Subscribe for free February 2014 Issue 2
Discussion
News
Discussion
Guide
Combating intolerance in schools
A roundup of innovations at this year’s BETT Show
Why teachers leave education and what they do next
Using audio and video in the classroom
From the Editor
Contents Feb 2014 3-5 Classroom Philosophy Guide to P4C and how o make it successful in your classroom.
6-7 Digital Homework A case study of using online tools to set and track homework.
8-11 Pedagogical Oath Discussing intolerance in schools and finding a way forward.
12 Global Prospective Teaching in Thailand
13 Solo Collaboration Working with global educators
14-15 Pedagogy in Pictures Readers’ photos of classroom activities and ideas.
16-19 Going Somewhere? Results of our survey into why teachers leave the profession.
20-21 BETT Show Roundup
Firstly, I would like to thank everyone for the phenomenal support and positive feedback we have received since we launched the magazine a month ago. It has been very much appreciated. In this issue Tom Bigglestone offers help and advice to educators employing Philosophy for Children (P4C) in their school. We follow a school case study of how homework is changing in the digital age with Chris Healey. John Pearce writes about intolerance in schools and wrestles with some tricky ethical issues, which is likely to cause some debate on the #UKedchat hashtag. James Abela takes us on a tour of education in Thailand, while Andy Knill returns to discuss collaborating with educators from around the world.
On page 14 we have a new feature where readers send in pictures of pedagogy in their classrooms. If you have an image you would like to submit, please get in touch. William Portman explores why more teachers have and are leaving the profession. Their jobs that follow teaching may surprise you. I share some of my ‘finds’ at this year’s BETT Show and Sharon Jones shares her experience of introducing debating to her school. Tina Watson offers advice to get children writing through technology and Leon Cych shares his vast experience of creating video in the classroom. Martin Burrett Editor @ICTmagic @UKedmag
editor@ukedchat.com
Exploring the interesting and innovative from the BETT show
22-26 Debating in Schools The impact debating has on wider learning and education
27 Armless Fun Great teaching ideas from StickMen without arms
29-31 EdTech Literacy Ideas for overcoming the blank page with technology
32-37 Camera… Action A guide to creating video in schools
38-39 Bookshelf & Websites 40-41 Notice Board & Events 42 Your guide to UKedchat Poster explaining how your colleagues can join UKedchat
Contributors William Portman Chris Healey @chrishealey23 John Pearce @JohnPearce_JP James Abela @ESLweb Andy Knill @aknill @globalsolo Sarah Liddell @MsLiddell Tom Bigglestone @the_tank David Moody @TeacherBubble
Stephen O’Callaghan @MrOCallaghanEdu Lesley Munro @lesleymunro4 John Jones @MrJonesICT Simon Gregg @Simon_Gregg Amjad Ali @ASTSupportAAli Sharon Jones @cbiggerpicture Tina Watson @tinawatsonteach Leon Cych @eyebeams
The publishers accepts no responsibility for any claims made in any advertisement appearing in this publication. Whilst every effort is made to ensure accuracy, the publishers accept no responsibility for errors, inaccuracies or omissions.
Cover Photo Credit: http://janehewitt.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/behaviourfor-learning.html with kind permission from Jane Hewitt @Janeh271. See http://janehewitt.blogspot.co.uk for more stunning images.
Troubleshooting in Philosophy for Children By Tom Bigglestone
Philosophy for Children (P4C) is becoming ever more popular in schools. Tom Bigglestone explains its background and outlines how it can be employed in the classroom. A ‘Community of Enquiry’ Professor Matthew Lipman (1922-2010) believed that children were just as capable of engaging in philosophy as adults and despaired at the scarcity of philosophical thinking in classrooms. He founded Philosophy for Children, now used as an unpatented umbrella term for a model of learning used in over 60 countries worldwide. P4C aims to make children more critical, curious, creative and reflective. Lipman’s vision is represented in the classroom through an activity known as a ‘Community of Enquiry’, whereby learners work together to increase their understanding of the world. Let’s imagine
you are watching a History lesson, with a class experienced with such an approach. The pupils are watching a depiction of the murder of Thomas Becket. The teacher then asks them to pick out key themes from the story. Brief pair-work leads to ‘faith’, ‘tragedy’, ‘death’ and ‘defiance’, among many others. ‘Okay’, says the teacher. ‘Now let’s make some questions from these themes. Interesting questions. Questions that will prompt discussion.’ Within minutes, pupils come up with a range, and vote on which one will be discussed. The chosen question: ‘Is it worth dying for your faith?’ The teacher allows pupils to discuss in small groups before facilitating class dialogue. Before long, pupils realise they need to address another question first: ‘What is faith?’
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▲ Prof Matthew Lipman — A man with a vision to make children think and reflect
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So, within fifteen minutes of reading the story of Becket’s murder, the pupils are exploring a concept that has been a pillar of people’s lives for millennia – as a Community of Enquiry. P4C can be timetabled as an independent subject. Many teachers employ enquiries into existing lessons, too. There is a great deal of literature on its benefits, but I have found some of the most noticeable. P4C: • immediately adds an ‘organic’ element. Pupils drive the discussion by forming and voting for questions. • provides a platform for pupils to confidently explore fundamental concepts they would not normally question. • empowers children to express and clarify their opinion and develops their resilience when it is examined by others. • encourages teamwork and requires pupils to work together. This builds their empathy, sensitivity and co-operation. • allows pupils to reflect upon their progress in relation to several higherorder thinking skills.
▲ Penny for your thoughts—P4C sessions don’t have to tackle the big philosophical problems, but you may be surprised where the discussion takes you.
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Overcoming Problems As interesting as discussions may be, engagement can be an issue. Communities of Enquiry generally lack the staples that subliminally keep pupils focussed: desks, seating plans, books, pens, grades and exams, to name a few. If you do have P4C timetabled as a lesson, or use it regularly within existing lessons, how can you keep over two-dozen pupils engaged? Here are a few tips: • Provide a basic structure: Have set routines for the start of the enquiry, perhaps by using a timer. Present a ‘Big Picture’ laying out the chronology of enquiries you plan to facilitate this term. Give each pupil a folder in which to store any sheets of self-assessment or written answers. • Communicate aims: Don’t start an Enquiry without a key skill for the group to work on, or at least provide time for each pupil to choose one. Make sure pupils expect to be held accountable to these at the end. • Nurture intrinsic motivation by linking the use of P4C to their wider education. I believe Philosophy lessons will make pupils better learners and I communicate this in the first lesson. This is reinforced when we outline the qualities of a great learner and tick them off when demonstrated. • Differentiate. One barrier to engagement in P4C is confusion. Generate flow by providing worked examples of themes/ philosophical questions. Limit the group discussion: An inescapable problem with a group discussion is that only one pupil can speak at a time. Attention can drift. Every now and then, let the current question be discussed in partners for a minute, before opening up the floor again.
Click here to read our book review of The Philosophy Shop on page 39
I believe we are all familiar with ending a class discussion with hands still raised. The sheer numbers in most classes mean every pupil cannot say everything they wanted to. How can you get around this? • Create a display with the week’s enquiry question in the middle, and provide paper/post-its/pens/whiteboards for pupils to write their answers (and interrogate the answers of others!) • Post-key questions on a VLE forum – we use Edmodo, for example. Pupils can then continue the discussion online.
