the conference Abstracts Handbook, and online.

-  350 word abstracts describing 30 minute Demonstrations, Posters, 20 minute Short Papers, 90 minute Symposia, and 90 minute Workshops. All abstracts will appear in the conference Abstracts Handbook, and online.

Key dates:

Proposals accepted from late December 2008 (the link to the submission system will be available from www.alt.ac.uk/altc2009)

Deadline for receipt of proposals: midnight UK time on 16 February 2009

Bookings open during May 2009

Presenters' registration deadline 29 June 2009

Earlybird registration deadline is 6 July 2009

Bookings close on 14 August 2009

To sponsor ALT-C 2009 contact Seb Schmoller, Chief Executive of ALT, hseb.schmoller@alt.ac.uk

To exhibit at ALT-C 2009 contact Hayley Willis, Events Manager, hayley.willis@alt.ac.uk

1 December 2008

MirandaNet UNconference

MirandaMod 2

Following the amazing success of the July MirandaMod, MirandaNet Fellows and friends gathered once more, on November 27th at the Work-Related Learning Centre of Excellence at the Institute of Education, in London.  Introduced by Christina Preston, and ably and warmly chaired by the inimitable Drew Buddie, delegates were treated to a truly amazing display of state-of -the-art projects and thinking.

These included an introductory, keynote presentation written by Vanessa Pittard, Becta (given in her absence by Christina), and a fascinating insight into visual learning by Rachel Jones, Steljes.  We listened to how we could use Google Earth for creative writing (which I, as a teacher of English, found particularly exciting and innovative); about  best classroom practice in using ICT; about cross-agency links through a Healthy Eating project; about solving conceptual, and management problems in ICT classes; about new ways of using Moodle, and much more beside.

Throughout the event, MirandaNetters contributed comments and questions from the floor of the WLE, while others watching the webcast were able to do the same via Twitter, and an even greater number of \"lurkers\" (or \"active listeners\") globally formed part of this new kind of \"un\" conference.  All of this was accompanied by two vital ingredients: beer and sandwiches. (Thanks, Steljes!).

We hope that those who contributed from Germany, the Czech Republic, New Zealand, and elsewhere had as good a time as we did, and learned as much.  Some events are transforming: this was certainly one of them.

12 September 2008

Tribal: changing the culture

We are pleased to announce that we have a new association with Tribal who are developing innovative CPD programmes with MirandaNet for schools in the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) initiative. This is an exciting alliance for us because Tribal have realised that new buildings are not enough. We need to support the teaching profession as  they change the culture of teaching and learning.

28 August 2008

Recommended conferences

ALT-C 2008: Rethinking the digital divide Leeds 9th - 11th September 08

Submission guidelines, including details of the conference "dimensions" are at www.alt.ac.uk/altc2008/papers.html.

IADIS International Conference on Cognition and Exploratory Learning in Digital Age (CELDA 2008) October 13th - 15th - Freiburg, Germany

www.celda-conf.org

Young People, Mobile and Internet Technologies 2008 - Maximising Opportunities, Addressing Challenges at Richard Ley Development Centre, Swansea, Wales 20th October 2008

www.wisekids.org.uk/conf

MirandaNet presentations at Conferences

2009

BETT09
Olympia London England 14th - 17th January 2009
Information under BETT logo on www.mirandanet.ac.uk
John Cuthell Christina Preston

MirandaNet will be running some Mod Unconferences at BETT09. This means that those of you who cannot come to London will still be able to join in the debate. Look out for details on the BETT links on the site when they are published, and let Christina Preston know if you have a topic you want to suggest.

CAL '09 Brighton: Learning in Digital Worlds
March 23 - 25 2009
The Computers and Learning (CAL) conference aims to evaluate the use of IT in education and the digital age, aimed at computer hardware and software manufacturers as well as IT teaching staff in Education.

This is a lively and stimulating biennial international conference. The theme is 'Learning in Digital Worlds'.

The call for papers, symposia and posters is now out, with the Abstract deadline 26 September 2008:
http://mail.elsevier-alerts.com/go.asp?/bECO001/mOQH4M8/qFQZ4M8/u8QZXQ13/xTAREM8

To learn more. please visit:
http://www.cal-conference.elsevier.com

International conference June 2009
Møller Conference Centre, Cambridge, June 29-30, 2009

International Conference on Research into School Teaching and Learning with Whole Class Interactive Technologies - interactive whiteboards, visualisers, data projectors, tablet PCs, remote input devices, voting systems, etc.

Downloadable flyer summarising audience, aims and contact details:
http://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/events/conferences/ritwit
John Cuthell  Christina Preston

1 June 2008

MirandaNet in Romania

Lawrence and Dan’s Global Warming Project has been described by Rolls-Royce plc as “an outstanding contribution to science teaching”, in the Science Team Award category. Certificates from Roll-Royce now adorn Science Department walls both in London, and in Bucharest, thanks to the creative use of ICT tools, and an equally creative team of teachers.

The collaboration with Romania continues.

15 April 2008

ICT Excellence Awards - encouraging entries

Becta are keen to receive entries for the Support for Schools category.

Here is a quick rundown of the categories for this year:

Best Whole School – we’re looking for excellent practice in all aspects of technology across the school. Schools must have the ICT Mark to enter this category. This year this category will be awarded regionally, as well as nationally.

Learning Experience – this covers curriculum, assessment, learning and teaching. This should be for practice that happens in the classroom or in the school day, as part of the pupil’s experience of learning. This can cover day to day teaching, target setting and review, curriculum, ICT capability etc etc.

Beyond the Classroom – deals with any work with ICT that happens outside the average school day and, as such, covers stuff like partnerships between schools and other organisations, delivering extended learning opportunities to pupils. It also covers home access work (both in terms of kit in the home and also access to learning from home or other locations through learning platforms and learning environments – VLEs) and parental engagement. It depends on schools working with as wide a community as possible to improve learning in and outside schools.

