Teacher Centre

Websites

Justin Craig Education: Justin Craig are a revision course provider offering Easter, May Half Term and Christmas revision courses all across the UK. We have over 30 years’ experience and tens of thousands of satisfied students, and can prove our approach delivers the best results. We offer revision courses at GCSE, AS and A2 level.

StudyUK: Hobsons Study UK website offers free information and advice to students wanting to study in the UK. It provides advice about studying abroad from English universities, degree courses at academic institutions around the UK and information on how to get settled in when studying in the UK.

Springboard: Hobsons Springboard concentrates on UK students aged 16-18 who are looking for advice and information regarding careers, degrees, universities. This site also provides details and links to GapYear programs and companies, as well as 'How to write a CV' advice.

Using the Internet in the Classroom: Since completing his PGCE two years ago Andrew Field has developed an impressive website for history teachers. Andrew admits that his initial objective was to create a resource " that would be useful for my own history teaching - both research and direct teaching." This included providing categorised links to useful sites. Since the launch he has had added online lessons, downloadable worksheets and CD-Rom activities. In this article, Andrew Field explains how the website was developed.

Yalding Project: Chris Truman of Sackville Community College, East Grinstead, admits that until a couple of years ago he was a "was a supporter of books, chalk and talk" However, he is now a strong advocate of using ICT in history. Over the last couple of months he has been developing his own website, History Learning, for his students. In this article he explains his conversion to active learning.

The Laptop Revolution: The The International School of Toulouse is a exciting new project sponsored by BAE SYSTEMS (formerly British Aerospace). This purpose-built school opened in September 1999, and accommodates children from 4 - 18 years of age. The school is growing rapidly and has 300 pupils on its roll. It serves the international community in Toulouse, as well as local students. Richard Jones-Nerzic, Head of Humanities at the school, has written a fascinating article on what is like to teach history in Europe's first laptop computer school.

Designing Websites: A growing number of history teachers are becoming interested in creating websites for their students. This month Teaching History Online has commissioned Andrew Moore to write and article on web design. It contains sections on: What are you trying to do?, Who is the audience?, Learning how HTML works, Text editors and WYSIWYG HTML editors, What equipment is your audience using?, Text and images, Frames and tables, Site structure, Hyperlinks, redundancy and the three-clicks rule, Use of colour and background images and style sheets.

Qualifications & Curriculum Authority: The Qualifications & Curriculum Authority is currently developing a website using pupils' work and case study material to show what the national curriculum in history looks like in practice. The examples will illustrate the standard of pupils' work at different ages and how the programmes of study translate into activities. Teachers will be able to use the website for comparing the performance of individual pupils against a common standard within and across the key stages, and as a basis for developing a departmental/school portfolio. It could also be used to plan units of work, classroom activities, and assessment tasks that relate to the standards set out in the national curriculum. For full details see this article by Jerome Freeman.

Education Online : During a debate held at the Royal Institution in London last week, Professor Richard Dawkins of Oxford University argued that the internet heralded the "most radical shift in educational epidemiology since the invention of the printing press in the 15th century, and probably since the origin of language itself". He added: "The best experts I can find all expect the exponential increase in computer power per unit cost to continue at the present rate (doubling almost every 18 months) for at least another 10 years. This is amply long enough to ensure that access to the Internet will be virtually free to anyone who can afford the electricity."

Schools: Achieving Success: The British government's new White Paper, Schools: Achieving Success, has just been published. The government once again is emphasizing that quality teaching and learning lie at the heart of school improvement and restates its mission to raise standards. It claims that this will be achieved by "greater diversity and flexibility; delivering high minimum standards; supporting teachers and schools to deliver change; and encouraging innovation with the best schools leading the system".

ASandA2: Launched in October 2001, ASandA2 intends to become a lively and exciting community for students and teachers of the AS and A2 curriculums in the UK. At our core is an interactive portal of subject links, to which visitors can add resources, plus rate and review the current links. There are also hi-tech forums for discussions under any topic of the curriculum and an opportunity for teachers to build their own website, for which they can receive money according to how many page impressions they receive.

Girls and ICT: A recent survey discovered that only 22% of the IT workforce is made up of women. This means that over the last seven years the proportion of women in IT has dropped by about 10%. Anne Cantello points out that there is evidence to suggest that it is the teaching of ICT in schools that is the main reason why girls are losing interest in the subject. She argues: "We need to make our children's experience of IT exciting, inspiring and challenging. We need to focus on the things that really interest them to both deliver the IT skills they need and increase interest in IT careers."

World Tests: This week saw the launch of the British government's world-class online tests for students. Developed by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, these online tests are aimed at the top 10 per cent of pupils. Pupils in the US, New Zealand, Australia and Hong Kong were also involved in this experiment but over 60 per cent of the children taking the tests were English. It is reported that only 27 schools in England took the maths and problem-solving exams for 9 and 13 year olds. However, the Department for Education and Skills claimed it was pleased with the mix of schools that volunteered for the tests.