▲ A record of points shows the chronology of discussion and any new questions
Pupils will often wish to see/hear/read more of the stimulus. By its very nature, it will be interesting. Generally, it will also be short. You may wish to post a full version of it to your VLE. A Community of Enquiry is unparralled in its ability to engage pupils in deep, collaborative thinking. It is not without some problems, especially with full classes. I hope these solutions help. Further reading sapere.org.uk p4c.com
▲ What do you think?—Collaborative thinking and discussion is key to P4C sessions
Tom Bigglestone is a Head of RE and teacher of Philosophy at a North London girls school. He is on Twitter @the_tank and blogs at tombigglestone.wordpress.com
Image Credit: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MAT3-_640x480_byn.jpg by GrupIREF used under Commercial Creative Commons License http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Discussion.png by Muhammad Rafizeldi used under Commercial Creative Commons License http://www.flickr.com/photos/seatbelt67/502292587 by Brian Hillegas used under Commercial Creative Commons License All other images have been captured and supplied by Tom Bigglestone. Commercial Creative Commons License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0
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Homework in the Digital Age What were the key issues you faced which made you decide to implement Show My Homework? Independent extended homework is vital in the educative process. It’s vital for one-to-one coaching and a good student-teacher relationship that homework is completed, marked and feedback given quickly and thoroughly. We have outstanding teachers, dedicated students and supportive parents. The reason we chose to implement a homework system is simple: to support the school community and enable the students to continuing their learning outside the classroom. We looked into designing our own bespoke website for homework delivery. The students wanted content rich, scaffolded homework with clear criteria to extend their learning, with a visual way to see when homework was due. Parents wanted a system that encouraged parental involvement and allowed them to check that homework was suitably challenging and set regularly. Staff needed a system that would allow learning directors for every year and subject leaders to see the amount and quality of homework. SMHW’s impact on the school? Having trialled our system with mixed results, Show My Homework kept popping up and came highly recommended. The decision to use SMHW proved to be an excellent choice. After a telephone chat and a video conference call, the chairman and CEO of SMHW, Naimish Gohil, came to our school to present whole-staff twilight training. The system is so simple that our teachers needed no further training. After a 4 week trial, we launched fully in January. Now all homework is set via SMHW and the teachers love it. We can share and reuse each other’s homework with one click. It allows us to support students with presentations from class, extracts, videos, web links, modelled answers and success criteria – saving time and printing. There is a generous 20MB of data for each homework upload. Tracking statistics can be filtered by year, subject or teacher, allowing us to compare provision easily. The system integrates with Google calendar to notify students on their phones and can even issue email reminders.
Chris Healey is Director of New Technologies at Bishop Justus Church of England School, part of the Aquinas Trust, Bromley. Find him on Twitter @chrishealey23
Promotional Feature
By Chris Healey SMHW’s impact on Parents? Parents felt part of the homework process. Previously, students may not have written down their homework and said, “No mum, not been set any”, the system removes this risk. Now parents can login and see their child’s schedule. Even if they have forgotten their login, the whole school calendar is available on the site without a login.
SMHW’s impact on Students? We have high expectations, and the students now have the tools to complete homework to the best of their abilities. All the resources are there on phones, tablets or PCs and accessible at home, in school everywhere. The system is very visual, with graphical representation of deadlines and important information. It supports all students to develop their organisation and time management skills. Students can submit work and receive feedback completely online. We have regained the 5 minute ‘admin break’ to copy down homework and it’s always accurate. Furthermore, on a ‘snow day’, teachers can add work for their classes for students to complete at home. The system allows much greater support for students with literacy, learning or language difficulties and it’s simple to adapt the work to their needs. Would you recommend SMHW to other schools? Absolutely. The service has been excellent. The SMHW team deservedly won the BETT show award this year. The ease of integration, the training and approachability of the team has been second-to-none. I’ve made requests for tweaks in the interface and they have appeared immediately. I’m excited to work with them more over the coming years and watch SMHW continue to innovate and hone their system.
Exceed Ofsted expectations Track homework in seconds Eliminate homework excuses
The UK’s No. 1 online solution to track and monitor homework. Get in touch to see it in action! Phone: +44 (0)20 3397 7546 Twitter: @showmyhomework
www.showmyhomework.co.uk
Making a positive difference
A Pedagogical Oath By John Pearce
In the light of recent high profile court cases related to extremist religious acts, the European Immigration debate and a brewing election campaign - how should we react to teachers who express strong political opinions in school? How do you deal with colleagues who hold and espouse intolerant or anti-social views? Are there acceptable limits to teacher values and ethics? I believe some views are unacceptable and propose a Pedagogical Oath to match the Hippocratic Oath for medical doctors. Would you swear it? Politics and Polemics in School Early in my career, the comprehensive school in which I taught became the target of a campaign by an extremist organisation. Unsavoury characters lobbied students as they left the premises. Later, I worked with a teacher colleague who began expressing crudely racist views. He would hold forth in the staffroom, assuming all agreed with him. On another occasion in a different school, I referred an example of physical, possibly sexual abuse, to the head to be told, “We
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know it happens, we know the family… there is nothing we can do.” I also witnessed both sexist and homophobic behaviour. These are just some examples where I felt my (good?) values were being undermined by those with different (extreme, unacceptable?) views. I’m happy to say that, on each occasion above, the individuals and their ideas were challenged. Have you met colleagues with extreme and unacceptable views? What did you do? Should bigots, racists and deviants have an equal opportunity to express themselves? Is there an acceptable range or set of “acceptable” political, religious and philosophical beliefs? At this point I must stress, colleagues holding extreme views are a tiny minority, but they can become a significant minority when unchallenged and they can have a disproportionate effect on students.
► Portrait of François-Marie Arouet—Also known as Voltaire, the French Enlightenment writer and philosopher
Voltaire on Free Speech I had always defended free speech and confidently quoted Voltaire,
“I disagree with what you say, but I defend to the death your right to say it”. Then these examples and others made me rethink and when I was promoted and started running courses and writing on Pastoral Care, I found that colleagues in other schools felt like me. I began to develop my thinking and started saying, "I disagree with what you say and will defend my right to ensure that people holding such views should not be teachers, youth workers or work with young people." Let me explain my Voltaire modification… Morally and professionally, teachers ought to uphold and promote the common values of their society. We are, after all, Public Servants and a key part of our role is personal and social education. We even invented Citizenship as a subject and we still talk of Community Education. So what kind of citizens in what kind of community? And shouldn’t this apply globally too? But who decides what is acceptable and therefore unacceptable? Are there common ‘goods’?
Convinced now, I stuck my head above the parapet and started arguing that, “Those who educate young people should not promote views in contravention of the UN Declaration of Human Rights and Rights of the Child.” See un.org/cyberschoolbus/ humanrights/resources/child. I chose the Human Rights Conventions because they are enshrined in international law. Classroom Debates There is an important qualifier here… I am not arguing that the aims of extreme political parties should be banned or that obnoxious racist, sexist or homophobic views should be proscribed in school. Quite the opposite. I want them discussed. It is vital they are discussed in order that they are challenged. But I want any extreme views discussed rationally and fairly; I'm convinced that any debate will be negatively influenced by a teacher holding extreme views. So I started to promote this approach, I talked about it in courses and conferences and colleagues agreed, adding, “Yes, but what can we do?” Good question! It is so easy to state a belief and have a vision. The toughest part is “making a positive difference by making it happen.” Professional Oaths Then a friend's son qualified as a doctor and had to swear the Hippocratic Oath and I realised that we educationalists were missing something. Shouldn't teachers, youth workers and all who work with young people, be asked or even required to swear a Pedagogical Oath as Doctors swear a Hippocratic Oath? If so, what might it contain? I'd been banging on about the importance of values, moral purpose and promoting interdependence for years. So I drafted an initial oath and showed it around.
