Archive for the ‘Learning’ Category

Data module mind map

Monday, January 4th, 2010

I’m using maps to plan lessons more and more. This one is getting a bit out of hand with the links between topics!

Free Mind

Monday, November 30th, 2009

Useful freeware mapping tool

It doesn’t matter

Sunday, July 12th, 2009

“... why am I completely incapable of putting non-verbal marks on a page so they do the same? What neural channels are so blocked that my ducks don’t just look wonky, they look like scribbles? Why does eye-mind-hand work about as well in me as I contemplate a teacup or imagine a tree, as it [...]

Is Google making us Stupid or Smarter?

Saturday, July 11th, 2009

Two articles from The Atlantic

Is Google Making Us Stupid by Nicholas CarrGet Smarter by Jamais Cascio

Both reference Proust and the Squid by Maryanne Wolf.

Geoff Petty’s Active Learning Pyramid

Sunday, July 5th, 2009

The crux of the problem. Active learning is known to be more effective than receiving information, but we don’t use the active tools in Moodle. Geoff Petty gives out a large number of handouts on the downloads page of his Web site. The pyramid above was found in the Word file called Active Learning Works, [...]

Diana Laurillard and the conversational model

Sunday, July 5th, 2009

Diana Laurillard is professor of Learning with Digital Technologies at the London Knowledge Lab. Laurillard wrote a very influential book called Rethinking University Teaching, published by Routledge, second edition with updated examples and a few modifications was released in 2001. Roger Rist has provided a brief summary of the conversational model from which I [...]

(E) Learning: people and content

Sunday, May 10th, 2009

A University teacher called Cath Ellis posted her 10 Commandments of e-learning on a blog. Clive Shepherd (a free lance e-learning specialist working for companies) picked up on that post and put forward his 10 principles. Cath is working from a model of e-learning that is discussion based, Clive (deliberately) took a contrasting view based [...]

Pebblepad at Thanet College

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009

Thanks to Geoff Rebbeck for telling us how PebblePad is used in his college. PebblePad is a rich system, so I should not have been so surprised that the way its being used at Thanet is so different to the way I’ve seen the system for assessed portfolios.

Do you use learning styles information to plan lessons?

Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008

If you do, then read Learning styles and pedagogy in post-16 learning
A systematic and critical review by Frank Coffield, David Moseley, Elaine Hall and Kathryn Ecclestone.

Science, but not as we know it

Tuesday, September 9th, 2008

A group of them were building Excel spreadsheets into which they’d dump all the information they’d gathered about how each boss behaved: What potions affected it, what attacks it would use, with what damage, and when. Then they’d develop a mathematical model to explain how the boss worked—and to predict how to beat it.

From How [...]

visual-literacy.org

Thursday, September 4th, 2008

Using illustrations to convey concepts can save time and can support students who have a visual orientation. Drawing a visual representation of a set of ideas or a process forces you to think in a different way compared with linear text. A project run by several Universities in Europe has resulted in the visual-literacy.org Web [...]

Exploratory learning, 1967

Monday, August 25th, 2008

A school in Dagenham was loaned seventeen Summa 20 and six Divisumma 24 [calculators] in an experiment to teach maths. The Olivetti machines replaced log tables and slide rules for two groups of 11 to 15 year olds. The first group were given 2.5 hours tuition to learn multiplication. Whereas the second group were left [...]

Rules

Monday, August 18th, 2008

It is that time of year again, teaching will be under way in a month or less. This photo makes me think about negotiating the ground rules with new classes of students (I’m a bit more liberal than the ‘manager’). I’ll need to add in some rules about using Moodle/e-mail as well, if only to [...]

All on the same big page or lots of different pages?

Wednesday, July 16th, 2008

What do we put in front of people’s eyes?

Ways in

Saturday, July 12th, 2008

Staff development: some reasons why we need to get serious about online learning as well as the mouse clicking

Just Suppose…

Monday, June 30th, 2008

Frank Coffield: Just Suppose Teaching and Learning Became the First Priority. Summer reading from the LSN.

Geoff Petty

Thursday, June 26th, 2008

Geoff Petty gives out a lot of Word files on his Web site. Useful.

Brain Rules

Monday, June 2nd, 2008

New book about brain science aimed at business readers.

50 Mathematical Ideas

Friday, May 30th, 2008

Useful book for when students ask ‘do you like mathematics?’

Herzberg

Wednesday, May 28th, 2008

Feelings condition learning

Cycles and loops

Saturday, October 20th, 2007

Schon’s double loop and Kolb’s cycle