ICT in State Schools: A report commissioned by the British Education Suppliers Association (Besa) was published online this week. Based on responses from more than 2,000 schools in the UK, the survey claims that schools have an average of 26 computers with Net access. However, the report points out that an average of just six students can use interactive websites at the same time. This figure drops even lower if the students are trying to access streaming video or audio. There are now almost one million PCs in schools, although up to 25 per cent are so old they are considered to be ineffective for Internet use. Ray Barker, director of Besa, argues that the high cost and availability of fast Internet access remains the main problem for teachers and students in British schools.

Becta: In 1999 the Department for Education and Skills commissioned teams from three universities to conduct a three-year programme as part of the evaluation of the National Grid for Learning. Sixty schools and 2,179 students participated in the study. The interim report has just been published and highlights a range of problems about the introduction of ICT in schools. Researchers found that "very few teachers are integrating ICT into subject teaching in a way that motivates pupils and enriches learning or stimulates higher-level thinking and reasoning." Students complained about the lack of opportunity to use computers at school. The report reveals that students spend up to four times as long using computers at home than they do at school.

Website Content: A report published by Pew Charitable Trust and American Life claims that most people are unwilling to pay for content on websites that used to be free of charge. The survey of 1,351 Internet users discovered that 17 per cent have been recently asked to pay for online content that used to be free. Of these, 12 per cent opted to pay for the content, whereas 50 per cent found a free alternative website.

European Schoolnet Online Workshop: Teachers, trainers and others can quickly and easily set up their own online workshops thanks to European Schoolnet's new website. The Workshop site gives everyone the chance to host online discussions, collect and submit course work, collect together important dates and more! Whether you'd like to run a workshop, or just take part, then this site is for you.

School Managers Centre: The EUN School Managers Centre (SMC) is a resource centre and virtual meeting place for school managers and administrators from all over Europe. The SMC provides information on on-going policy developments, activities, good examples of innovative practice and results from research in management of innovation.

National Grid for Learning: The British National Grid for Learning (NGfL) portal is to be relaunched on 9th January at the education technology show, BETT 2002. The site has a new image-driven design which represents a radical change from its previous look. It has been restructured and rebuilt to cope with the ever-increasing quantity of content that makes it the largest educational portal of approved sites. The NGfL is part of a Government initiative which aims to widen access to learning for everyone in all sectors of education, both formal and informal. The portal incorporates quality-assured educational web sites for people of all ages and interests.

Ultralab: Professor Stephen Heppel is head of Ultralab, the learning technology research laboratory based at Anglia Polytechnic University's campus in Chelmsford. In a recent interview he gave to the Guardian newspaper, Heppel provided valuable insights into the future of online education. Heppel is concerned by the "tick box" model that has been developed by several major corporations. He fears it will sabotage any really creative thinking about learning. As he points out: "marketing executives have a great budget to tell teachers about the latest widget, but teachers don't have any means of telling each other about the great ideas they have in the classroom. We need to do something about that."

Professors are Human: Steven Kries, a history teacher in the United States, believes that the delivery of information on the World Wide Web has the distinct possibility of enhancing and transforming current pedagogical attitudes and practices in higher education. In his article, Professors are Human: Breaking Down the Barriers Between Instructor and Student he argues that teacher websites can "break down the traditional barrier of authority erected between instructor and students and to empower students with knowledge rather than hide that knowledge as if it were the instructor's intellectual property alone."

GTC and Curriculum Online: The General Teaching Council for England has responded to the government's recent Curriculum Online proposals. The paper highlights some important issues and argues: "We see a critical role for teachers in partnership with the research community to offer the expertise and build the capacity for classroom innovation and investigation of a digitally enabled education. Our concern is that the Curriculum Online proposals fall short of understanding and addressing the need to develop new pedagogical practice. Long-term success of Curriculum Online will not come from the platform that the service is delivered on or from connectivity or infrastructure but from the capacity of teachers to ensure coherent, relevant, supported and challenging learning."

MyEUROPE: The myEUROPE project is a European Schoolnet initiative at the disposal of all the teachers who wish to involve their pupils, colleagues and schools in European issues and values around three main thematic areas: European Citizenship, Cultural Diversity and Young Mobility. It provides news, services, tools, activities, projects and resources. Teachers can either use the resources provided or contribute, participate in pedagogical activities or set up cross-European collaborative projects. The myEUROPE Schools Network is a group of more than 1100 schools that have either been recommended by Members of the European Parliament or have voluntarily registered. They form a unique community of teachers who work for the development and the enhancement of a common European identity.