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Since 2010 I’ve trialled it with over 500 Newly Qualified Teachers and about as many serving teachers, heads and advisers. I’ve asked if they would sign it or even swear it. No one said they disagreed with it, while many said they would happily sign it. However, some were less sure about swearing it. I even had interest from the Children's Commissioner's Office and last year NCTL had a discussion thread on this theme – I lodged a copy in both places, but I heard nothing. Who said, “All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men (and women) to do nothing.”? So, I’m asking my profession - you, “What can we do about colleagues who hold extreme views?” Image Credit: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ File:Atelier_de_Nicolas_de_Largilli%C3% A8re,_portrait_de_Voltaire,_d%C3%A9tail_(mus%C3% A9e_Carnavalet)_-002.jpg by DIREKTOR used under Commercial Creative Commons License http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:blankscroll32b.png By GRPH3B18 used under Commercial Creative Commons License Other images created by Martin Burrett Commercial Creative Commons License creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/2.0
Making a Positive Difference? Well, if I were Secretary of State (who is in charge of the education system for England), I’d require all teachers to sign a Pedagogical Oath, if not swear it. If I was still a head teacher or a governor, I’d place a copy of it in the application pack and ask only those who agreed with it to apply. I believe we'd be on safe legal grounds refusing to appoint if they didn't. What do you think? How will you use The Pedagogical Oath ? Would you sign it, swear it? ► The Pedagogical Oath—Would you sign it? Do you agree with all the points? How would you change it?
John Pearce @JohnPearce_JP john@johnpearce.org.uk is an ex-head teacher with experience as, inspector, business coach and Lead Facilitator with NCTL. He is a freelance Senior School Improvement Adviser and creator of The iAbacus self-evaluation improvement tool www.iabacus.co.uk—a BETT Award finalist
ukedchat.com The UKedchat website is the place to find educational discussion, debate, articles and pedagogical strategies and tip. Join the Thursday night discussion on Twitter at 8pm (GMT) using #ukedchat. 10
The Pedagogical Oath I promise to fulfil this professional oath to the best of my ability and preserve the finest traditions of my calling. 1. I accept my responsibility in loco parentis and will always act in the ways of a good and thoughtful parent or guardian. 2. My vision is for learners of all ages to reach their full potential and work interdependently for the common good of others. 3. I will create the best learning experiences I am able to, believing education to be enjoyment in discovering the knowledge, understanding and skills we need to be confident citizens in the global community. 4. I will uphold and disseminate the articles of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. 5. Whilst I may work with groups, I know learning takes place in the minds of individuals and so my care, best efforts and respect will be given equally and unconditionally to all within my charge. 6. I recognise there is an art to working with learners and that warmth, sympathy and understanding must always balance the important pressures to impart information, deliver programmes, pursue academic excellence and expect high standards of behaviour. 7. I will encourage learners to challenge injustice, reduce harm, protect the vulnerable and isolated, sustain and improve the natural world. 8. I will respect the confidentiality of my students, within the limits of the law. 9. I will draw from the wisdom of those in whose steps I walk and gladly share such learning as is mine with those who follow. I will not be ashamed to say "I don’t know�, or fail to call on colleagues when their help is needed. 10. I will study the effect and impact of all I do in order to do it better next time. JohnPearce @JohnPearce_JP
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Global Prospective By James Abela When you think of Thailand you probably think of golden sand beaches and the hustle and bustle of South-East Asian cities. James Abela takes us on a tour around the less well know Thai education system. Children start school in Thailand at age 6. Many children in cities will have attended Kindergarten beforehand. Thailand spends a lot of its national budget on education. (27% in 2006) and Thailand has one of the highest basic literacy rates in the region. (Just 1% below Singapore) However only 72% complete secondary school. Unlike England, where the Government has made a series of dictats in legislation and through OFSTED, Thai teachers have a set of aspirations and are highly respected. Teachers are also celebrated in a ceremony called Wai Kru where students give their teachers garlands of flowers or gifts. There is also a teacher’s day on 16th January where teachers are given a day off to enable them to rest and recuperate. The Thais have a saying, “ครูคอื พ่อแม่คนทีส องของศิษย์” which means that a teacher is a second parent to the student. Image Credit: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1_Earth_(blank_2).png by Azcolvin429 used under Commercial Creative Commons License Commercial Creative Commons License creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/2.0
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In Bangkok many children from the middle classes have a private education and there is a large number of International schools. These are often supplemented by large amounts of after school tuition. Some of which is lesson based, but there are an increasing number of music academies and even classes to learn robotics. However in rural districts absenteeism can be a problem, especially when rice has to be planted and harvested and schools often have very limited resources. The biggest difference between the UK and Thailand is the amount of reflection in lessons. This comes from the Buddhist culture where one reflects on one’s learning and thinks about what has gone on. It is a part of everyday life and something that comes naturally to Thai children. Lessons are generally very calm and what was noticeable when I recently went to Koh Mook was that I could hardly hear the school, even during lesson times.
James Abela is a Computing teacher in Thailand. Find him at jamesabela.co.uk and @ESLweb
Browse hundreds of online educators with the International Twitter Map. Add yourself to the map by clicking here.
So here is the global idea for 2014. @globalsolo started on the afternoon of 31/12/13. The intention is to provide a central point where resources and ideas can be exchanged, questions asked, interpretations compared and educators come together whatever age they work with, whatever subject they teach.
In the January issue of UKED Magazine I wrote about Solo taxonomy and how I have been learning to use it since I came across it in 2012. One of the aspects of solo that I have so enjoyed is the sharing of practice between users. I have developed a personal PLN on Twitter that crosses many countries' boundaries. I enjoy, time zones allowing, swapping ideas with teaching colleagues in the USA, Abu Dhabi, Australia and New Zealand. When groups were forming in 2012 they focused around subject use e.g. English, Science, Geography. Last year in April 2013, Alice Leung and I jointly organised #sologlobalchat that allowed chat between a group from the UK, Australia and New Zealand. We discussed further developments but life got in the way and the links did not develop further.
‘a personal PLN on Twitter that crosses many countries' boundaries’ In our blog are some suggestions for possible avenues to develop some inspired for me from ideas trialled by @ukedchat over the last two years. If you use solo or would be interested in finding out more, please come and join us @globalsolo.
Andy Knill is a Secondary Geography teacher in Essex. You can find him on Twitter @aknill and @globalsolo. Find the Global Solo blog online at globalsolo.wordpress.com Image Credit: The globalsolo image was designed and supplied by Andy Knill and @SubjectSupport.
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Pedagogy in Pictures ◄ Working in groups, one pupil in each group dresses up in the body suit. The group researches one group of people e.g the Roundheads of the English Civil War and illustrates the characteristics of that group of people using post it's. For example, a post it on the hood explaining why they're called Roundheads! A fun activity that gets the pupils enthused and learning, and thoroughly enjoyable for teacher too! @MsLiddell ► I was fed up of students continually asking
me questions. Solution: question tokens. I gave each student 3 tokens and explained that they could only ask me 3 questions throughout the duration of the lesson. They could ask each other as many as they wanted. This forced them to carefully think through their questions and check with their peers before using a token. @NSLHub @mrocallaghanedu See More at neverstoplearninghub.com
◄ Used this connection map for making summaries and preparing for exam questions. Students write as many words as they can to do with the given topic on small squares of paper. These are swapped with another group. Student make as many connections as they can by writing on the longer strips (idea from @ASTsupportAALI & @Gemmaharvey73 via cheneyagilitytoolkit.blogspot.com). Student then conducted a silent debate (no idea where I got this from, have used it for a long time) on an exam question. They then wrote an answer to a similar exam question. All achieved above predicted grades. @LesleyMunro4
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After getting to grips with the technicalities of QR coding, the Fourth Years (y8) at King’s Prep School embarked on a QR code hunt. Using mobile devices, they had to determine answers to questions and puzzles hidden within the QR codes. Once their initial challenge was completed, they used QR codes to create revision guides for other students that contained a combination of their own content and content sourced from the internet. These will soon be available on our school blog at kings-rochesterblog.org @Kings_Prep @mrjonesICT
◄ Year 4 children construct a multiplication square from Cuisenaire rods. Each different-coloured cell of the square represents a times table fact with its area, giving a purely visual way of representing multiplication, challenging the children to complete the pattern and providing a new use for a familiar resource. See more on our blog at year4atist.blogspot.fr @Simon_Gregg
► Maths plasters created by @ListerKev; An idea born
from literacy plasters created by @ASTSupportaali. When correcting common mistakes use the maths plaster instead! Saves you time and makes feedback more engaging for students! The maths plasters contain text instructing students on how to correct a common mistake. It makes the information provided more memorable too. Look out for the Science Plasters and History Plasterssee cheneyagilitytoolkit.blogspot.com @ASTSupportaali
Do you have a pedagogical image to share? Contact us on Twitter @UKEDmag or by email editor@ukedchat.com. 15
From the ChalkBoard to the DashBoard
Careers following
Teaching UKED Magazine / UKEDchat Exclusive Feature It is often reported how many teachers leave the profession early, most notably Newly Qualified Teachers who leave the job within five years of qualifying. Within the UK the figures reveal that 47,700 teachers left their jobs in the year 2010-11, and whilst these figures are alarming and easy to access, very little is known what teachers do when they leave the profession, especially before retirement age. Towards the end of 2013, UKEdChat opened up a survey asking what careers former teachers followed once they â–ź Do you have that Sunday night feeling? Another sleepless night worrying about marking? You are not alone.
