coComments related to davidgilmour

For some reason the Prezi just

2009-03-13T00:20:05.651+01:00

For some reason the Prezi just displays as a blank page on my home PC, both in Firefox and IE. Is it me? I'm not at all surprised by the apparent paradox in your "happy sheet" feedback. Although the basic idea is a good one, there's something intrinsically wrong with asking attendees how satisfied they were. Unless we know what it was that satisfied them, or why they weren't satisfied, we can't be in much of a position to do anything systematic to improve things. If people sense that all we want are stats, for use as Fearghal describes, then they'll just see the form as part of the bureaucracy of training courses, and get it out of the way as quickly as possible. Have you ever noticed that if you don't have happy sheets, for any reason, no one ever asks for them? Our LA forms have plenty of spaces for free text responses, and it's these which I find most useful. They can be fascinating too - sometimes they'll ask for further info on completely unrelated topics, but they're a gold mine of new leads and people really appreciate it if you follow them up.

Hi Web Team, Thanks for invit

2009-02-26T21:25:31.344+01:00

Hi Web Team, Thanks for inviting us along today to work with you. It was a pleasure seeing you get started writing posts, adding images and creating hyperlinks. You were definitely successful learners and I'm sure will soon be leaving your teachers behind! ;) Once you've had a think about whether you'd like a site for the team, or individual ones, let Mr Wood know and we'll get that arranged. Keep a look out for posts from other web clubs around East Lothian and elsewhere. There's one, for example, at Aberlady Primary, where they've been writing this week about Marvellous Mondays. Why not pop over and leave them a comment?

They learn to defi

2009-02-23T00:48:42.178+01:00

They learn to define themselves as holders of knowledge stock in the speciality in which they have made investments of their time.

This might provide an insight into why subject specialists can find it so difficult to see themselves as teachers, and not as mathematicians, scientists, historians or whatever.

Well done Gillian, you've writ

2009-02-19T22:08:49.454+01:00

Well done Gillian, you've written a very tantalizing review which I'm sure will get others interested in the book. I'm pleased you enjoyed this book, and that you've discovered Jacqueline Wilson's books. My daughter, who's in her last year at school now, was quite a fan of her books - there are lots more for you to discover! ;)

Can I just confirm what John s

2009-02-16T22:49:26.662+01:00

Can I just confirm what John says above, I for one would be happy to help you in any way I can with any self-hosting issues. I have also found the WordPress community to provide a level of support better than anything I've experienced from commercial companies. As long as you stay on reasonably well-worn paths, I don't think you'll have much trouble. You wouldn't think twice about installing and using a mature application on your personal computer, and it isn't all that different. For most people, there are new two concepts to learn about; installing WordPress is done by uploading files using FTP, and the content is stored in a database, so you need to create that and tell WP where to find it. I also think, given your curious nature, that you might just end up exploring all the new possibilities that self-hosting would open up for customising your blog using template tags, for example.

That's news to me. All I've se

2009-01-23T01:16:59.302+01:00

That's news to me. All I've seen to date are ad pop-ups over words in the text, not ads taking up space on the blog. I just looked at the blog, and noticed it not only has pop-ups over selected words, but ads below the post in the individual post view too. Hopefully this overkill, with 3 different kinds of ads, never mind the content of them, is some sort of mistake. I see the school have complained, and I hope the situation is soon resolved. They must be very distracting for the children.

This is pretty much what we're

2009-01-19T10:24:04.426+01:00

This is pretty much what we're trying, with a 1-to-1 Eee PC trial. There's a post about it here: http://edubuzz.org/blogs/david/2009/01/09/one-netbook-per-child-project-now-started/ More here: http://edubuzz.org/blogs/david/2009/01/09/one-netbook-per-child-project-now-started/ I plan to get a project blog up today.