Leadership, Management and Collaboration – focuses on the way ICT is led and managed at a high level in the school and may include some, all or none of: work like management information systems to process data more efficiently, bold leadership decisions in terms of financing ICT developments, inclusion of various parts of the wider school community in the development and adoption of strategies around ICT. One part that must be addressed is how the school is supporting and collaborating with other schools to help them develop their practice with ICT.

Support for schools - this is for organisations who support schools in their implementation of ICT. This can include local authorities (or teams within them), industry suppliers, training providers, organisations running projects with schools etc etc. Anyone who isn’t a school or DCSF-registered education provider should look at this category.

If encouraging anyone to enter, please tell them to make sure they present all their evidence against the criteria on the application form, as judges will only use the application form content when making shortlisting decisions.

For more detail please see ICT Excellence Awards website at www.becta.org.uk/excellenceawards

Any queries, comments, suggestions? Please do contact the ICT Excellence Awards team at Becta on excellenceawards@becta.org.uk or 024 7641 6994.

19 February 2008

Video conferencing at the Museum of London

28 November 2007

MirandaNet in Romania

Dan SporeaMirandaNet links with Romania began simply through a MirandaLink email. Dr. Dan Sporea Head of the Laser Metrology and Standardisation Laboratory in Bucharest, was calling for papers for an international Workshop “Science Education in Schools” to be held in Bucharest.

At Holy Cross School, Lawrence Williams took up the challenge, and submitted a paper about his “Science Through Arts” project, which, following Federal budget cuts, had moved from the USA to Taiwan. Conference dates in Romania were a problem, and so, in a “first” for MirandaNet, Lawrence gave his paper there without actually leaving the UK! Instead, a PowerPoint presentation was sent to Bucharest, together with the paper, and Dr. Sporea kindly gave the presentation on his behalf.

Dan and Lawrence are now working together on new ways of developing student collaboration on science education, in the UK and Romania. Watch this space for “Climate of Opinion?” an international science project, looking at global warming and related science.

For contact details, see the Center for Science Education and Training, in Romania: http://education.inflpr.ro/en/home.htm

27 November 2007

Innovating Learning and Assessment in Work-based Learning

26 November 2007

Cognition and Exploratory Learning in the Digital Age

12 November 2007

Ravensbourne School gains International Schools Award

25 June 2007

No improvement in IT training

20 June 2007

Seminar on July 2nd: Multimodal Concept Mapping and Visual Learning

Christina Preston, MirandaNet; John Ralston and Deidre Cook, Open University; Nigel Riley, Plymouth University

Chair: Christina Howell Richardson, Plymouth University

This seminar, funded by Inspiration and to be held at the WLE Centre, Institute of Education, London, is part of the series 'Fascinating Cultural Objects: 'Multimodal concept mapping in teaching and learning'. It will be followed by a session about writing challenges for teachers as researchers.

Please join us for supper afterwards in a local restaurant (about £15.00)

Follow this link for further Information 

Contact

10 June 2007

London Schools to get Managed Learning Environment ahead of Government targets (from Naace news)

London schools are set to benefit from a Managed Learning Environment (MLE) through a framework contract procured by the London Grid for Learning (LGfL), three years ahead of Government targets. The MLE, provided by Fronter UK Ltd, will give pupils and teachers their own web space, enabling pupils to work on assignments, share advice and materials with their peers and submit work online. Teachers can monitor their students' progress throughout, offering guidance and marking their work online, without losing those aspects of personalised learning environments that allow pupils to exert control over their own learning.

Following a comprehensive evaluation conducted within Becta's Learning Services Framework*, the framework contract has been awarded to leading learning platform provider Fronter UK Ltd. The London MLE, powered by Fronter comprises 90 tools and will enable school users to benefit from discussion boards, instant messaging and 200 MB of web space each. Pupils and teachers can get access to the latest news with RSS feeds and they can even create online brainstorms for lessons. Teachers will be able to tailor individual learning plans to help personalise learning with the MLE, creating bespoke lessons that are accessible online.

The MLE will enhance teaching and learning across London's 2,584 maintained schools by providing the consistent delivery and management of e-learning. This continuity of learning enabled by ICT is important for London, which has the highest annual teacher turnover and pupil movement rate in the country. Students and teachers will be able to access their work online in their new school easily once transferred.

Teachers can use the MLE to create learning pathways; a piece of work containing several different completion routes to account for individual learning styles and ranges of ability. This can be tailored to the needs of their students, further personalising the learning experience. Learning pathways also ensure inclusion as all pupils are able to complete the work.

Brian Durrant, Chief Executive of the LGfL, said: "Not content with just maintaining the status quo, an MLE was the next logical step for London. This collaboration by London LAs and a commitment to learning, combined with Fronter's expertise has made this vision possible three years ahead of the government's target. We hope that London schools will be national trailblazers in making personalised learning enabled by ICT a reality"

Twice winners of the highly-acclaimed European Seal of Excellence in Multimedia Award, Fronter is due to roll out its MLE across London Schools from September 2007. Roger Larsen, Founder and CEO of Fronter UK Ltd, said: "We anticipate an exciting future for education and look forward to working with the London Grid for Learning to realise this across London."

19 April 2007

New report from The Princes Trust

A jobless generation of young people is costing the UK economy billions in lost productivity and crime, according to a joint report published by The Prince’s Trust and The Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS).

The Cost of Exclusion warns that youth unemployment is costing the UK economy a staggering £10 million a day in lost productivity. Together with the £20 million-a-week the government pays out in Jobseeker’s Allowance, the young unemployed are costing the UK billions of pounds each year.

