BSF Leadership Programme Conference, Harrogate Day 2
By blog on Mar 12, 2010 in 1) Events and Training days | 0 Comments
Day Two of the National College Building Schools for the Future (BSF) Leadership Programme Phase Three, at The Majestic Hotel, Harrogate, and we are providing the afternoon Keynote, focusing on the learning, harnessing technologies and adapability.
During the morning sessions we attended John Davitt’s Workshop “Old learning new tools” – an exploration of what is known about learning, where ICT fits in the process and how it can be used to ensure students are active learners with a variety of media and activitiy types in a Web 2.0 connected world. An informative and enjoyable session with challenges and humour, and learning.
John noted that when he did a Twitter search for “shopping” and “learning”, shopping outstripped learning 3 to 1.
John raised an interesting question: why are the best online tools, and feedback systems, reserved for online shopping. How useful it would be to get the feedback responses we get from Amazon, and other virtual shops, in our learning environments.
John’s site, Newtools, has some more of John’s unique reflections on learning.
John organised his whole presentation using his new resource, Learning Score.
Learning Score is a multimedia lesson-planning and delivery tool that uses a music score metaphor to show the range of planned activities for a lesson as a graphical timeline. The software also allows you to embed the resources you will use (pdf documents, videos, audio, web sites) in the visual plan itself. Whole lessons can be saved with all their resources and annotations for later use and sharing.
Learning Score was invented by John and “grew out of a desire to provide teachers and learners with modern, flexible, technology-friendly and pedagogically rigorous approach to lesson planning suitable for the 21st-century classroom”.
John’s Learning Event Generator prompted us to explain knitting as a Common Craft explanation.
A keypoint he made being “Good teaching is active learning and valuable feedback”.
Our table rose to the challenge and created a ‘Periodic Table as a 30 second sound file’, and we were really proud of it!
Thank you, John.
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Today, we were running a workshop looking at different technologies that can have an impact on standards in the classroom, as part of the Phase three of the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) Leadership Programme and their two-day residential conference, at the
His passion, enthusiasm, understanding of learning and child centred-ness would move the most difficult “technoplegic” groups or individuals you could possibly come across.
WordsLike.net
Day two of the “Nurturing Narrative Event” here in Kent. Today, we had the joy of working alongside staff, and students, from Stone Bay School, Broadstairs, Kent.
The most striking aspect of the morning sessions was witnessing the engagement of the students increase within the first 10 minutes. From slouched and surly in one or two cases, to leaning forward, participating and demonstrating their ideas. It was clear that the focus of the students moved from the screen to their own ideas and a need to show, and state, what their thoughts and ideas were.
Roz Brown – English teacher at Valence School, Westerham, Kent, was kind enough to record the first part of her thoughts on using some of the virtual worlds with her special needs students.
The first activity involved building up the students’ interest in the topic by saying that we were going on a journey to a mysterious new planet. I then showed students a range of images from Myst on the IWB which we described to the students as a number of them have visual impairments and asked questions e.g. would you like to live there etc.
The first article was writing a ‘Where is it?’ article describing a place in detail so that others could try to guess the location. I played the image of ‘Tomahna’ without the image to enable students to focus on the sounds. I also had a range of objects that were taken from the scene: a rock, a cactus and some cotton wool (to represent the clouds). The students were encouraged to explore the objects and comment on how they felt using their communication books. We also had a range of smells (oils) for students to smell and pass comment on.
The second assignment was to write diary entries based on activities that they experienced on ‘Prison Planet’. For the first diary entry, I showed the students images from the beach and we talked about the kinds of things that could be done on beaches.
Day 1 of the Nurturing Narrative Special Schools Event, at the
A fun day of lessons at
And after all this the teachers reflected on the ideas and techniques explored today during a Twilight Training session.
Wow!
Up North, in fact, as far North as it is possible to get in England, before heading over the border in to Scotland. The first of two days in

