Archive for the ‘future of education’ Category
Secrets and lies, openness and closure…
Posted by: mimanifesto on: July 6, 2011
“Every relationship between two individuals or two groups will be characterized by the ratio of secrecy that is involved in it” So said German philosopher Georg Simmel over one hundred years ago. And with the birth of Education Scotland perhaps, or even, hopefully, we can look forward to a new era of openness and transparency [...]
Bye bye, LTS….gone but not forgotten !
Posted by: mimanifesto on: July 1, 2011
- In: AiFL | capacity-building | change | future of education
- 4 Comments
So, it’s July first, and LTS is no more. Subsumed in Education Scotlandtogether with HMIE. Gone, but not forgotten. Why not forgotten? Because LTS has become a byword for a cack-handed, lackadaisical, inefficient, money-wasting mess, with a reputation for inadequate project management for just about anything they’ve ever laid their sorry hands on. Teachers up [...]
SNP open to change on GLOW…
Posted by: mimanifesto on: May 5, 2011
Following on from my recent post on the Scottish government elections and social media use, there were some more interesting exchanges with former education minister Mike Russell. In response to criticism of GLOW and its management to date on Twitter. Mr Russell made several interesting comments.. In reply to this post from a Scots twitterer [...]
Oh well, Mr Gove…
Posted by: mimanifesto on: April 6, 2011
So Micheal Gove is reading David Brooks at the moment. Interesting that. Of course, Brooks asserts that our subconscious directly affects our success potential. Nothing new there really- Freud was arguing that point over one hundred years ago, although of course, recognising and developing potential is an important trait characteristic of a successful leader… And [...]
GLOW…Statistics, statistics, and more statistics…
Posted by: mimanifesto on: March 26, 2011
- In: capacity-building | change | future of education | GLOW | ICT | Leadership | LTS | teaching and learning
- 4 Comments
Some interesting GLOW stuff came out in the wash yesterday. Andrew Brown, head honcho of GLOW (who’s been digitally rather quiet of late) when speaking at an education and technology conference in Belfast (#agendani on Twitter) fell back on statistics again, I assume, to demonstrate to our Northern Irish friends how wonderful and all-pervading, the [...]
Jamie’s dream school and what it really teaches us
Posted by: mimanifesto on: March 9, 2011
I don’t know if you watched this, but there’s been some interesting reaction from the press and, more importantly, teachers themselves. I think its a bit condescending of cheeky chappie Jamie O to waltz into schools and try to show us how to, as he put it, re-engage kids with education. After all, we know [...]
Emotional education and society..
Posted by: mimanifesto on: March 1, 2011
Judging by what we read in the papers at the moment, Scotland is not a great place to be growing up in at the moment. Drinking, drugs, and dangerous sexual activity are endemic in our society. Knife and gun crime is the norm amongst many children who roam the streets in feral gangs without a [...]
Islay first, and the Cedars follows…
Posted by: mimanifesto on: February 21, 2011
- In: change | future of education | ICT
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Well done to the Cedars School of Excellence, a private school in Greenock for equipping all pupils with iPads and having most lessons taught using them. The school’s website proudly boasts that it is the first school in the world to have a 1:1 pupil/iPad ratio. At a cost of £45K, no small change here [...]
Native linguists removed from schools..
Posted by: mimanifesto on: February 19, 2011
- In: Inclusion | Literacy | Leadership | Equality | change | capacity-building | future of education
- 4 Comments
An excellent piece from Tom Shields in today’s Herald newspaper. He takes a rather witty and beautifully written series of pot-shots at Glasgow City Council Education dept for removing all foreign language assistants from their schools by remembering, somewhat fondly, his own experiences of the benefits of language assistants. The enormous benefits of having native [...]
Inter professional dialogue as CPD
Posted by: mimanifesto on: February 14, 2011
It sometimes strikes me, as I speak and network with other education professionals that we are rather insular in our approaches. Of course, many folk I’ve worked with went from school, to university, and straight into teaching as their chosen career, and have been teachers and educationalists ever since. However, certainly over the past few [...]
You’ve got the looks, we’ve got(or are supposed to have) the brains….lets save lots of money, or the wider purpose of education…
Posted by: mimanifesto on: February 7, 2011
Councils all over Scotland are rushing headlong into the newspaper headlines with their ever more outrageous and outlandish schemes to save money in education. And they are getting wilder and more extreme every day. Hot on the heels of South Lanarkshire threatening successful nursery establishments with closure, axing services to children with special needs, and [...]
Calm before the storm perhaps ?
Posted by: mimanifesto on: February 4, 2011
For the second day running, nothing about education on the ‘letters’ page of The Herald newspaper. Indeed, a quick perusal of the rest of the paper reaveals nothing at all written about education. With the spectre of savage cuts nationwide, teacher redundancies, reductions in IT and computers, increased pension contributions, and other changes to working [...]
I’ve been neglecting this blog…
Posted by: mimanifesto on: January 12, 2011
As the title of this post says, I’ve been very bad at posting recently. It’s the usual litany of excuses…flu, Christmas, more flu, kids and sheer laziness. To be honest, I’ve been taking advantage of all the extra time I’ve had now that I’m on my ‘career break’. I will be back into writing this [...]
Council in crisis- Efficiency savings mean Autism services may suffer…
Posted by: mimanifesto on: October 18, 2010
Lots of speculation in the press recently about impending cuts in local government spending. Education authorities are facing a call to merge so classrooms may be spared the worst of the cuts in public spending. The education forums are also getting in on the act. The following is paraphrased from a comment which appeared a [...]
A Curriculum for Mediocrity ?
Posted by: mimanifesto on: August 28, 2010
- In: AiFL | capacity-building | change | future of education | GLOW | ICT | Inspection | LTS | Quality assurance | Research | sustainability
- 2 Comments
Effective use of EVS in the classroom
Posted by: mimanifesto on: May 19, 2010
Electronic voting systems (EVS) are something I’ve been interested in for some time now. Over the course of this academic year, I’ve had a small scale research project on the go with a couple of my first year classes. this was another collaboration with Glasgow University Psychology dept and was the subject of a recent [...]
TESS letter
Posted by: mimanifesto on: April 17, 2010
- In: capacity-building | change | future of education | GLOW | ICT | LTS | teaching and learning
- 1 Comment
TESS published a letter from me last week. It’s really a summary of the ‘Emperors new clothes’ blog post about the hype and blindly optimistic rhetoric which is currently surrounding GLOW, and the rather sniffy and chilly attitude which appears to descend upon anyone who dares to criticize any aspect of the GLOW project at the moment. [...]
The Emperor’s new clothes….
Posted by: mimanifesto on: April 5, 2010
- In: capacity-building | change | future of education | GLOW | ICT | Leadership | LTS | networking | PLN | Quality assurance | sustainability | Teacher-researchers | teaching and learning | VLE
- 6 Comments
“Your Majesty,” the prime minister said, “we have a request for you. The people have found out about this extraordinary fabric and they are anxious to see you in your new suit.” The Emperor was doubtful showing himself naked to the people, but then he abandoned his fears. After all, no one would know about [...]
We live in interesting times…
Posted by: mimanifesto on: January 18, 2010
- In: capacity-building | change | future of education | GLOW | ICT | LTS | sustainability
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Well, I certainly do anyway, both personally and professionally. And thats why I’ve not had the chance to blog about the TESS article I wrote recently and the responses from LTS. You can see the article if you’ve not already read it by following this link… http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6032879 as well as the editorial, together with some [...]
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