The report, based on research conducted by the Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics, also reveals that youth crime is costing the UK economy £1 billion every year while educational underachievement costs £18 billion in lost earnings.

It recommends that more investment is needed to help young people in the UK’s deprived communities who are not in employment, education or training (NEET). It argues that helping young people gain the key skills to find work represents value for money given the measurable costs of social exclusion.

Youth crime
Every year an estimated 70,000 school-age offenders enter the youth justice system, costing the UK £1 billion every year.

Educational underachievement
Educational underachievement costs the nation an astounding £18 billion in foregone earnings.

Youth Unemployment
Almost a fifth of young people in England, Scotland and Wales are not in education, training or employment.

Download the report from the Princes Trust Site

20 March 2007

The dawn of an electronic democracy

Tuesday March 20, 2007
The Guardian

It's 9am on a cold, windy morning in the centre of Prague. A group of UK teachers are shuffling through the solid doors of the old Technical University in Prague and into a light that extends just beyond the gloom. It's surprisingly dark inside, and there's a ripple of hesitation when our group are told by their Czech guide to keep together, less they be lost as they enter "the catacombs".

1 March 2007

News from Prague

Not everyone was able to go to Prague for the workshop, but to give you an idea of the hard work and dedication of those who did go, follow the link to an unexpurgated display of all the pictures that your editor was unfortunate enough to receive.

3 January 2007

MirandaNet at BETT07

MirandaNet will be at BETT07 upstairs on Stand S97 in the Grand Hall Gallery. Detailed information is available on our special BETT section.

15 November 2006

MirandaNet at BETT07

MirandaNet will be at BETT07 upstairs on Stand S97 in the Grand Hall Gallery. Detailed information will shortly be posted on our special BETT section.

26 September 2006

Launching Etopia

Launching Etopia: a charity dinner : November 3rd, 2006 London

Our first Etopia event is a charity dinner, held as part of the programme for ‘Getting Better Together’, an international conference held throughout Europe every four years for 300 teachers of young people with a medical or mental health diagnosis (www.gettingbettertogether.com). The funds raised by this dinner will be used to support the conference and to set up international projects between hospital schools, primary and secondary schools and excluded learners. If sufficient money is raised, this will also go towards bursaries for teachers to attend the inaugural Etopia Continuing Professional Development workshop and visit to Czech schools in Prague, 15th–17th February 2007.

Prague Workshop

Prague Workshop Thursday 15th to Saturday 17th February 2007, Prague

Our second Etopia event is a face to face workshop called :

Towards personalised learning: implementing the philosophy
A CPD event examining the role of ICT in building partnership projects

We had our first MirandaNet workshop in Prague in 1997 so ten years after it seems a good idea to repeat this success. If you do not work in the UK it might be a good idea to see if the British Council in your country might fund you to come.

3 August 2006

UK - Japan Young Scientist Workshop

The UK-Japan Young Scientist Workshop is a unique team-based event for post-16 students from schools in Britain and Japan. Devised by Dr Eric Albone, Director of the Clifton Scientific Trust, it was supported and hosted, this year, by the University of Surrey, and the Surrey Centre for Excellence in Professional Training and Education (SCEPTrE).

You can read all about the Workshop on MirandaNet!

17 July 2006

New Version of Think.com Announced

Caroline Hook, from the Oracle Foundation, has sent details of the latest version of Think.com. Many MirandaNetters have already used Think for various projects, and were indeed pioneers in its development. This version extends its functionality even further.

15 July 2006

Happy Birthday, Rembrandt

Rembrandt is 400 years old today. Hard to believe.

If you are moved by this item which has nothing to do with MirandaNet or with ICT, feel free to contact us!

1 July 2006

British Council Poll on ELT

The British Council are running a poll on http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk to look at which technological devices teachers (ELT) find most useful.

There are results (the poll is still open) and some interesting coments.

See: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/talk/vote.asp

11 May 2006

Meeting at MirandaNet Head Quarters

2 April 2006

Miles Berry gets Becta ICT in Practice Award

MirandaNet Fellow Miles Berry's award has provoked plenty of interest including an article in the TES.

22 March 2006

Douglas Butler gives opening presentation to Texas Instruments International Conference

Mirandanet Fellow Douglas Butler reports that he managed to whip 2000 very excitable maths and science teachers into a frenzy on Feb 24th at the Texas Instruments T-Cubed International Conference at the Colorado Convention Centre in Denver. Douglas was invited to make the prestigious Opening Session Presentation at the 2006 T3 International Conference, and you can view his 'awesome' presentation on the Texas Instruments Site, but for best use you should download the presentation first, as it is full of live hyperlinks to other sites and resources. (http://tinyurl.com/km8x6)

More information 

21 March 2006

Mara Chrystie's Report on the Arion Project

Mara Chrystie went on an EU Arion funded course in Italy last year which related closely to our aims in World Ecitizens.

She sent a brief report, and a photo. Note that her presentation slide is in Russian! "I had friends translate my presentation into French, Italian and Russian before I went" Mara told us - she's really internationally minded. After the report are details of how you can apply to do this kind of course as a MirandaNet member.

1 March 2006

Promethean Press Releases

MirandaNet partners Promethean have issued several press releases with attractive pictures about our joint research projects.

Read more about these projects on MirandaNet.

Read the Promethean Press Releases here:

12 January 2006

Some Last Minute News

BETT06 News

Seminar 4:15 Wednesday 11th January W23

Mexican reception afterwards at 5:00pm on the stand: P30 National Hall

ICT CPD and professional qualifications

Christina Preston, Steven Coombs and John Cuthell are on the stand to explain the developments in work-based teacher accreditation in ICT at the MirandaNet Academy which is based at the Centre for Educational Innovation and Technology, Bath Spa University. This work-based accreditation innovatively links to school improvement and self evaluation file (SEF) evidence for Ofsted.

