dougbelshaw.com/blog

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I'm currently in Turkey with Nick Dennis presenting about technology to History educators at the request of EUROCLIO. Resources (in Turkish!) here...

A couple of people have very kindly been in touch privately to offer their thoughts on my Ed.D. thesis. Both expressed concern that I don’t seem to be up-to-date with my research! Whilst that’s very kind of them, I’d like to reassure both them and everyone else that I (think I) know what I’m doing.

Here’s my roadmap, if it helps:

As you can see, I’m delaying writing about digital literacy until next summer. Why? Things move fairly quickly in this field. I want to be as up-to-date as possible when I submit!

In addition, I’m in the bizarre position of doing a vocational doctorate in a non-empirical, purely conceptual fashion. How odd.

Northumberland Church of England Academy’s ICT vision statement, as seen by Wordle

Further to my previous blog post setting out what I was going to do at interview, I’m delighted to report that I was successful! Many thanks to my Twitter network for their support. As of next academic year (September 2009) I shall be ‘Director of E-Learning’ at Northumberland Church of England Academy.

This is a significant promotion for me and, as the Academy comes into existence as I assume the role, means I’ve got (almost) a blank slate with which to work. Hence the need for me to have a clear and coherent plan as to the E-Learning ecosystem I want to create.

I’m embarking on a series of blog posts over the Easter holiday period which, provisionally, I’m going to title:

1. Attendance: what are the pros and cons of SIMS, Serco and Phoenix?
2. Behaviour: what are the e-options for real-time monitoring and tracking of student behaviour?
3. Communication: which tools are available to enable anyone within an organization be able to appropriately communicate and collaborate with anyone else?
4. Design: what are the standards upon which pedagogically-sound learning design can be constructed?
5. Engagement: which technologies lead to confident engagement in learning?

I have perhaps phrased some of the above clumsily so I’d welcome your feedback!

I’m fairly productive. Not outstandingly so, but reasonably. I try to pick up tips for improving my outputs from websites such as Lifehacker, amongst others. What follows is a brief rundown of seven tips for being more productive as a teacher.

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