Animation for Amateurs November 10, 2009

One of my personal development aims this session is to learn more about visual literacies. I am sure that texts in traditional print form will always be used to good effect, but I know that many learners – especially but not exclusively those with literacy difficulties – can also be engaged by [...]

Differing schools of thought about dyslexia November 5, 2009

I have been thinking about the different schools of thought about dyslexia evident in the literature and in practice. The most dominant is a deficit model wherein dyslexia is a disability. In fact severe dyslexia is covered under the Disability Discrimination Act:
The DDA defines a disabled person as someone with a physical or mental impairment [...]

I am learning all the time. The tombstone will be my diploma. Eartha Kitt October 5, 2009

I first went to the Scottish Learning Festival in 2003 when it was SETT and have thoroughly enjoyed every visit. I even presented a seminar once. Nowadays I only get to attend on one of the days and it’s a hard choice sometimes which key note speeches I go for.
One major pleasure is to be [...]

Visual Literacy, Learning and the Graphic Novel and Manga August 20, 2009

I’ve just been to an interesting talk at the Book Festival with Dr Mel Gibson (no, not that one) talking about using Graphic Novels and Manga when teaching children and young people literacy skills.
She gave us a whirlwind tour of such books, few of which I had heard of.
I am aware of Colin McNaughton and [...]

Making the News August 18, 2009

BBC News School Report allows young people from across the UK to have the chance to make their own news to real deadlines and broadcast it to real audiences.
This past year, 11-14-year-old pupils from 40 schools in Scotland became school reporters on News Day in March. There was a variety of online, audio or film [...]

How coloured lenses helped Ben read July 27, 2009

The BBC News 25 July 2009 reports on scotopic sensitivity (to which I referred here):
Ben Osborne-Harris is a bright teenager, who has sat two of his GCSEs a year earlier than normal.
But just a couple of years ago, the 13-year-old London schoolboy was struggling [...]

Down behind the dustbins May 21, 2009

Ascension Day was traditionally used by many landowners to impress boundaries on children before maps were common. They used such memory aids as dunkings in cold ponds and streams, tree climbing and hazardous rooftop scrambles. Another method of making the children remember the delimitations was to beat them with thin rods: [...]

Industrial vs Information Age? May 20, 2009

My, was I grumpy when I wrote my last post.
I realise that my tirade about digital technologies was sparked by insecurity after reading lots of stuff for the Education2020 unconference.  (I was definitely in the Anger mode of the Grief/Change cycle and am now moving on to Bargaining!).
I fully embrace the notion of [...]

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd (Voltaire) May 18, 2009

Sometimes the assumption amongst those who think about 21st century education is that the so-called ‘digital natives’  know it all and that we teachers have to stand on the sidelines helplessly watching young people develop in ways we cannot grasp. After all, as the SF writer William Gibson put it, the future is already here. It’s [...]

Storybooks, puzzles and laptops: how do children learn? May 14, 2009

Picture this. A 2 year-old child is tucked up in bed, and his mum sits next to him reading a bedtime story. They look at the book together and the 2 year-old lifts the flaps to reveal the pictures, asks questions about what’s happening, and helps turn the pages. When the story is finished, the [...]