Practice based research news

Fellows from Mexico have mounted a Mexican exhibition, 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 discuss the first findings of our three year programme of practice-based research with teachers in Mexico, China and South Africa funded by Promethean ACTIVBoards.

An Inspirational project on Visual Literacy

We have a working group running about visual literacy in education with particular reference to concept mapping. A working party of Fellows is exploring the implications for schools of new forms of multimedia communication. One aspect of the group¹s work is investigation into innovative forms of assessment using concept maps. Funded by Inspiration, a MirandaNet partner. Ask Christina Preston about this

Promethean ACTIVboards Miranda Net partners

As a result of an improved manufacturing process up can now get more Promethean Interactive Whiteboards for your money. Donna Shaw will be pleased to welcome MirandaNet members on stands V60,W40 and W19 in the

National Hall. See their BETT web landing page www.prometheanatbett.com

Miranda Net ejournal

We are looking for an editorial board and peer reviewers. Let Christina Preston know if you are interested

BETT P30 National Hall

Contact details

Stand No. P30 National Hall
Christina Preston: 07 801 336 048
Modupe Opaleye: 07 916 274 142

1 January 2006

MirandaNet at BETT06 - Stand P30

MirandaNet will be back in its usual place upstairs in the main hall at Stand P30. Come and visit us for a chat, information about Promethean, Inspiration, ECDL for Educators, and the MirandaNet Academy and Research Centre.

TAG Learning special rates on Inspiration

TAG Learning have made a very kind offer to MirandaNetters for special rates on Inspiration and Kidspiration licences (PDF flier - 497KB, needs Adobe or similar). This offer is valid until the end of March. More information on the TAG Learning stand at BETT (F50).

Jane Finch writes:

I am currently writing a UK guide for teachers which will be ready around the same time as the release of the full version 8. I will be showing some of the stuff I have been working on at 1pm and 3.30 pm each day Weds to Fri.

It would be great to see some Mirandanetters! Please make your self known to me... I would love to put faces to some names!

MirandaNet Seminar at BETT06

'Working with Interactive Whiteboards'

Early practice-based research findings about teaching, learning and attainment from teachers in China, Mexico, South Africa and UK. This is a free seminar if you book through us or just turn up.

Wednesday 11th January at 4.15pm in seminar room W23 for 45 minutes including questions and answers. Followed by a Mexican Reception on the MirandaNet stand P30.

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 an academic essay.

29 November 2005

News from Joe Kolecki of NASA

Joe has recently published the following paper on Tensors and Relativity.  Follow this link to read it (1MB pdf file).

Joe is also continuing to work with Holy Cross School both on-line and by video-conferencing.  At present, he is supporting Lawrence’s AS Level English group, who are using STAR to develop the narrative and factual writing elements of their AS Level English Coursework.  Watch this space for the results early in the New Year!

14 November 2005

MirandaNet Fellow wins teaching award

Miles Berry's study of the use of Moodle (an open source VLE) in his primary school has been recognised through the award of the 2006 Becta ICT in Practice award for primary teaching. Read his report on MirandaNet.

2 November 2005

MirandaNet Conference Recordings

Thanks to recordings made and edited by Terry Freedman, we now have an audio archive of the highlights from the recent MirandaNet conference.

21 October 2005

John Cuthell returns from China

We hope to bring you news soon of John's recent trip to China. In honour of this occasion, your webmaestro learned how to encode Chinese characters in web pages: have a look at the Chinese versions of our questionnaire to see the first results of this breakthrough.

John Cuthell returns from China

We hope to bring you news soon of John's recent trip to China. In honour of this occasion, your webmaestro learned how to encode Chinese characters in web pages: have a look at the Chinese versions of our questionnaire to see the first results of this breakthrough.

9 June 2005

Holy Cross School features on NASA Site

Follow the link above to have a look at the Holy Cross section on the NASA site. MirandaNet Fellow Lawrence Williams has recently launched the Holy Cross Integrated Web Site which features many links to MirandaNet.

1 May 2005

MirandaNet victim of spammers

At least one of MirandaNet's email addresses has been hijacked by a spammer. Be assured that these messages have nothing to do with us. More infomation on the link.

10 April 2005

MirandaNet WorldEcitizens Seminar 1 - 2 September 2005

Exciting news for Fellows who have been involved in the development of the World Ecitizens virtual learning environment and gallery to be used to bring learners from different cultures and countries together online. This free resource has now been granted a charity number. As a result we are running a 2 day CPD ICT workshop on 1st and 2nd September 2005 in order to plan and fund exchange projects. The TTA has already provided grants. The workshop will be hosted by the MirandaNet Academy & CEIT which is at Bath Spa University College. We hope many of our colleague from overseas will take advantage of this opportunity. Partners are welcome.

10 Rooms are being held at the beautiful Georgian Combe Grove Manor, a country club on the outskirts of Bath where the conference is to be held.

Latecomers will be offered B&B or hotels in the town.

4 April 2005

Postponed Seminars 13th and 20th April

We regret that due to circumstances beyond our control it has been necessary to postpone the Select Education Seminars which were to have been held on the 15th and 20th April. We will find a new date as soon as possible.

1 April 2005

POSKOLE Conference

The Czech National Conference POSKOLE will take place from April 13 - 15

15 March 2005

E-Lapa Project in Guardian Article

Follow the link to read Sean Dodson's article in Education Guardian about the E-Lapa visit to Chafford Hundred Campus.

12 February 2005

Press Announcement about Promethean Project

MirandaNet and Promethean World are pleased to announce a joint research project into the use of Interactive White Boards.