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left the profession, with the results proving to be continually of interest to the online community who actively visit the page for inspiration. Our online survey asked teachers why their former colleagues left the profession, with an overwhelming reaction relating to stress. Internal politics (within school), bullying, and the work / life balance clash were also cited regularly from respondents. But, armed with teaching degrees, Masters Degrees and a genuine passion for their subject speciality, former teachers have turned away from the profession; instead preferring careers which do not share the same stresses. Our survey revealed an eclectic mix of careers former teachers turned to when the school environment proved too much for them: TV Producer; wildlife officer; journalist; solicitor; consultant; and administration were some of the common responses, but other career opportunities included accountancy; self-employment; and one former UK teacher is now happily driving passengers around as a coach driver. One former primary school teacher from London told us, “I could feel the way my school was going, and I had experienced it before, it was becoming more top-down, there was more management interference, and it was more dominated
by what the head teacher thought was good teaching to the exclusion of everything else. regular, agenda-laden observations resulted in square pegs being forced into round holes, and other longer-serving teachers started to leave also, for the same reasons. The head seemed to want young, pliable, predominantly female teachers that she felt she could mould the way she wanted. The school became increasingly SATs-test focused and the teaching we were encouraged to do less relevant to the children’s needs. “I went into teaching to do a professional job, and I did that for 20 years, it was in the last couple of years that I found myself increasingly forced to do things differently, in effect I had to teach someone else’s lessons and use someone else’s teaching methods, methods that were usually ineffective. In the end I didn’t leave teaching, teaching left me. It seemed that heads don’t want good (or “outstanding”) teachers anymore, they wanted pliable and obedient robots. ▼ Stress is the number one cause of teachers leaving the profession in the UKedchat survey
“I was still passionate about education however and I wanted to be there to fight the perpetual worsening of teaching and the school system. A friend had just come back from living in France and their children told me how they felt they were being educated in school there, that they were learning. “From my own point of view I am now in a job which gives me the professional autonomy and sense of purpose that had been taken away in schools.“ Another young secondary school teacher from North West England is currently in the position of considering leaving the teaching profession, aiming to work in higher education or for a charity in a more administrative role. She explained, “Whilst the kids/behaviour form some part of this decision (I do not appreciate being called an f***ing b****) there are also far too many aspects of the job I do not enjoy. “Our profession has lost the status it once had and our judgements in the classroom day to day are checked and scrutinised as never before. If you work as a teacher or in education you will know that there is no balance. In term time we are buried with work with maybe half a weekend off in a week - if we’re lucky. Holidays are more of a recovery period. We discuss progress not in terms of “Soand-so learnt to do this today!” but, “Have they made the required progress so I will meet my performance targets?” At the moment I feel constantly stressed and tired. I tend to go to bed worrying about school and waking up still worrying about something to do with school. I will be looking to leave full time teaching. This is both exciting and nerve wracking, but ultimately I know that this is the right choice for me.”
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Our infograph summary shows some of the most common responses we received from the survey, with all responses available to view at ukedchat.com (http:// ukedchat.com/2013/11/10/why-teachersleave-the-profession-and-what-they-do/) Responding to the amount of hours teachers undertake, the Department for Education in England commented to UKEdChat, “The Government recognises that there are many teachers across the country who devote many hours to their work, with the sole motivation of improving
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the life chances of our children and young people. As a result teachers can find themselves working in excess of the statutory requirement. The Government acknowledges this and places enormous value and trust in the professionalism of the teaching workforce. We are committed to supporting our teachers, reducing the bureaucratic burdens on teachers thereby enabling them to focus on what really matters in the classroom, teaching and learning. Our policies are aimed at increasing autonomy to allow teachers greater flexibility in managing
their time and workload.� Similar requests were made to ministers in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, but no response was received. Our survey remains open via UKEdChat, and we are interest in finding out the career paths teachers follow if they leave the profession before retirement. If you know someone who left the profession to follow a different career path, please let us know via the survey link at http:// ukedchat.com/2013/11/10/why-teachersleave-the-profession-and-what-they-do/
Image Credit: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/ File:Mortarboard.svg by Stannered used under Commercial Creative Commons License http://www.flickr.com/ photos/22964099@N05/2204059683 by bottled_void used under Commercial Creative Commons License http://www.flickr.com/photos/saranv/3521287388 by saranv used under Commercial Creative Commons License All other images created by UKedchat. Commercial Creative Commons License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0
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BETT Roundup By Martin Burrett
The hustle, bustle and foot ache of BETT has now past, but this year, like every year, there were innovations to be found and treasures to behold. Many in the deepest, darkest recesses. There were several trends permeating the ExCeL hall this year. Large multi-touch flat screens looked out from almost every stand with dancing flashes of colour flickering across the screens and many of exhibitors seem to be converging towards very similar products. One of the first stands that caught my eye was Synergy School Radio, a stand with some great sound equipment to try. I like podcasting with my class, and while I enjoy the Heath Robinson style of my makeshift sound studio/paper cupboard, I couldn’t help but be impressive by the technology, which took me back to my teens and my time on the MV Ross Revenge (Google it!). There are so many educational applications for recording sound and producing radio/podcast shows, but great to have the right kit. Staying with audio technology for a moment, TTS had a good collection of portable audio
recording products. Some were child-friendly microphones which connect to a computer via an in-built USB port to transfer files. But my favourite were the 10 or 30 second recording buttons which allow you to record a quick message. These would be great for ‘noting’ ideas verbally, before a writing task, making a sound-clue treasure hunt and invaluable in primary MFL lessons. They also had MakeMakey, which allows you to use weird and wonderful objects as inputs for computers and great for showing children how computers work. I was pleased to see that a few flat screens boards had been equipped with motion sensing technology, similar to the Xbox Kinect. I haven’t seen much of this technology in the classroom yet and I was interested to see what it could do. The best of the crop seemed to be from Tribune, as while it came with bespoke games and other software, it was one of the few gesture control systems which wasn’t limited to a narrow range of functions and it felt like using a very large tablet from a distance. Perhaps not for every classroom, but it would certainly have many uses, especially in special education and sports. There were lots of animation software vendors at BETT and I enjoyed trying out the range of Kudlian apps. The PC versions were a little expensive, but the tablet apps were much better value, easy to use and came with a good selection of features for making stop-motion and on-screen animations. I found out about an interesting government supported project to educate everyone, old and young, about staying safe online. There are a number of sites that already do this, including the Safer Internet Day initiative on 11th February. But Cyber Streetwise offers some great lesson resources for schools as well as listings to pretty much every other Internet safety site around.
