Some brief thoughts, brought to you with the letter ‘A’: 1. Assessment – outdated, outmoded, and increasingly irrelevant. Are the things we test worth testing? 2. Authenticity – with both schools and universities expected to be businesses in a marketplace, how do they resolve the tension between this and their more traditional standards-based role?...
Read more →Practice. Well, actually it’s more than that. Before you practice three things have to be in place: 1. Your call to action2. A clear flow of ideas3. Props that support (as oppose to *tell* your narrative) Once these are ready I tend to do two things: a) Print out the slidesb) Export the presentation...
Read more →My Ed.D. is the continuation of an M.Ed. which is itself a continuation of my PGCE at Durham University. I’ve been studying towards it, therefore, for the last six years. As I explained to my thesis supervisor, I’m not looking to ‘pursue a career in academia’ – well, not a traditional academia at any...
Read more →5.50am Get up (Lumie Bodyclock + iPhone alarm) 6am Breakfast with my son, Ben 6.30am Look after my daughter (Grace) and Ben 7am Leave for work in trusty Ford Puma (Ben waves from bedroom window) 7.20am Park car, get on train. Read Kindle whilst listening to music (Spotify/Last.fm) 7.40am Arrive at Newcastle train station....
Read more →I subscribe to Wired UK and am about to do likewise with Men’s Health (as I find myself buying it regularly). On my Kindle I’ve recently started subscribing to the Harvard Business Review. The location of where I currently work in the city centre means that I’m just around the corner from the fabulous...
Read more →See the full gallery on Posterous This changes regularly, but top 10 apps I use (in rank order): 1. Twitter2. Email3. Spotify4. National Rail5. iPod7. LastFM8. Feedly9. Nike+ GPS10. Camera As you can see from the screenshots, I’m fairly laid-back about ‘getting to zero’ notifications-wise…
Read more →Until January 2011 I was following over 1,200 people on Twitter. My TweetDeck columns were constantly updating and it was almost a full-time job keeping on top of the firehose of information. Although I tried to segment things into different columns through groups, it was still a bit overwhelming. So I decided to put...
Read more →1. There’s something in the air. 2. We (Andy Stewart and I) can do it alongside our full-time jobs. 3. It helps me feel like I’m making a difference. 4. It’s fun. 5. It pushes me to use the skills I’ve learned for a particular, positive purpose. 6. My son starts school in September....
Read more →I haven’t got a problem with people receiving awards per se. In fact, I think they can be a valuable mechanism that rewards hard work, dedication and talent. Whilst I accept there will be some level of self-promotion in almost all spheres of life – we’re all human and goodness knows I’ve been guilty of...
Read more →A few days ago I created a video for a TeachMeet that was well-received. I like to try and do new things when I present so I was thinking of ways in which I could get my points across in an engaging way. I’ve been asked by a few people how I put the...
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