4 January 2005

World eCitizens Awards

On Thursday 13th January,at 1:00pm at the MirandaNet stand at BETT, we will be presenting the awards certificates (kindly donated by Sherston). We also hope the Elapa Choir will sing!

ECDL for Educators

You can download the Executive Summary of this important document here.

Visit MirandaNet at BETT05

MirandaNet will have a large and friendly stand this year at BETT. Come and visit us at Stand P20-30 National Hall Gallery (Tel: 07 801 336 048)

30 November 2004

MirandaNet Fellow wins teaching award

Miles Berry's study of the use of Moodle (an open source VLE) in his primary school has been recognised through the award of the 2006 Becta ICT in Practice award for primary teaching. Read his report on MirandaNet.

1 December 2004

Select Education Report on Supply Teachers

This fascinating and useful report is going through its final proof reading and will be available for downloading from this site very soon. Watch this space!

13 August 2004

News from Israel

New Scholar, Edna Aphek, describes an interesting project which she has been conducting.

I am an Israeli scholar working in the various areas of the IT and education. For the last 6 years I have been implementing a program which I initiated: The Intergenerational Connection: Preserving Heritage in a Technological Society, in more than 400 schools in Israel.

In this program children ages 10-16 tutor seniors in their community at internet and computer skills. The seniors in their turn tell their young teachers a chapter from their personal history: together they scan albums, documents, letters, meaningful objects and artifacts, listen to music and songs the senior used to listen to, search the internet, browse libraries etc... Together they write a computerized version of the seniors chapter and upload it to the internet. The young teachers bring their technological expertise and the seniors their vast experience and their own history. The program is tri-stages, each stage comes with a very detailed guide book and a CD including templates.

I am right now in the process of starting the evaluation stage of the program.

Other programs of mine involving the use of the ICT are the Kamrat project, and a recent program - The IT and youth at risk.

22 July 2004

A Different Way of Being

Members will be interested in Stella Cattini's fascinating thesis on supply teaching in special schools.

20 June 2004

International Debate on Women in Society

Did you know that Japanese has different 'male' and 'female' forms of the language - they even scream differently. Read all about it in the fourth part of Lawrence's Trilogy!

Highfurlong School

Have a look too at the Website of the Month below for a link to Fellow Eddy Jackson's excellent school site. (The link is now dead, but the site is well and truly alive and still very much worth a visit: www.highfurlong.org

International Workshop in Budapest

International workshop of IFIP WG 3.5: Learning for 21st century: What really matters?
28 June - 2 July 2004.
Hungary - Budapest

Christina Preson is delivering a paper at this conference using this presentation.

20 May 2004

Integrated Web Sites

Follow the link to read Lawrence Williams' latest paper on integrated web sites, with links to everywhere (almost!)

25 April 2004

Tornadoes in Moscow

Read all about a Russian school's attempts at understanding tornadoes.

10 March 2004

Want to know more about those Russian dolls?

You know, those Matryushka figures that contain another figure which contain another ... Pupils form Class 7C at School No 1273 in Moscow have done a project on Russian folk art.

20 January 2004

Did Tina really go to South Africa?

Not sure what happened to our leader late last year? All is revealed if you follow the link.

27 December 2003

MirandaNet research into Teacher Training Published

MirandaNet has undertaken research on behalf of the TTA into the impact of the NOF ICT Training. The Publication "Learning to use ICT in classsrooms: teachers’ and trainers’ perspectives" is now available from this site.

11 November 2003

WE Citizens features in TES

The TES has published an article all about WE Citizens. You can read a pre-publication version here.

News from Bangladesh

Follow the link to read Shahjahan Siraj's interesting news and follow further links to other activities.

29 October 2003

interactive whiteboard Questionnaire

Would you like to help in some research? Members and visitors alike are asked to fill in this simple questionnaire on Interactive Whiteboards.

7 October 2003

Guardian Article about MirandaNet Fellow

Keith Phipps gets a mention in the Guardian with an article about Geography. There's more information in the TES here and here, and you should visit Keith's own site.

29 September 2003

Homelessness Comic Strip Published

Pupils at Hermitage, Wapping, have published their amazing booklet - Living - as part of the homelessness project.

11 September 2003

Lawrence does it again!

MirandaNet fellow, Lawrence Williams, has exciting news of the STAR project, with a TES article, and a delightful picture series. There's now a section on MirandaNet devoted to this project.

Japanese Links

Hiro Tanaka, MirandaNet fellow from Osaka University, Japan, has published several case studies incliding some detailing links with Holy Cross School. You don't need to download Kanji characters to read these pages, just make sure you have selected English in the language options!

Alim Shaikh gets a mention on the Standards Site

There's a nice reference to this Mirandanet Scholar's work in Bradford on the DfES Standards Site.

14 July 2003

Debra Wins IT Prize

Hi Readers
Debra Cook has just passed her website wings and has gone on to win first prize in a website competition.

10 June 2003

Holy Cross on Becta

Lawrence Williams' STAR project at Holy Cross gets a mention on Becta. And click here for more information on the NASA site.

BECTa Special Needs Travelling Exhibition

Becta is launching a travelling exhibition which you can have for up to a week for free. Transforming Technologies will be ready to roll from 1st September and is bookable till the end of June 2004.

It will include a pop-up stand which is really easy to operate, a video (also available on CD-ROM to hand out to visitors) and a newsletter which has stories about how technology has transformed the lives of children and adults with learning difficulties and disabilities. This can go out to day centres, LEAs, the main SEN shows, UK Online Centres and any venues which request it. If you are holding an exhibition or awareness-raising event, this exhibition will be ideal for you.

All they ask is that you provide the space for it and pay the carriage for the pop-up stand to be returned to Becta. You keep the newsletters and CD-ROMs. If you are interested in booking the exhibition please contact sharon.bradley@becta.org.uk.