Animalates offered a unique take on the classroom fitness resources. They offer fitness videos featuring costumed animal character who exercise alongside more suitably dressed instructors—sort of like Barney meets zumba. But once the bemusement fades, the videos are very motivating for young children and, at 10 minutes in length, they are perfect for brain breaks and wet weather alternatives. The highlight for me this year was seeing how far 3D printing technology had progressed in just 12 months and how much the price had dropped. I found four stands showcasing 3D printing, but by far the most interesting was GoPrint3D. They had three 3D Printers on display, a 3D scanner to render an object’s pattern on a computer and a 3D pen which allowed you to ‘write’ vertically in the air, albeit slowly. The melodic whizz and robotic movements were captivating, as the model ever so slowly revealed itself layer by automated layer. I was also surprised to learn that the plastic feed was not much more expensive than an equivalently sized Inkjet carriage. Read more about these amazing machines in the March issue of the UKED Magazine as we explore the pedagogy of 3D printing. Browse the UKedchat BETT photo stream for more ideas.
Some Subject Specials have been supported by the AQA. Visit http://aqa.org.uk for more information.
Debating in Schools Of course
Yes Look at the evidence...
Maybe...
Does it matter? On that point...
It might... However...
That depends...
No Consider that... Think about it...
I think you are forgetting...
I agree in principle... I completely disagree... Interesting point... By Sharon Jones It has been said that education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire. In my experience as a teacher, debating has proven to be one of the powerful ways to spark that fire into life, and has provided the oxygen needed to keep it burning. As Gifted and Talented Coordinator in a Controlled Post Primary School in Northern Ireland, I had the opportunity to start a debating club. The journey leading up to this and since has been a learning curve for me and for my students - a most rewarding one. I’d like to share our story. On a personal note, I should say that I trace at least some of my passion for discussion and debate to a couple of inspirational, even eccentric, teachers I had in sixth form, back in the 1980s. One of them, in particular, was a true curriculum innovator. In a weekly hour, that he had somehow managed to
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commandeer in our timetable, Mr Stevenson gathered thirty of us into a room and gave us the chance to voice views, opinions, musings, questions and rants on a whole series of wide ranging, and often controversial, ethical, political and moral conundrums. He was as cool as a cucumber, listened quietly and occasionally he asked questions. Growing up as we were amidst the complexities of “The Troubles”, our discussions were sometimes a little heated. We weren’t asked to opt in or out of Mr Stevenson’s “big issues” class; it just happened every Thursday. I remember a distinct sense of revelation, as one by one we found the confidence to open up our inner worlds and listen to others with respect, despite our, at times, opposing views about the world, the universe and everything. At the end of the year he took a group of us to visit his old alma mater, the United World College of the Atlantic in South Wales. Located in an imposing castle on the marvellous Welsh coast, this international school was some distance beyond our comfort zone. Here too he encouraged us to discuss and to debate, this time with students from very different backgrounds and nationalities. My contemporaries in the “big issues” classes moved on to a wide range of professions. We are surely indebted to him. As an undergraduate at Cambridge, debating every perceivable aspect of every
perceivable argument - and defending your corner with carefully selected evidence — became for me an assumed and daily matter of course. Mr Stevenson’s weekly sessions had prepared me well. Choosing a career in education was a natural step; it seemed to go hand in hand with the love of discussion and questioning that my own education had nurtured. I carried my passion for debate into the classroom where it infused my teaching from day one. In 2010 I was privileged to hear Professor Carole Dweck of Stanford University speak at a conference in Birmingham. I was convinced that her ideas about Fixed and Growth
Sharon Jones has been teaching Modern Languages in the post primary sector in Northern Ireland since 1994, and has enjoyed a variety of roles including Head of Year, Subject Leader and Gifted & Talented Coordinator. She currently lectures in Education Studies (with Modern Languages) at Stranmillis University College. You can find her on Twitter @cbiggerpicture
▲ For argument’s sake—Debating takes lots of practice and preparation to defend your position.
Mindsets made sense. In her book, Mindset: the New Psychology of Success, Professor Dweck argues that in a Fixed Mindset, intelligence is regarded as static. Learners with a Fixed Mindset tend to avoid challenges, give up easily, see effort as fruitless, ignore useful feedback and feel threatened by the success of others. In a Growth Mindset, however, intelligence is seen as dynamic. A Growth Mindset learner will embrace challenges, persist in the face of setbacks, see effort as the path to mastery, learn from criticism and find lessons and inspiration in the success of others. As a result, their levels of achievement are higher. Challenging all learners, including the more able, and encouraging them to develop a Growth Mindset, became my primary objectives as a teacher, and particularly in my role as Gifted and Talented Coordinator. I also found Joseph Renzulli’s work influential, and as a school we were keen to enrich learning across the curriculum.
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As part of this vision, Critical Thinking classes were scheduled for a group of able learners in the sixth form, with a decision not to have the learning externally assessed. We set about developing a scheme of work. It seemed a perfect opportunity to give space and time in the curriculum to deepen the students’ engagement with the subjects they were studying at A level, to make connections between different areas of learning and to venture beyond the curriculum they were following. As there was no examination and therefore no qualification on offer, some students didn’t see the point and preferred to spend the time doing extra private study. A core group of students remained. We talked about books, films, newspapers and current affairs. We read Jostein Gaarder’s Sophie’s World. We had a heyday researching ancient Greek philosophers. We explored the value of art, the relationship between science and theology, the definition of personal identity, and personal freedom in the digital age. The students researched independently and in groups, and there was always scope for discussion and debate.
▼ Debate and discussion can start early, but it takes hard work and practice to become a great orator.
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At the end of the year I was informed that the classes were to be withdrawn. The same week, though, I received an email: a most fortuitous turn of events. Debating Matters, part of the Institute of Ideas, was inviting schools to participate in their annual national sixth form debating competition. The Debating Matters website describes its brand of debating:
The competition has successfully pioneered a format for debate that takes ideas, argument and young people seriously. The focus is on content and substance over style, encouraging young people to engage in an intelligent contest of ideas and holding up their ideas to critical scrutiny. I was hooked. In addition to an excellent debating Resource Hub for schools, the site provides an extensive online Topic Guide for each motion, which offers a comprehensive range of press and journal articles, video clips and podcasts, as well as pointers and links for wider research. Many of these materials, shared with colleagues in school across a range of subject areas, were used as valuable teaching resources in my class. The first meeting of the new debating club was convened at lunchtime, hosted by the students of the previous year’s critical thinking classes, and attended by a mixture of the curious, the brave and the reluctant, conscripted from their usual mid-day wandering of the school corridors. There were about twenty of us in all. Over the course of the next two years the popularity
of the Debating Club grew until the room was packed. Each week we followed a slightly shorter version of the Debating Matters format: two teams of two speakers researched the arguments for and against a controversial issue, and another student chaired the debated. We had just enough time to hear four three-minute speeches, take a couple of questions and contributions from the floor and finally, an audience vote. This proved to be a winning formula; the success of the club exceeded expectations. I could see the fires of enthusiastic engagement with learning burning brightly in front of my eyes. I noticed groups of students sitting together before school, at break and lunch, and again after school, researching whether or not people should be paid to donate their organs or arguing passionately about other issue of contemporary relevance. Should the press be regulated? Should extremism be banned on the University Campus? I watched, encouraged, provoked, cajoled, and supported them from the sidelines. The debaters were taking ownership, both of the club and of their intellectual development. They were thinking for themselves; result! Our first appearance in the competition itself was a qualified success. We reached the Northern Ireland finals and travelled to debate against a number of more
experienced teams. The first time I took a minibus of fifteen enthusiastic and committed Sixth Formers to a debate in another school, I was simply delighted. Our research was thorough, our arguments were thoughtful and our defence was brave, but on that occasion a more able team defeated us. We had come a long way, but knew we had to up our game. We listened carefully to feedback from the judges; academics, journalists and other professionals who volunteered to help the debaters open their minds, enrich their understanding and improve their research and communication skills. We made friends on our travels too, and organised “friendly� matches with a (fiercely) competing neighbouring school, complete with cake. The regular lunchtime debates in school continued. Hidden talents emerged. We discovered some avid researchers, some gifted orators, some great comedians; we laughed a lot. Over time, the cohort of very able debaters grew and their skills became more polished. The following year we reached the Northern Ireland and Scotland Finals, held in the Institute of Informatics at Edinburgh University, only to be narrowly defeated in the final debate. This was all very exciting; especially since only a year previously we didn’t even have a debating club in school. More importantly, though, my students and I had faced a challenge and we had risen to it. The debaters had gotten to grips with approaching the big issues before them in a critical and evaluative way, examining evidence carefully before arriving at their position. Confidence had grown. The whole enterprise was highly collaborative. Communication skills were getting better and were more highly valued. We had begun to think more creatively, we were making more and more cross-curricular links.
