Image credit: RSS icon by Jurgen Appelo CC Licensed on Flickr
So a combination of feeling like my head has been stuffed with cotton wool and feeling rather deflated after that performance in the rugby, when it got to 11.30 last night I opted for the pillow rather than the keyboard. I’m hoping to get two posts done today to make up for it though.
Often the thing I do on Twitter that gets the most interest (at least, that I can gauge) is tweeting blog posts that I’ve read. I’m probably following around 200 blogs (although not all are being updated regularly) and I use Feedly to curate them all. Using RSS feeds like this means I don’t have to go and visit each blog I’m interested in, any new posts get sent straight to me. Have a look at this video from Common Craft for more details about how RSS feeds work.
I’m a big fan of Doug Belshaw’s weekly email where he curates some of things he’s found online this week, so I thought I’d try something similar here. As well as tweeting them out, anything I mark as a favourite gets sent to this Tumblr using IFTTT, which makes finding something I vaguely remember from a blog post I read a little easier.
So, in no particular order.
Ping Pong or Basketball? Effective use of questioning by Michael Shepherd
Great reflection both of questioning as a teaching tool, and of Lesson Study as a CPD approach
Pre Lesson Learning also by Michael Shepherd
Another from Michael about ‘flipping’ the support offered to pupils. Really interesting idea, and I suspect something that will be effective not just in terms of learning, but also in terms of self esteem.
From Favourite to Fill In
Lisa Jane Ashes reflects on her recent experience as a supply teacher – something I’m sometimes wondered about myself.
The map is not the territory: embracing desire paths in the curriculum by James Theobald –
We’re awaiting the publication of a review into the curriculum in Wales which seems likely to be seismic in it’s recommendations. I think the biggest challenge for teachers is going to be to let go of the scaffolding and lists that we’ve been trained to cling to and start to think a little more creatively.
RAG123 as defined by the students by Kev Lister
Marking was probably the thing I was least good at as a teacher – or at least, the thing where my practice was furthest away from where I would have liked it to be. I’ve been fascinated by the RAG 123 approach developed by Kev Lister and others. This is as good a place as any to make a start if you’re not familiar with it, and it contains links to lots of other relevant posts.
Blogging Bootcamp – by John Johnston –
I love this idea from the Scottish Glow team about setting up a Blogging Bootcamp.
Naked Education #8: Marking – (contains gratuitous of swearing)
One of a series of posts by Pete Yeomans, all of which are worth reading. He’s not joking about the swearing…
Draft ~ Easy version control and collaboration for writers via Tim Rylands.
Tim Rylands is a great source of new ideas and pieces of technology. Showing the collaborative editing features of Office 365 to staff often leads to an ‘eyes lighting up’ moment. This is another tool which makes tracking changes on a collaborative document even easier.
Paper based markup systems on The Cramped (via Doug Belshaw).
I’ve recently gone back to keeping a notebook in my bag along with my laptop and tablet. Some interesting ideas here about systems to use them more effectively.
So there we are, just a few of the posts that have caught my eye this week outside of the #28daysofwriting hashtag. Putting this together has actually increased by gratitude to Doug for what he does each week, this was actually more time consuming than I expected it be!
My eye was drawn to the comment about keeping a note book again. It may be my old age, but increasingly I use the PC only for writing final drafts and communication. Reading, note taking, drafting, doodling I do offline, and off-grid. I’ve been known to walk 5 minutes to the local library with my marking, so that I’m not distracted by a screen.
I can’t pretend to have anything even approaching a ‘system’ for notes, but I tend to filch an exercise book for particular topics (there’s one for my year 10 Nazi Germany class, which I’m teaching for the first time). I’ve always found it better to print off longer articles and scribble on them, rather than highlight on screen.
I’m pretty settled with more detailed planning, and reading on the screen. I like the copyandpasteability of the former and the option to ctl+f and copy stuff out of the latter.
That said, initial ideas level planning is still very much a paper and pencil activity, and since moving jobs I’ve lost the pretty successful online to-do list system that I’d got integrated into my school email. Not a big fan of the options with my new work email I’m finding my note pad much more effective for that.
Marking is another interesting one. I dread to think of the number of hours I lost trying to get typed marking systems – largely to save the poor darlings from my awful handwriting. But only in a few cases, for specific pieces, did I ever find anything that worked.