@Clare: The main cost of this

2009-01-19T02:20:18.493+01:00

@Clare: The main cost of this project, the purchase of the netbooks, has been funded from the central education ICT budget, together with the Scotland-wide Glow project, as this is part of finding out effective ways to embed use of Glow and similar network tools into everyday learning activities at home as well as in school. The cost of the project devices is low, much less than a class set of current laptops, and they will be redeployed in the most effective way possible, based on project findings, at the end of the study. Although the top priority is improving the educational experience of learners, it is also about becoming more efficient. If, as networks become more important than computers, schools can get most of what they need from simple, low-cost computers, then we can save money by adopting them. Their power consumption is very low, too, and they don't produce significant amounts of waste heat. When parents ask for smaller class sizes, and no more budget cuts, they do so because they want the highest quality of educational experience for their children. These days, effective embedding of ICT into teaching and learning is an essential part of that. In East Lothian, exploiting information and communications technology (ICT) to improve learning is a key part of our education strategy. Because the rate of change in this area is high, and we are in unexplored territory, it is impossible to accurately forecast future technology needs. Netbooks have been around for a year now, and are becoming so well regarded it seems clear they have a valuable role to play. In that context, we would be neglecting our duties to East Lothian's children if we did not start finding out more about that potential. I would be pleased to meet with you, or with the Parent Council, to discuss your concerns and will memail you separately about that.

@Gillian: Thanks for your comm

2009-01-19T01:26:12.290+01:00

@Gillian: Thanks for your comment, and please don't apologise for being negative. I'm obviously sorry to hear that you're disappointed, but pleased that you have taken the time to raise your concern. I can quite understand that you don't want to encourage your daughter to bring home and use more technology. The aim here, though, is definitely not just about providing increased screen time or about encouraging yet more use of technology as an end in itself. If that was the case, no school would have been interested. The reason the school have kindly hosted this project is because school staff know that technology, carefully used, can provide powerful educational benefits. Central to these is its power to engage the current generation of students by making their classroom experience seem more relevant to the world they inhabit. The excitement you're seeing about the project is an example of that effect. Learning experiences which don't include adequate use of ICT can make a significant contribution to student disengagement. Computing devices (including such things as mp3 players, digital cameras, games consoles as well as more familiar computers) play an increasingly large part in students' personal lives, and most are also experienced internet users. By moving the classroom environment closer to the technology environment they inhabit out of school, we expect to increase its perceived relevance and improve engagement in learning tasks. This project will help with basic reading and writing by enabling a wider choice of learning activities to engage children. For example, it will enable children to collaborate on shared writing tasks and provide peer feedback. Those with wireless internet access at home, for example, will be able to work together on the same homework document or presentation at the same time, and provide one another with peer feedback online. Their teacher will be able to clearly see who contributed what. Buy why do this project, and why now? There are two key strands coming together in this work. Firstly, what you can do with networked computers has become much more important than what can be done on individual machines. In particular, you can learn to research using network resources, and to collaborate with people in other locations. This trend was behind the development of Glow, an award-winning Scotland-wide private schools network which provides network services including collaboration spaces (Glow Groups), video-conferencing (Glow Meet) and student email for all learners (Glow Mail). Glow provides a baseline level of access to all students and schools in the country, and so aims to avoid the kind of pockets of inadequate provision seen in the early days of computers in schools. Since Christmas, we can now provide access to Glow for all East Lothian staff and students. But having access is one thing. Being able to get access to it is another. In school, there's the question of access to computers. They're expensive, and so numbers are limited. At home, some students are on the wrong side of the digital divide, and have no access to computers at all, let alone internet access. That leads to the other strand of the project. Now that networks are more important than individual computers, how do we provide students with network access? What we don't want is to rely on a shared computer suite, we want students to have access as and when required in class. The best we've been able to do to date is to provide schools with shared trolleys of expensive, relatively fragile, laptops. As network access has become a priority over functionality, manufacturers have responded to the problem by producing low cost, lightweight, robust "netbook" computers which prioritise quick access to the network. The Eee-PC was one of the first of these. These machines offer the potential for achieving significantly improved access to computers in schools for the very limited budgets available; many of them can be bought for the cost of one traditional laptop. The costs of them are coming down, and they are even being provided free with some mobile broadband contracts, just like mobile phones, which will lead to students inheriting parental cast-offs. Students are already starting to appear with them in East Lothian schools. Of course,we don't know exactly how this will work out, but we need to start learning what works and what doesn't to inform future decision making. Another very important problem we have is with children who, for whatever reason, do not have access to these technologies at home. That's not just about ownership: often, even although a family has a PC, children will not be able to get access. We are now at the stage where lack of access to computers and the internet out of school risks disadvantaging a child's education. Netbooks, because of their low cost and portability, have potential to help bridge that gap. That's why we need to start learning about the practical issues involved. I would be pleased to meet you, and any other parents or carers with concerns about the project, and will email you separately about that.