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I decided to ask some of the key players in the story to contribute to this article, by explaining how debating had impacted them. “Debating stimulates your intellectual curiosity and teaches you to truly question and engage with the world… It helps you learn to think and realize that your thoughts matter. These invaluable skills have impacted many aspects of my life from trying to understand and live in a foreign culture to academic study.” Stephanie “Debating equipped me with the skills needed to tackle unknown situations with confidence and clarity of mind. It helped me reason through an argument and make an informed response. Also, it showed me that when you are prepared thoroughly for anything, it allows you to reach your potential to succeed. It particularly helps prepare you for interviews and pressure filled situations.” Rhianna “School debating gives you the skills to research topics that really matter, and the confidence to present them in a stimulating contest.” Paul I find it enormously encouraging to follow the progress of my first debating students and to hear their views on the debating they took part in at school. They are now studying education, languages, law and PPE, for example, at universities in Belfast, Cambridge, Durham, Leicester, and Paris. One of them has spent a year living in the Middle East, another has completed voluntary work in Africa. To conclude, I believe that for me as a teacher, and for my students, debating really did matter.
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“Participating in debating was one of the best things I have done. It helped to turn me from a naturally timid person to someone who can speak confidently…I made some friends for life from debating, simply due to the immense level of teamwork that was required to excel in it…Debating requires a lot of independent research to form your argument, as well as finding out information to refute the opposition: an invaluable skill in Law. It definitely helped me mature academically, making me question key issues instead of accepting them as fact.” Grant “The art of debating offers profound and lasting benefits for those who choose to pursue it. A debater has the ability to critically analyse, make informed judgments and articulate with clarity, especially when under pressure. With a focus on advocacy, critical thinking, effective communication, research and teamwork, debating enhances a skill set which serves individuals well in both academic and professional life. As an LLB Maîtrise en Droit Français student, I believe that debating has enabled me to hone the skills necessary for my chosen career path.” Rebecca To borrow words from Seamus Heaney’s 1983 public lecture “Among Schoolchildren”, debating encouraged us to “go beyond our normal cognitive bounds and sense a new element where we are not alien but liberated, more alive to ourselves, more drawn out, more educated”. Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/goldberg/483890283/ by goldberg used under Commercial Creative Commons License All other images given with kind permission from Debating Matters http://debatingmatters.com via Sharon Jones. Commercial Creative Commons License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0
StickMen without Arms Art & ideas by David Moody See more @teacherbubble
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By Tina Watson
A blank page can feel like an impenetrable barrier to some, but I have found that educational technology can really help to overcome the dreaded fear of the blank page syndrome that some children experience. I have been using Twitter with my primary aged tutees (via their parents’ accounts) and it is a great tool for breaking down barriers to writing. The 140 character limit provides an excellent security blanket for those pupils who are daunted by writing, offering palpable reassurance that they ‘only’ have to write 140 characters into that little box on the screen. This is the ‘hook’ to get them writing. I have observed how my tutees often respond really well to the direct correlation between what they are physically writing and the decreasing character count at the right of the box. Yes, that is your writing that is making the character count decrease! If you try this out with a reluctant writer it is often the case that they will be dismayed when they run out of characters. ‘That’s not fair! I hadn’t finished what I wanted to say.’ ‘OK- you want to write more?’ I’ll ask. ‘Ok, so let’s write another tweet’. Before they know it they have written 500 characters across 4 tweets.
Fabulous! I initially used Twitter with my tutees to start an alphabet word game called The Parson’s Cat. This is an ‘old school’ word game which some of you may remember playing on long car journeys. The basic premise is that you start from A and have to come up with a name and an adjective to describe the cat. For example: ‘The parson’s cat was an amazing cat called Anita’ was our first tweet and then each child is asked to add a contribution following the alphabet. The element of repetition is also useful for reinforcing the correct punctuation to apply within the sentence. If a tutee posts a tweet with incorrect punctuation I then use that as an opportunity for peer assessment, asking other pupils to correct and retweet it. The next stage was to extend their initial tweets and use them as a basis for a collaborative story about all those cats. So we looked at all the cats and the adjectives they had used to describe them and brainstormed their characteristics. I would often pose questions to them via Twitter as to what their cat was like (What might an eccentric cat called Ella look like?). My tutees are now writing the extended story of ‘The Parson’s Cats’ via Twitter and when we meet for our individual sessions I use their contributions as a starting point for sentence level work or story structure. We haven’t
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reached the end of the extended story yet and I am looking forward to seeing how Xanthia the Xerophilous cat is incorporated into the story! Another great tool that I find useful for encouraging reluctant writers is the StoryKit App. This is one of many interactive book creation apps out there, but I particularly like the built in voice recording and painting tool in StoryKit. If they aren’t eager to write about a topic initially, then I allow them to play around on this and have fun recording themselves or painting a picture around the topic and then use this as a stimulus for encouraging writing. The app allows you to
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▲ Rather than replacing paper, technology is complimenting traditional creative writing methods.
share their interactive books via an e mail link and the children love being able to show their families the books they have created. Then they can get parents or siblings involved and add to the book at home. I absolutely love the Toontastic animation App. It allows you to create and share animations, but the beauty of it is that it follows the ‘story arc’ structure for storytelling, so even if you allow your pupils to create freely on it they will create an animation that follows a set structure. Reluctant writers will happily engage in creating an animation and I use this as the starting point for ‘writing’ the story they have just animated. Integrating your apps, by using the content you’ve created from one app in the next app you use, is useful too. So the animated story they created via Toontastic can then be written up via StoryKit. You can even use an iPad to encourage good handwriting! I take photos of the individual sentences or paragraphs that my pupil has written and ask them to create a ‘Pyramid of Pride’ from their own writing, with the most legible text getting pride of place at the top. It is great for motivating improvement in their physical handwriting. For older children I particularly like the presentation tool Prezi. We have to
acknowledge that learners increasingly choose to read written content that is integrated with images and audio and yet we often ignore those aspects when we ask them to write. Prezi allows students to create beautiful presentations that integrate audio and moving/still images. Even though it is a ‘presentation’ package, I ask my learners to use it for a range of writing tasks. Similarly, I find that ‘photobook’ gallery tools are a nice way to engage visual learners who are not so keen on writing. You can ask them to use their favourite family photos of a holiday or their birthday to create a photobook and then ask them to write annotations for them. I find photos of an event are particularly good for encouraging the use of time connectives in their annotations. The parents of my pupils particularly love these as they can then order the books from the website, so they have a lovely personalised family photo album. Naturally, the important thing is to find and select appropriate EdTech tools to enhance learning. It is easy to be dazzled by a fancy app or piece of software, so you need to be discerning in what you select. It is not a
matter of giving the child an alternative to writing through employing these devices, but rather an alternative canvas on which the children can let their ideas and the words flow. Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ mulmatsherm/3055675345/ by mulmatsherm used under Commercial Creative Commons License. http://www.flickr.com/ photos/18090920@N07/7469170810/ by smemon used under Commercial Creative Commons License. All other images provided by Tina Watson. Commercial Creative Commons License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0
Tina Watson has taught in Further Education as a lecturer in Media Studies & Film Studies for 10 years. She is now a freelance educator for primary/secondary children and runs ED Tech workshops (Ipad based) and teacher training for primary schools. She also writes for Pearson & Edexcel. Find her on Twitter at @tinawatsonteach ▼ Prezi is a versatile presentation tool which is great for mixing images and text.
