School Selection in England

Watching BBC News at 10 I was struck by the thought that the attempts to manipulate the school selection system will never succeed as middleclass supportive areas foster good schools and deprived areas make it much more difficult for any school to become a so-called good school. The teaching staffs in good and bad schools will not be substantially different. It is the community which determines the character of a school far more than the teachers.

Open Source CPD

This is an idea which John Johnston has put forward and which he talked about at teachmeetperth. The more I think about it the more I like it.

Adding to its acceptance and relevance I think perhaps a national Glow group of the same title and with a webpart link to the opensourcecpd site should be a high priority.

Teach Meet 08 Perth

This gathering has been reported elsewhere and is on flickr tagged teachmeetperth. As always I really enjoyed myself and gathered a great deal of useful information. I managed to speak to a number of wellken’t personalities who are at the cutting edge of educational ICT in Scotland, among them David Noble and David Gilmour, John Johnston, Ian Stuart, Tess Watson, Robert Jones and a few more. Every presenter gave me food for thought and different insights into the uses of ICT, plus much laughter and a good meal to finish. I have already congratulated Neil Winton on his organisation of the event and also on his finale presentation.

Others have give reports of the presentations, but I would like to add that this is actually an ideal format for a quick overview of a very specific topic which because of our huge ability to communicate in so many ways can be explored later at leisure, either with the presenter or through links provided. I have learnt far more in a shorter space of time at the various Teachmeets than I have in more formal settings. If for instance the Scottish Learning Festival could provide a short synopsis with the presenter’s links for all the hundreds of seminars each year I for one would have a far better chance of attending the ones I thought most useful.