Start to go through the folders, and work on 2 sections: a draft outline of the report, and an audit of existing thinking. Also start going through the Kobe earthquake returns of pupil questionnaire reviews.
8th April
Easter over, and back to work. Have a few good contacts today: e-mail from David Owen at Sheffield Hallam University. He gives me permission to use extracts from a project called Ecoschool which was funded as part of an EU initiative a couple of years ago. Also received a copy of Fischer Trust publication on ICT resources which have the biggest impact: High Impact ICT Resources 2002. Get a report from Sarah Maughan of DELIA on the pilot scheme of the online learning project. Also come across the University of Gloucestershire's GEOGRAPHY DISCIPLINE NETWORK.
9th April
E-mail from BECTa to say I haven't won a Palm computer. Bugger... Revisit SIMON MIDGLEY's excellent site looking at ICT and education. An article of his in the Guardian today suggesting that in the future, students may not need to buy textbooks for their courses as material is increasingly available online. Certainly this site is doing its own small bit to see that happening. Also print off the Delia report. Some useful information here. Also read article by Liz Taylor in 'Teaching Geography' - useful once again. Find some useful schemes of work at Northern Ireland curriculum authority site.
10th April
2000th visitor to geographypages. 13 months for the first 1000, and only 2 months for the next 1000. World domination here I come! Add some new resources and links to the site. Read Fred Martin article from July 2001, and explore some other avenues.
Useful diagram in a teaching resource today, giving a suggested model for Internet research:
Decide topic area
Work out aims
Select keywords for internet search
Either search known websites, or use search engine
Compare sites
Select sites that are useful and authoritative
Filter for relevant information
Compile useful information relating to the aims of the research
14th April
Post a message about David Leat's 'Thinking Skills' resources in TES forum to see if it will provoke a response. My request for help has sat there for 2 months and generated no responses, so we'll see what happens.
19th April
Another busy week, and more useful resources uncovered. All starts to get a little bewildering after a while. GEOGLE and GEOEXPLORER sites - made contact. Broke through the 100 barrier on the questionnaires. Also looked at the eSchola awards site.
21st April
Put WEBSTAT button on site to get a clearer idea of where the visitors are coming from and how many are repeat visitors. Forum at Staffordshire Learning Net is one area where there seems to be quite a lot of free exchange of ideas:
Make some progress on the AUDIT section of the preparation for the report. Trying to spot areas which are frequently mentioned in other relevant sources.
26th April
Read NAACE report on ICT in schools. They've apparently been involved in giving guidance to Heads on the distribution of new laptops. Funding details will finally emerge at the end of next month. Good, large article on Noel Jenkins in the TES in a feature on ICT in Geography. Mark, my extremely talented graphic designer friend from Uzedink in sunny Rotherham sends the latest of his graphics ideas for the site, and it becomes the new index image, although my extremely talented graphic designer wife thinks it looks a bit old fashioned. What do you think ? If you want any motorbike clothing or tank-pads, go to Mark's site: TANK-SLAPPERS.
28th April
Difficult to find the time to make progress. Read TES 'Online' supplement and there are some particularly good articles. Best one perhaps is titled: "Asking the unanswerable questions ?", by Angela McFarlane of the University of Bristol. Made the following points:
- research tells us that ICT has an impact on some learners under some conditions
- there is a problem with the big question "what is the impact of ICT" - need to break it down into subsets: by focusing on just the Internet, perhaps this is what I have done
- challenge for researchers is to look for measures of educational impact which capture the contribution that ICT makes to learning. Some may argue that this is pointless as our culture is immersed in ICT
Visit the 2nd BECTa ONLINE conference: ICT: Transforming Managing and Learning and make a few postings. Also good to see Geographypages moving up the GOOGLE ratings, and appearing on the first page of relevant searches.
12th May
Back from a trip to Yorkshire, and letter from UEA with details on Online course on Climate Change, which starts tomorrow. Plan is to use my experiences of the course to inform my final report. Also some useful information in the latest TOP newsletter from BECTa. Another 200 visits to geographypages this week. Interesting to see visitors from various countries.
19th May
Time rolls on. Few tasks underway but a little snowed under. Interesting plans for possible web authoring project, and also started UEA Online course on Climate Change. Good to see geographypages appearing when I do searches on other topics which happen to feature on the pages. A bit of the audit done, and will try to get some questionnaire analysis done now that study leave is starting to kick in and leave some nice gaps in my timetable.
23rd May
Visitor number 3000 checks in: the gaps between thousands get narrower. Following various debates in e-mails from BECTa ICT Research network postings.
Getting into my UEA Course on Climate Change. Started to collect materials for first assignment.
Half term finally here, and a chance to make progress on research, which has had to go on back boiler. Yesterday had my largest number of visitors in one day: 83! - eat your hear out Google. Read latest BECTa TOP Newsletter. Also thought about the emerging idea of grassroots ICT: lots of teachers producing their own materials, and then making them available locally, and at no (or a small) charge to other colleagues.
15th June
Half term come and gone, and spent a day collating the results of the questionnaires. Need to do a little more analysis, and sorting on various answers to try to establish any patterns. Also putting together summaries of the various documents and reports I've read over the last 9 months. The research has certainly added to the knowledge I have in this area. Now have to try to spread that around to other people.
22nd June
Making a little more progress. Letter from BPRS re: claims, which means I have a little more time than I thought to claim the money back, which gives me some time.
Getting a lot more networking going now, which is good. Regular e-mails with Gavin from GeoExplorer. Need to get in touch with Tim to arrange a second visit re: the research write-up - perhaps in October half term - a year after the last visit! Maybe sooner then.
The journal endeth here....