By Leon Cych
The “flipped” classroom is all the rage whether you believe that it works or that it doesn't, video and audio are coming more to the fore, either as part of the media you consume, the media you make yourself, or even better still, that which your students make on the web. Media use is on the rise in the UK and Worldwide between schools in educational contexts. First of all let me give a brief note here to the “seen it all before” brigade. Many teachers will point out that there have been initiatives to do with film and film education stretching back to the 1920s and 30s, usually without much effect; all the initiatives were either too complex or too specialist and failed. To a certain extent this is true; these innovative schemes faded into the past as mere blips of eccentricity. However, in the last 5 years the rise of use of tablet and
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phone devices in the developed world has led to a ubiquity of platforms serving up media. More and more people are learning the skills of filming, film editing and livestreaming in informal circumstances in every day life. In the last 18 months YouTube has allowed people to share the secrets of filming that could only be gleaned by an expensive Film School course or a rich hobbyist. We are now at a time in history for those privileged people who have access to such media, where the tools of production and dissemination of video and film are accessible to everyone. 27% of UK children under eights now own tablets (http:// telegraph.co.uk/technology/ news/10576118/Almost-3.5-million-Britishundereights-own-tablets.html). Around four million master touchscreen devices by age of 3. What previously took days and weeks to produce can now take hours and the knowledge and access to such skills is readily available - almost on tap through channels like YouTube and Vimeo. As the process becomes more trivial, we can exploit it in new and more focused ways to aid our practice in teaching and learning. Making media can be time consuming; it may not give the dividends you hoped for if it takes far longer than you anticipated to film, edit and distribute your film. You also
Sourcing Cameras You don’t necessarily need the latest model and a second hand flip cameras from Ebay will meet most teachers’ requirements. The Kodak ZI8 takes excellent video. It also has remote control and an external input mic for those of you looking to experiment. One of the best cameras I have come across recently for taking video of music performances is the Sony HDR-MV1. It has an audio in – meaning you can plug an external mic into the camera. See my website for many more details about the possibilities this allows. If you are looking for a camera to stream performances live on the internet, then the Canon Legria Mini might be the answer. See it in action on YouTube. have to appreciate that there are different types of media which are used in different ways and often these varying processes may form a big part of the learning for both you and your students in your subject specialist areas. How and what you choose to film and for what audience and in what context are the first big questions... and before that, why do it if it is going to be a time sink? Remember your narrative/message/ information to be conveyed or reflected on or participated in is the most important part of making your own media. The ability to tailor it to your own school community with all its idiosyncrasies, eccentricities and foibles is of huge benefit. There are companies who can make far better generic media with much more amazing content than you ever will, so concentrate on what has most value. It will get your audience's attention more than a generic piece that is too vague or just a vanity project. It has to have real currency (in every sense of the word) with your audience. You know the people you are engaged with in teaching and learning best, and even if you don't, perhaps making media can help here too. Very few teachers make slick high production value films like many of those you may have seen on YouTube and company websites. Educators just don't have the time. If you want to go down that route then you will have to learn how to use a simple video
editing tool and some editing techniques you'll have to learn to write a script and deliver it to camera and to film it so the narrative and delivery looks professional and seamless. I will not cover that in detail here, but you can look in the links at the end of this article for resources that can help. If you just want to make a simple traditional "talking head" video, the best camera is the one you have. However, if you want to go further you will have to think about lights, proper microphones, good cameras, technical filming techniques and scripting. What I will highlight here are fast and simple solutions to making a basic film and some of the situations where video might be useful and pertinent. I will also highlight films used in education which are superb resources which you could not possibly replicate, but that could be used as starters or as models that you might even ‘try’ to replicate yourself. These enable your students to reflect on and do things not possible in ‘real life’, either for health and safety, travel or many other prohibitive reasons. What you have to remember about film as a medium is that it is merely another tool to aid you in teaching and learning, but like any other resource you have to be laser sharp about how you use it so you are not wasting people’s time - most of all yours! How can you exploit the resource rather than let it swamp you in a busy work schedule.
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Fast ways of getting “Talking Head” videos on the web The fastest way of getting video on the web is probably through your smart phone, a wireless camera or webcam. On the iPhone the Filmic Pro app is the best I've come across, but the built in camera app is fine on most devices. The Basics Getting the best talking head video is simple when you are practiced. • Film opposite a window for best natural light - not against one. • Keep close to the camera, in close up, for best sound if you don't have professional mics. • Film three or more “takes” and keep it really simple, but pertinent - delete the ones you don't want - keep the one that seems most fluent. • Make sure you have a script or an outline of what you want to say in behind the camera. • Keep action and narrative simple and clear. • Don't waffle. • Keep it focused on what you want to communicate. • Even if it takes 20 takes over several days keep at it - you will improve over time and it will help your classroom presentation skills too as you will see yourself as others see you. • Upload to YouTube or Dropbox - done. ▼ Leon explains how to get the best results in this YouTube video. Click on the image to view.
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You can now use that video in a web page just copy the embed code and paste it into the relevant part of your blog post or keep it as a series of resources on a YouTube Playlist. As time goes by your expertise will increase and you can opt to be braver and try shooting from several angles, telling a story through narrative with different locations and shots. This is usually a collaborative process, so co-opting others is vital. They will do the heavy lifting for you and the process, in some cases, is also part of the learning. Different uses of Video in Education As stated before - there is no one overarching use of video - it can be used in several ways in several different contexts and the process of making video, too, is a set of dynamics that will come into your teaching in different ways depending on how you want to use it. As a Diagnostic Tool Many people have begun to use video as a diagnostic tool in their classrooms - either on their own by setting up a camera on a tripod at the back of the room or through professional lesson filming services. These allow you to look at your practice and have others give you comments or even be tutored in real time! Some teachers, like Ross Morrison McGill @TeacherToolkit, are even brave enough to put their lessons online (click below).
It is very important to note that before you blithely go and put up a camera in your class you will need to write a policy around the use of media in your institution. It's fine filming yourself on your phone and sticking up the talks on YouTube (if you have the copyright for what you do - more of that later) but once you start to involve other people then the scope of who can see and be seen / filmed and film widens and you will need written permissions from everyone present. This is best done at the beginning of the school year and you will have to set out the conditions extremely carefully - it needs to be a whole school policy and take into account various factors such as student vulnerabilities and the wishes of other staff if you are team teaching to quote just two instances. Short term disposable video as a diagnostic tool for different curricular areas can also be extremely fitting to some tasks, especially where you want to capture something you cannot do through traditional methods in real time. But I cannot stress this strongly enough you need permission to film anyone and even some locations. If you include images and music in your productions you have to be absolutely sure you have the copyright to those or that they are public domain, creative commons licensed and that you have include the appropriate attributions in your film listings at the end. I personally make all my films as creative commons share alike non-commercial so that anyone can share them freely. Science There has been some research to show that students making their own video investigations of science activities helps them retain marginally more knowledge than if they merely "watch" a science video.
However, video in this area is well suited to setting up, observing and posing science experiments and can be used to focus in on events that cannot be captured in real time because they happen so fast. For example, high speed time lapse of quickly speeding objects. Here are two favourites of mine from the Veritasium YouTube Channel about how a slinky falls: http://youtube.com/watch? v=wGIZKETKKdw http://youtube.com/watch? v=uiyMuHuCFo4 Getting students to replicate videos like these themselves as an investigation might prove useful. Alom Shaha's and Jonathan Sanderson's modern classic Pearls in Air is another example I thoroughly recommend. Alom Shaha popped up on Twitter recommending his film and I could immediately see it had all the elements of an excellent resource. These are both great examples of how to do it professionally - clear - informative concise and replicable, but difficult to set up in real life. Showing these films saves you time, and when introduced in the proper context, makes life a lot easier. As a Writing Aid I have made a series of videos with struggling young writers to help mentor them in how to improve what they had written. Being able to play back pieces of them reading their own work can have an interesting effect. It helps give them an objective outlook on their fluency and highlights where they can be given some specific direction, but you have to be particularly sensitive using a resource in this way. This is extremely time-consuming, but put back to back as a process of development can lead to visible progress over several sessions.