TSM: Technology for Secondary/College Mathematics

July 9-11

This is a 3-day workshop for mathematics teachers. Details on:

www.argonet.co.uk/oundlesch/tsm-July03.html

As usual, Mirandanet members will be very welcome to look in, or even participate fully. There are not many spaces left, so anyone interested should make contact quickly. I am particularly keen to see PGCE students and NQTs attend, and there are Chartwell-Yorke sponsorship funds available to help pay their fees.

Douglas Butler

4 May 2003

Research into the UK's official response to European Integration

MirandaNet Scholar John Preston is researching into the role, definition and nature of "national interest" as contained in the advice given to UK government ministers in response to initiatives from other European states - initiatives which concern ‘constitution making’ in the period from circa 1947-1955.

See his web site for more information and contact details.

29 April 2003

Online debate on Reusing Online Resources

The Journal of Interactive Media in Education invites you to participate in an online debate on re-using online educational resources. Full details of the invitation follow below.

Journal of Interactive Media in Education
An Interactive Journal for Interactive Media
ISSN:1365-893X
www-jime.open.ac.uk

Special Issue on Reusing Online Resources (April 2003)

Invitation to participate in a worldwide, online debate on Reusing Online Resources for Learning and Teaching.

This special issue develops a range of critical issues highlighted in a recent book on Reusing Online Resources: www.reusing.info (Littlejohn, Kogan Page, 2003). Invited commentaries from a collection of international, renowned experts have been sourced, each one critiquing a chapter and seeding the debate with key issues for authors and others to engage with.

Together with reprinted sections from the book, we offer this resource to elicit further contributions from the global community.

We invite all who are working on reusable resources, learning objects and the educational semantic web to browse the site, and post insights from their own work to the forum to move the debate forward: www-jime.open.ac.uk.

Allison Littlejohn (University of Strathclyde, UK)
Simon Buckingham Shum (Open University, UK)
Special Issue Editors

16 April 2003

Web@Classroom features as example of Best Practice

The Web@Classroom Project has been featured by European Schoolnet as an example of Best Practice. Click here for the entry, and go to the section on MirandaNet to see the quality of the project.

Developments on the UnITy Site

Teachers and pupils have been busy on the UnITy site, and it's time members had a look as well. There is a gallery of students' work and some very moving case studies from Crisis. You can visit the site as a guest (username: guest; no password) and there's even a completely open access area via the Resources page. Let us know what you think!

New Media Activism

Siraj Shahjahan writes from Bangladesh with news of a project which provides an anti-dote to the current political situation.

21 March 2003

Tablet PCs

For an exciting video clip and case study notes on a trial of tablet PCs in a primary in Greenwich and a secondary in Kent, see the item in Fellows Corner.

20 March 2003

War in Iraq

Mirandanetters will represent all shades of opinion about this war. It is not part of MirandaNet's mission to have a view, but we are committed to the peaceful promotion of internationalism, and view the end of diplomacy with enormous sadness.

2 March 2003

February Newsletter

Most magazines appear a month or two before the cover date. We do it the other way round
Mid February edition
End February edition

7 February 2003

January Newsletter

This newsletter has a picture of those lovely ladies from Prague, news from China, details of new scholars, and lots more.

MirandaNet Fellows are Teachers of the Year

Congratulations to Alastair Wells and Keith Phipps, who feature in the BETT03 Teacher of the Year Awards.

MirandaNet Corporate Brochure

This attractive brochure is full of information and is available for you to download (1.42MB) and use as publicity in your schools and institutions.

1 January 2003

UK/Chinese Curriculum Exchange

A reception for ten Chinese colleague is being hosted by Promethean, Actis and MirandaNet on the 9th January 2003, 6:30pm, at the Conrad Hilton Hotel, Chelsea Harbour to launch a new International Citizenship Project. If you wish to attend, please send Kaz an email, contact her on the MirandaNet stand at BETT, or phone 07801 336 048.

New Fellows

Seven new fellows have published innovative ICT achievements on the MirandaNet website recently. Karen Cameron, Lis Greenwell, Keith Phipps, Liz Smith, Carol Webb, Sarah Younie and Mike Bostock. Congratulations to you all.

Miranda's Makeover

After ten years of an exciting and challenging existence Miranda has redesigned her image. Can you spot the difference in the new logo and the prospectus? Try moving your mouse over the logo to see the difference!

Laptops for Learning

This is a brief report on the use of Laptops in MirandaNet and has a useful diagram.

30 November 2002

Holy Cross on Becta

Lawrence Williams' STAR proect at Holy Cross gets a mention on Becta. There's a link from there to more details, or click here on the NASA site.

20 December 2002

Telling Stories

Miranda enjoyed her 10th Birthday Party at the Institute of Education. It was the traditional MirandaNet mix of good food, good music and tall stories. The Czechs performed a traditional dance and presentation of rye bread and salt to the birthday girl.

12 November 2002

Action Research Grants

We are seeking prospective and experienced e-facilitators to take a key part in building a professional online community. Read all about it!

16 October 2002

ILET Project International Reading Group

Join in this international debate which has begun on the MirandaNet Forum (see link on the right hand menu). Read on for full details of the project.

MirandaNet is an international fellowship that networks leaders of information and communication technologies (ICT). We use technology to support our networking across England and other countries of the world. But how does the use of technology to communicate vary to show respect for every participant's culture? Is it possible to model good inter-cultural practice for our students and colleagues in education in our countries?

These are just two of the questions being debated by our ILET project's international reading group. The group will move its discussion from the SITE forums in the USA to MirandaNet in the UK on October 16 for strand 2. This topic is informed by two readings by the discussion leaders for this topic: Christina Preston & Niki Davis.