Looks fun. ;)

2008-09-20T00:42:21.420+02:00

Looks fun. ;)

Good post, Tom. What you're se

2008-09-19T09:49:20.943+02:00

Good post, Tom. What you're seeing here is, I think, the normal process of team formation, often descibed as forming, storming, norming and performing. Maybe we could relate on-line collab to similar processes in real life to help students know what to expect?

Bet you feel at home in that M

2008-09-13T18:05:12.631+02:00

Bet you feel at home in that Milk Float.

There's a view in education th

2008-09-09T22:09:04.878+02:00

There's a view in education that finding ways to enable those who want to go early to retire early isn't fair on those who remain. I'd heard it expressed, but hadn't really thought about it until I read Andrew Rawson's book, The Social Entrepreneur. In that, he highlights how strong the urge in government organisations is to be "fair" to everyone involved, and describes how it can lead to decisions which are very unfair on the recipients of the services involved. It made me think that it's definitely not fair on our students to have staff in schools who simply don't want to be there. There is a real opportunity now to take advantage of the excess supply of new teachers, and we should take it.

Thanks Gael, King's Meadow is

2008-09-08T16:15:25.174+02:00

Thanks Gael, King's Meadow is now on the list.

The paired desks with fixed se

2008-07-25T17:44:17.896+02:00

The paired desks with fixed seats, flip-top lids and inkwells, and the lectern, look familiar to me too from around the same time in Ayrshire. At least I don't remember slates and dip pens, but it must have been a close thing.

You're not alone. Take advice

2008-07-21T16:55:38.217+02:00

You're not alone. Take advice from Zoe Williams, in this memorable piece titled :

Cease your struggling against the mire of Melanie, and you will reach a zen-like state of acceptance. Remember, Grasshopper, she was put here to test you.

You're not alone. Take this a

2008-07-21T16:53:36.815+02:00

You're not alone. Take this advice from Zoe Williams, in a memorable piece titled :

Cease your struggling against the mire of Melanie, and you will reach a zen-like state of acceptance. Remember, Grasshopper, she was put here to test you.

@Brent: http://www.vim.org/abo

2008-07-17T17:33:24.612+02:00

@Brent: http://www.vim.org/about.php

@Judy: Sorry I missed your com

2008-07-15T18:01:59.487+02:00

@Judy: Sorry I missed your comment. I'm glad you've been in touch with Campie. The teacher was at Campie for her post-qualification year, and I was delighted to hear recently that she's now there permanently!

Just thought I'd mention your

2008-05-02T01:34:47.823+02:00

Just thought I'd mention your site's theme isn't working on my PC in the Firefox browser... it's fine in Internet Explorer. Is it me?

Thanks Shona, and sorry for th

2008-02-25T21:02:58.600+01:00

Thanks Shona, and sorry for the difficulty this has caused. As you can see, Dirleton Primary School has now been added to the list. When sites are first started up, they're usually kept low-profile until they get established. At that stage they won't appear in these lists, and will tend not to be picked up by search engines. As you've realised, this one should have gone public by now. Thanks again for your interest, and for contributing your feedback. I hope you enjoy visiting the site and look forward to hearing from you again!

David has been very fortunate

2007-09-02T23:40:40.867+02:00

David has been very fortunate to be fostered by your family. It is a pity you couldn't post his video, but I think you were right not to. It certainly made a thought-provoking topic for your video. Thanks for sharing.

This is an area I look forward

2007-03-27T09:33:43.877+02:00

This is an area I look forward to finding out more about. I'm hoping that it will be possible to publish to the web from inside Glow somehow. Children are now so used to the idea of publishing to the web (via Bebo, YouTube, blogs etc) that this is what they'll expect to be able to do.

Do you think they would work o

2007-02-06T01:48:10.053+01:00

Do you think they would work on a video iPod-type screen? Maths as a subject doesn't lend itself to audio podcasting, but with video things could be different. Has anyone tried?

This looks like a big step for

2007-01-10T00:43:29.830+01:00

This looks like a big step forward - well done all. I've joined the group and hope I'll be able to add something!