Ideas, Practices & Personal Insights

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The pros and cons of the iPad, as said by teachers

If you’re a teacher working in the UK, there’s a good chance that you use a tablet as part of your work. While we originally set out to publish an article on the different tablet devices available to educators, the response to our questions was so Apple-oriented, we’ll begin with iPads for now. This article is comprised of the opinions of ten different education professionals, either teachers ...

How to manage phones in your school

Chances are, you have a mobile phone on your person right now. It’s the same for many children, so how can schools stop these devices from being a portable scourge? Gordon Christiansen, CEO at Mobile Guardian, discusses the options available to teachers. There has been a dramatic rise in mobile devices crossing back and forth between the school gates, and be it smartphones, tablets, notebooks or laptops, whether they ...

How to maximise academic achievement through Values and Wellbeing

With the new curriculum upon us, Rosemary Dewan of the Human Values Foundation explains how pupils can make terrific strides with an education that embraces hard skills, soft skills and intrapersonal skills... Following extensive research (Lovat, Toomey and Clement, 2010, see below), education experts consider that “the best laid plans about the technical aspects of pedagogy are bound to fail unless the growth of the whole person – social, emotional, moral, spiritual ...

SOLE and chips

What is SOLE, and how can it be used to innovate education. Taking the the lead from Sugata Mitra, e-learning consultant Jacqueline Emkes illustrates how she’s utilised this learning method to achieve inspiring results. I am a roving e-Learning Consultant based at Biddenham International School and Sports College (BISSC) in Bedford. In 2012, I was asked to take a lead on 'SOLE' learning sessions with a group of home-educated children ...

Top 5 edtech trends changing education for the long-term

We cover a lot of edtech trends, but which ones are here to stay the course? Iowa-based English teacher turned technology integration specialist Jarod Bormann gives his top five trends that are really leaving their mark in teaching. If you are one with your ear to ground, I’m sure you have a pulse already on what is transforming instruction in education. As a classroom teacher, I thought I did ...

How to get your students fundraising

If affordable, introducing students to foreign countries is well worth considering. Sarah Williams, assistant headteacher and head of Sixth Form at Sir Henry Floyd Grammar School, has found that fundraising is a great way to get these trips off the ground. Getting students involved in fundraising activities can really add value to their school education (excuse the pun!). By letting pupils take responsibility for driving fundraising events, it not only ...

Does blogging empower teachers?

Much has been made of how powerful blogging can be in education, by experts such as David Mitchell. But how can online writing platforms benefit teachers? English and SEN educator ‘Cazzypot’ discusses how blogging has helped her over the last couple of years. Late in 2012, I decided I'd start writing a local history blog. Although, having been an English teacher for the last 19 years, this possibly wasn't the most logical ...

MOOCs and their impact on e-learning

MOOCs continue to spread throughout the world. But how will they affect e-learning in the UK? TechnoTeacher Nicole Ponsford takes a look. MOOC = Massive Open Online Course. You may have now heard of them as the BBC has published an article about the UK’s Future Learning, illustrating their global demand. I have just completed my first of these courses, and believe MOOCs will change of the tone of learning ...

Using a treasure hunt to teach ‘sequence, selection and variables’

My to-do list during the summer holidays included preparing a number of collaborative problem-solving tasks (mysteries) for the new computing at schools (CAS) curriculum, KS2 and KS3. With my programming background, I focused on the computing science bit rather than information technology or digital literacy.

Cybersecurity: What do schools really need to know?

Chances are, your school uses a large amount of internet-connected devices during its daily business. How best to go about ensuring that everyone using them stays e-safe? Charles Sweeney, CEO at Bloxx, gives his top tips for keeping yourself covered. The rapid, pervasive and unrelenting nature of the internet’s impact on the curriculum means that schools and other educational establishments have had to rapidly understand this changing environment. Balancing ...

Turning Media Studies from a soft subject into a hard subject

Media Studies is a terrific subject, one that can offer terrific insight into journalism, the arts and more. Andrew Miller, teacher of Creative Media & Film at Queen Mary's College in Basingstoke, looks at why the subject is seen as being soft, and what Media Studies teachers can do to change that. With a new academic year comes a new cohort of AS Media Studies students, and I ask them ...

Classroom culture in the Netherlands

We’ve all experienced how languages borrow words when they come in contact with other languages. Cultures do the same thing, borrowing aspects of other cultures. If you take a job at an international school, you’re likely to experience a different school culture than you’re used to. It won’t be the culture of your host country, but it won’t be the culture of your home country ...