Pictures across the curriculum: portrait of an artist

photographerIn this series I'm looking at how well-chosen digital photos can be used in different areas of the curriculum. In the first one, I looked at the problem of litter.

This one, however, is about a much more pleasant subject: a local artist.

I visited a beach in Suffolk recently, and came across someone painting the landscape. It was a great occasion to have my camera with me!

So who was it? Read on to find out, and to consider some possible curriculum links.

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Subtlety in the ICT Programme of Study

The ICT Programme of Study is both short and non-specific as far as the technology it references is concerned. It’s easy, therefore, to fail to appreciate some of the subtleties in it. This is especially true of the Attainment Targets towards the end of the document, in which often the same phrases are used and it’s difficult to identify why one skill is deemed to be higher or lower than a similarly-worded one.
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Technology and society

For an interesting discussion with your students on the effects of technology on society, consider the impending solar flares.

As the article states:

The so-called "X-flare" could also cause radio signals to jam, satnavs to fail and electrical power grids to falter. Electromagnetic storms are already reported to have stopped shortwave radio communications in southern China.

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Found on the web: 02/17/2011 (a.m.)

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Three downsides of the idea of the guide on the side

So much is written these days about the role of the teacher being to “facilitate”, to be the “guide on the side”. This is justified on many grounds, not least that of the children knowing more than their teachers about educational technology. They are, after all, “digital natives”, or so we are told. It seems to me that we have thrown the baby out with the bath water.
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Also on the web: 02/12/2011 (a.m.)

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

The UK’s digital skills gap

Is it my imagination, or is it the case that 15 years ago employers were complaining that kids were coming out of school not knowing how to use Word and Excel, and many schools responded by trying to make sure that their pupils were taught useful skills. Now we discover that those skills aren’t useful after all.
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Switched-On ICT Revisited

As I said in a previous article about it, Switched-On ICT is the name of the primary (elementary) scheme of work I've been involved with, as Series Editor. That role has entailed advising on assessing pupils' ICT capability, and helping to make sure that the instructions and assessment opportunities and statements are both consistent and accurate.

The text is engaging, with topics such as We Are Explorers, and makes full use of Web 2.0 and other free applications as well as schools' Learning Platforms. Here is a list of what I see as its strengths:

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Learning Platforms: 2 Resources and a Conference

One of the things we tend to forget when it comes to major upheavals – such as, in Britain, the so-called “bonfire of the quangoes”, which has seen the disbandment of Becta, Qualifications & Curriculum Development Agency and the Training & Development Agency – is a fundamental law of nature, namely Nature abhors a vacuum.
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Technology in the media

I'm interested in how technology is used in the media, and think that in many respects the media is more innovative than schools when it comes to using the technology. I think it would be interesting to explore this, and perhaps a good way of starting off would be to join an online discussion this evening with Tony Johnston of the Press Association.
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More about the free leadership event

I recently wrote about Collaborate for Change. Here’s a very brief video about it, and an interview with Lord Jim Knight, the Schools Minister in the previous government in Britain, and  Dave Smith, organiser-in-chief. The interviewer in each case is Russell Prue, of Anderton Tiger Radio.

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