You can find details of the reading group, the web environments, the discussion leaders and the readings on www.public.iastate.edu/~ilet/reading_groups/calendar-oct.html.

Use that web page as your start and join the reading group on this important topic. You are welcome to use your web browser to travel to the USA to join the other topics there too.

The discussion of strand 2 'Intercultural perspectives with professional organizations' starts/started here on October 16, 2002.

1 October 2002

John Cuthell's Website

MirandaNet Fellow John Cuthell has just launched his Virtual Learning website. There's lots of useful information for MirandaNetters.

Science Through ARts (STAR) Project

Lawrence comes up with the goods again in this report of another exciting joint project with NASA and Holy Cross.

12 August 2002

Digital Imaging in Schools Project

MirandaNet Scholar Alim Shaikh is the Project Coordinator for this digital imaging project in an EAZ. Working in partnership with the National Museum for Photography, Film and Television and sponsored by Kodak they set out to work with eight schools in exploring how digital photography might be used to enhance teaching and learning across the curriculum.

Follow this link to see the full report on the DFES site.

21 June 2002

Christina Preston gets Award in Prague

Members will be delighted to hear the news that MirandaNet Director, Christina Preston, has been awarded the Trnokova medal in Prague.

The following report appeared in NAACE News on June 21st 2002

Since the Velvet Revolution The MirandaNet Fellows have been working in collaboration with Czech teachers and teacher educators on the use of ICT to promote new alliances in international citizenship adn professional growth and change. Lenka Zernova, a Czech Miranda Fellows, observed, "After long period of political isolation our Czech teachers can gain from seeing how other teachers work and share their concerns and interests. We are most interested in learning about collaborative and constructive learning which includes understanding democratic procedures and processes."

As a result of MirandaNet Fellowship work, Christina will be awarded the Trnokova medal from the Czech Technical University on June 20th in Prague. Understanding how professional organisations function has been a new slant on post totalitarian freedom for the Czech teachers and teacher educators. NAACE accepted the applications of two MirandaNet Fellows in 1996. Visits to NAACE conferences and advice from members has been influential in the Czechs decision this year to set up a similar organisation to fight a new kind of threat to educational freedom in the Czech Republic - commercial totalitarianism.

3 May 2002

Bristol Japan 2001 Project - Web Site

The aim of the Bristol Japan 2001 Project was to use the web as an information resource; to use a range of ICT tools in an integrated way to develop learning skills in Science; and then to upload the results back onto the web, creating a dynamic cycle of activity. Since launching the web site, MirandaNet scholar Lawrence Williams has received many invitations to present at international Science Conferences (and he's an English Teacher!). Lawrence is delighted that NASA thought enough of his idea not only to support the teaching, but also to develop a magnificent web site to house it. This is the start of a very powerful collaboration. Watch this space (and web site). Lawrence also took part in a presentation about this site at Poskole in the Czech Republic. You can read an official report from NASA if you click on NASA Poskole Report.

European Schoolnet

MirandaNet fellow Anne Gilleran writes about her new School Managers Center at European Schoolnet.

Computer Supported Collaborative Work Environments

MirandaNet Fellow David Thomas outlines the effectiveness of Collaborative Work Environments in promoting meta-teaching.

12 March 2002

Spring Ezine

The latest MirandaNet Ezine is here, packed with useful information!

14 February 2002

New Links for February

Two good sites for anyone interested in education for children with Special Educational Needs, and a generic PE site.

18 January 2002

Some new links for January

We've not had many new links of late, but here are a couple of excellent links for History and Music - and web design!

10 December 2001

Web Wise Wapping Launch

The WWW Proect was officially launched on 4th December at The Women's Library, Old Castle Street, London E1 7NT. Read all about it.

5 November 2001

Web-Wise Wapping

Read here all about MirandaNet's involvement in this exciting new project in East London.

Web Crossing

October Links

Multicultural Education
This new link comes from Barmby Moor Primary School's general documentation, which they have generously put on the web for all to see.

5 September 2001

Wedgwood IT Group Guide to Interactive Whiteboards

This commercial site with extensive information on presentation aids has made its interactive whiteboard and plasma screen guides available for downloading from the MirandaNet site.

New Learning Model for ICT

MirandaNet fellow Lawrence Williams reports on the Bristol Project, in which three UK and three Japanese students, plus tutors from Bristol University and NASA, had great fun working on Martian volcanoes for a week, with daily tutorials from Cleveland, Ohio, by email and video-conferencing. The final conference ran on ISDN 6, and was stunning!
Lawrence tells us that there's lots more to report on, but the his ICT report is available, and the final report by the kids will be going up on the NASA site.
To see Lawrence's report click here.

Fulbright Scholarships 2002

The transformation of teaching and learning using ICT as a change catalyst: A UK/US professional development programme

The MirandaNet Fellowship has been invited to organise a pilot exchange between UK and US teachers. The focus of the visit will be the transformation of teaching and learning using ICT as a change catalyst. MirandaNet Fellows and LEA advisors will mentor the teachers in their exploration of the technology. Pre-visit connections between the teachers will be facilitated by the use of Oracle’s Think.com web based learning environment where classroom projects will also be developed. 10 US teachers will visit schools the UK for three weeks in the second half of the summer term 2002. Ten UK teachers will then go to the Washington area for 3 weeks at the beginning of the autumn half term holiday or in late August. Teachers will stay in each others’ homes, visit schools, discuss educational issues and work on curriculum exchange projects and ICT management. Each teacher will help develop a web based exchange project between the UK and the US schools and will publish a case study online as information for other teachers. Travel costs are met by the UK but the schools are responsible for organising the accommodation and any support cover required. Fares for these Fulbright Scholarships will be paid by the DFES, British Council and the US state department. Hartlepool LEA is offering support cover and Oracle is providing the web based learning environment, Think.com, that the teachers and children will use to communicate and to publish their work. Plans are being made for a second year of exchanges. It is hoped that some teachers will then elect to do a year’s exchange with their foreign partner. If this visit is successful more Fulbright exchanges will be based on this model.