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Filming students' first drafts and then viewing, re-filming and then revisiting work can pay dividends, but is it worth the effort? In this case I was working in a school as part of a Creative Partnerships project, so I think it was justified in that I gave added value to the teacher. Maybe you should think about setting up a film unit in your school, using Digital Leaders to help run it. Physical Education A lot of specialist video equipment is now being used to analyse and calibrate performance in PE and Dance - I am aware of this, but do not have expertise in this area. Just be aware that this is something people are doing in sports colleges and it may be something you might like to pursue. Languages Where video comes into its own is with language teaching and Skype in the Classroom and organisations such as E-Twinning. Several e-twinning ambassadors make extensive use of video to communicate between schools. It has an immediacy and authenticity that cannot be replicated with any other resource. History This story re-enactment of the Battle of Barnet is a prime example of pupils being immersed in a topic and filming that. Here is a film from Dame Alison Peacock’s School, Wroxham School — the context for this history resource can be seen here. ▼ School video equipment is often… vintage, but the best camera is the one you have.
Working Together Like designing and making computer games the very process of video creation is collaborative. It’s a highly disciplined procedure with lots of opportunity to do cross-curricular work. The quality of the outcomes is plain for everyone to see, if the process of filmmaking is orchestrated carefully by the teacher and others in an efficient way. Students will need to learn several low level skill sets to be able to film quickly and easily. In making a film they will need to learn how to work together, using negotiation and even some leadership qualities may emerge as they make decisions and take the initiative. Many primary schools have Digital Leader groups where pupils are trained up for this role and more besides. I cannot stress enough that if you choose to go down this route it has implications for the whole school and the teacher needs to be able to orchestrate activities effectively and be able to write and put into action appropriate school policies. It encompasses digital awareness with internet safety issues. Live Events for your Peers Video is also used to bring people together at an event like a TeachMeet, seminar or conference. Busy teachers find it very hard to get to some events they are interested in and now quite a few organisers will stream the event over the web.
Recently I filmed a seminar at Teach First HQ in London about Lesson Observation and by the end of the broadcast it had hundreds of online viewers, such was the popularity. In this context, I believe live streaming acts as a nexus between professionals and widens the scope and current awareness of issues emerging in education. My streams will never be mainstream and so niche media, such as live events of interest to people in their hundreds, is vital for being knowledgeable and in the loop. I have only touched on what is possible with video and what equipment and timing techniques you might need.
If you are reading this via UKedchat.com, you will also be aware of all the TeachTweet video resources for teachers to use and learn from. Ongoing Projects I will be involved in training teachers in effective presentations to camera with Helen Caldwell at Northampton University in the next few months and will be documenting some of that on my blog at L4L.co.uk. For lots more of my videos, visit youtube.com/user/eyebeams2/videos
Leon Cych is a teacher, videographer, STEM ambassador, ICT and Computing consultant who runs the L4LTV CPD web TV channel for teachers. Find him on Twitter @eyebeams
Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jvcamerica/5320820766/ by jvcamerica used under Commercial Creative Commons License. http://www.flickr.com/photos/grumpyfeline/4249665082/ by grumpyfeline used under Commercial Creative Commons License. All other images provided by Leon Cych. Commercial Creative Commons License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0
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The next TeachTweet is on Thursday 22nd May 2014. Click here to sign up to submit a video
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37
Bookshelf Bookshelf
The Philosophy Shop
Book Editor: Peter Worley
Review by: William Portman
Take a look at the picture. What do you see? Do you see it as a duck or as a rabbit? If you sometimes see it as one, and sometimes the other, what changes? Does what you see change? If you had never heard of a duck, would you only see it as a rabbit? If you had never heard of a rabbit or a duck, what would you see it as then? Does that mean that what you see depends upon what you've heard of, and therefore upon what you can think? Does that mean that animals, or very small children, who cannot have the thought you have, literally see the world differently? You may be familiar to the Duck and Rabbit image, but using it with the series of questions, devised by Harry Adamson, possibly got you thinking at a different level than your initial reaction to being exposed to the picture. The questions with this exercise are supporting philosophical thinking and feature within the 'Epistemology: Perception' section of The Philosophy Shop; a comprehensive book resource for those wishing to inject philosophical thinking into the classroom. Edited by Peter Worley, and co-written with contributions from 37 Philosophy Foundation members, the book explores different areas of philosophical thinking and development, with activities aimed for students aged from 5 all the way to deep philosophical issues aimed at adult thinkers. Structured into four main sections (Metaphysics; Epistemology; Values; Language & Meaning), the authors recognise that some people claim not to enjoy philosophy, but with the activities and challenges within book it is difficult to stop yourself engaging with a philosophical problem once it is recognised as a problem. Click here to view on Amazon The Philosophy Shop is precisely that, with a pick-and-mix of ideas and activities which can support, develop and encourage philosophical thinking in the classroom. One of the main principles, as a teacher, is to offer the problems/questions as discussion points, not sharing your own thoughts or answers as this could spoil the interactive aim of the book - the aim is to develop deep thinking in the students, and not to transmit the thoughts of the educator onto the pupils. Crucially, the book also includes a guide to running philosophical sessions, using the stimulus within, but they are principles that are key to classroom management in general: allowing time; thinking about the questions to be posed; being mindful of further questions, and so forth. In the modern classroom, finding time to undertake such philosophical questioning and thinking can be a challenge, but this book provides a huge resource, with pre-planned, off the shelf sessions, although some thought and planning is needed to ensure successful implementation. Time should be made for philosophical thinking, with opportunities within primary (circle-time, group work, PSHE etc) or secondary schools (tutor time, PSHE etc.) to help develop pupils deep thinking skills, and open up the world in a way that enhances thought process. Isn't that what we are preparing them for?
The magic crown is magic because whosoever wears the crown, by some strange power, becomes the queen or king of all the land. If you were to find the magic crown lying on the ground and you knew what it was and what it will do when you put it on, would you put it on? Question: Would you put on the magic crown? Question from reviewer: Did Michael?
The RRP of the Book is priced at £18.99, but available as hard-back at £16.29 or Kindle at £11.39 from Amazon by clicking these links.
The best sites from
View thousand more at ictmagic.wikispaces.com edynco.com This is a well designed collaborative mindmapping site where users can connect their idea and embed video, PDFs, images, slides, links and even html. You can add quizzes and also record lectures videos right on the site.
crackersandgoo.com A wonderful maths iPad app with hundreds of levels of kinaesthetic fun for Primary school age children. Learning skills range from simple counting to rounding and multiplication right up to algebraic concepts.
algodoo.com This is a downloadable physics playground where you can experiment with all sorts of structures, forces and virtual materials. It's great fun. There is also an iPad app to explore.
codecademy.com A superb site which takes learners through a carefully constructed and practical course of coding in many different programming languages. There is an accompanying Apple app to get you started.
getkahoot.com This has got to be the funkiest instant poll, quiz, response site around. Create questions, quizzes and polls with optional uploaded images for participants to complete in real time from a computer or mobile device. The users access the quiz by using a pin code. The 'question master' gets the data back instantly and it is stored on the site or can be downloaded. This is superb for checking the knowledge of children in your class or that your audience is still awake.
Check out the UKedchat Educational Apps directory for the best apps for teaching and learning.
Go to
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Events
TeachMeet Havering
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11th February at 5:30pm Bower Park Academy Havering, East London
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The One to Watch TeachMeet Education Show Friday 21st March at 5.30pm Click here to get more information Click here to sign up to attend or offer to present. Twitter hashtag: #TMEdShow Note that you must have free tickets to The Education Show to attend the Teachmeet Image Credit: Logo created by @HelenCaldwel
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