19 July 2001

Paper on Broadband by Fellow Joe Nutt

An account of the resources designed and constructed by the hackneybroadband project which raises some of the issues faced by originators of broadband resources.

Pupiline wins the July MirandaRose award

Here’s a site written and run by teenagers for teenagers. Bright and cheerful, it is, at heart, an anti-bullying site.

1 June 2001

Teaching Time wins June MirandaRose Award

This delightful site has one aim - teaching the time - and it fulfils it well. There are large interactive clocks (digital or analogue) which can be used for whole class teaching, and there are games and worksheets to cover all levels of difficulty. One set even has the text in French, making this a very versatile resource.

15 May 2001

WEBRITTe Report for DfEE online

Now online: recommendations and findings on lesson resources pre-pilot presented to DfEE by MirandaNet Fellows and Advisors

9 May 2001

Fulbright Scholarships 2002

The transformation of teaching and learning using ICT as a change catalyst: A UK/US professional development programme The MirandaNet Fellowship has been invited to organise a pilot exchange between UK and US teachers. The focus of the visit will be the transformation of teaching and learning using ICT as a change catalyst. MirandaNet Fellows and LEA advisors will mentor the teachers in their exploration of the technology. Pre-visit connections between the teachers will be facilitated by the use of Oracle’s Think.com web based learning environment where classroom projects will also be developed. 10 US teachers will visit schools the UK for three weeks in the second half of the summer term 2002. Ten UK teachers will then go to the Washington area for 3 weeks at the beginning of the autumn half term holiday or in late August. Teachers will stay in each others’ homes, visit schools, discuss educational issues and work on curriculum exchange projects and ICT management. Each teacher will help develop a web based exchange project between the UK and the US schools and will publish a case study online as information for other teachers. Travel costs are met by the UK but the schools are responsible for organising the accommodation and any support cover required. Fares for these Fulbright Scholarships will be paid by the DFES, British Council and the US state department. Hartlepool LEA is offering support cover and Oracle is providing the web based learning environment, Think.com, that the teachers and children will use to communicate and to publish their work. Plans are being made for a second year of exchanges. It is hoped that some teachers will then elect to do a year’s exchange with their foreign partner. If this visit is successful more Fulbright exchanges will be based on this model.

2 April 2001

Netiquette

New chat rules online for pupils and for members of mirandalink.

16 March 2001

Web Resources for Teachers by Teachers

The first phase of this project has been completed. Docs are online ...

2 March 2001

MirandaNet Profile Prizes

Congratulations to Avril Loveless, David Baugh and Henry Liebling who are the three people whose names were drawn out of a hat today to win the £10 Amazon gift vouchers for completing the profile questionnaire.

27 February 2001

WEBRITTe Project

Web Resources for Teachers by Teachers

MirandaNet has just begun a project in collaboration with TeacherNet at the Department for Education to increase teachers' awareness of the National Grid for Learning resources, to promote ownership of this new medium and to consult with teachers by peer review. This process will be a celebration of teachers' existing work on the Web and a promotion of resource development by teachers for teachers. The first phase of this project is a pre-pilot to be completed by March which will focus on the provision of lesson plans on the internet. A web site will be created by teachers for teachers on The DfEE TeacherNet site representing the outcomes of the pre-pilot. A number of MirandaNet Fellows are heading up teams to evaluate existing lesson plans. We are looking for web surfers to evaluate teachers' web resources on the NGfL in the short term and the long term. This is an opportunity for fees for something that many teachers want to be doing anyway.

14 February 2001

Valentines MirandaRose Award

The February Educational-site-of-the-Month MirandaRose Award goes to: Lewisham/Goldsmiths NOF area. Freely accessible and well organised courseware for teachers integrating ICT into their teaching. The opening screen couldn't be better for navigating from. Usually this sort of quality of material is subscriber only and/or password protected.

Dates for your diary

The Education Show - 7th-9th March 2002. NEC, Birmingham.

12 February 2001

Profiling questionnaire now online

You can now publish your own profile by filling in our newly designed form. £10 Amazon gift vouchers will go to 3 people drawn out of a hat on 1 March for a NEW profile.

10 February 2001

Palindrome news

10 02 2001 -- today's date is the first palindrome for over 800 years. It celebrates the update of our database which now has an automatic profiling functionality.

22 January 2001

Humanitarian Award

Founder, Christina Preston, received a Humanitarian Award in Paris from the World Academic Council which recognises experts and specialists who are making a positive contribution to the lives of people suffering hardship around the world. Many thanks to Fellows John Meadows, John Cuthell and Sue Heightman who have not counted the personal cost and time involved in getting this project going.

17 January 2001

MirandaRose Awards

Primary Education Resources and TechKnowLogia win this month's best site awards.

19 December 2000

Postcards on e-Mentoring

Initial experiences from the live e-mentoring service.

11 December 2000

Peer Support in Action – Conference

Notes of the Peer Support Forum by the NSPCC at The Children's Society on 6 November 2000. by Jane Field

1 December 2000

December MirandaRose Awards

The December Educational-site-of-the-Month MirandaRose Award is shared by two sites offering ideas to teachers.

27 November 2000

E-Mentoring article

See Jane Field's article which first appeared in Mentoring News Autumn/Winter 2000; the newsletter of the National Mentoring Network.

15 November 2000

Primary ICT: Knowledge, Understanding and Practice

MirandaNet Fellows co-author a new book published today.

1 November 2000

November MirandaRose Awards

This month's awards go to Fellow Terry Freedman and Kidsdomain.

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