Future of Online Learning: Stephen Downes is an Information Architect at the University of Alberta in Canada. His fascinating article, The Future of Online Learning, is well worth reading. Subjects covered include Future Technology, New Technology in Education, Interaction and Online Conferencing, Personalized Education, Time and Place Independence, Learning Communities, The Triad Model, Accreditation, Modularity, Ownership and Copyright, Instructional Management Systems, The Economics of Online Learning and The Future.

Teaching Modern Languages: The European Forum of Technical and Vocational Education and Training and a team of European colleges are seeking to develop new approaches to teaching languages. The objective is to improve teaching by selecting and visualizing language teaching methods with an emphasis on communication activities. This approach is based on a number of EU reports showing a need for better language teaching methods. But it is also believed that a visual demonstration of suitable methods will be an advantage to vocational language teaching in general. The aim is to develop ready-to-use materials, a video library (on DVD) for language teachers to see the methods used in real classes with instructions and hints for better use of other existing materials. In addition, there will be a guide manual with descriptions and ready to copy materials.

Teaching and Learning: The Teaching and Learning section of TeacherNet is a gateway to the very best educational resources currently available on the internet. From this page you can access more than twelve hundred lesson plans, tap into the support services of museums, libraries and charities and ensure that you are making the most of the educational activities that your local community has to offer. You will also find comprehensive directories for Community Learning Grids, teaching unions and other affiliated bodies.

ICT in Schools: The Fischer Family Trust carries out a yearly survey on the impact of websites and software packages across different secondary school curriculum areas. The main aim is to reliably identify important resources that are already in reasonably widespread use. The survey asked for responses to include ratings for both frequency of use and learning impact. In total over 1,800 responses were received from over 1,300 schools – nearly 1/3 of the secondary schools in England and Wales. The sample was representative in terms of both geographical spread and type of school. The results of the latest survey can be found on the Fischer Family Trust website.

ICT in Schools: A report published last year for the education department by Becta, the British government's lead agency for ICT in education, found a strong link between high standards across the secondary school curriculum and good technology provision. The report also showed that the more widely a school used ICT across the curriculum, the better its examination results. The impact of the technology was found to be even greater when good resources were combined with good teaching. However, Stuart Millar, in this article in this week's Education Guardian, argues that: "behind the alphabet soup of initiatives, national averages and soundbite-size statistics, there remains a yawning gulf between the politicians' vision of ICT in theory and the majority of schools' experience of ICT in practice." Millar quotes from a recently published Ofsted report "good practice remains uncommon"; levels of LEA support "vary greatly but are often too low to meet schools' needs"; training for teachers has increased their use of computers "but only rarely to the pedagogic expertise to help them make the most effective use of ICT in their lessons".

WebQuest: This site, created at San Diego State University by Bernie Dodge, offers teachers and students examples, with explanations, of how to use, select, and analyze information found on the Internet for teaching any subject at any age. WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented approach that supports thinking at the levels of analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.

eSchoolnet: European Schoolnet is an international partnership of 23 European Ministries of Education developing learning for schools, teachers and pupils across Europe. The portal provides insight into the use of ICT (information and communications technology) in Europe for policy-makers and education professionals through its resources on curriculum, e-learning, practical ideas, online courses and its collaborative work-spaces.

Education World: In 1996 a group of people with a background in education in the United States decided to produce a website that would make the Internet easier for educators to use. The result is Education World, a resource that includes a search engine for educational websites, a place where educators can find information without searching the entire Internet; original content, including lesson plans, practical information for educators, information on how to integrate technology in the classroom, and articles written by education experts; website reviews; daily features and columns; teacher and principal profiles.

TagTeacherNet is a fast growing independent network of educationalists who wish to share and discuss ideas and skills. Today TagteacherNet has over 24,000 members and a vibrant discussion area, below are just some of the services TagTeacherNet offers: (i) Free Community Profile and Resource Portfolio: Recently launched, this new feature provides every new TagTeacherNet member with their own website called a community profile. Teachers can even use the system as a catalogue of web links for use with digital white boards or as homework links for students. (ii) Free Weekly Newsletter: Much more than a newsletter, the TagTeacherNet weekly email provides advice, gossip, articles on topical issues and offers. (iii) Comprehensive Resource Directory: Covering all curriculum areas and devised by practising teachers, subject associations and teacher advisors the resources areas continue to be one of the most popular areas of the site. (iv) Jobs: By joining forces with Jobsin, TagTeacherNet offers an unrivalled service. Jobs don’t just appear on TagTeacherNet but in Job Centres, digital TV, local radio and on over 27,000 other web sites. (iv) Online Educational Planner: The TagTeacherNet online planner records and displays educational events from around the country.

TeacherFocus features interactive forums for teachers in various areas of education. The current list of forums includes: New Teachers' Place, Educational Technology, Sciences and Mathematics, Literature and Humanities, Other Subject-Related forums, Higher Education and College Preparation; Elementary and Early Childhood Education, Special Education, and Teachers' Lounge. Also, the site presents a calendar with upcoming conferences and other events and a comprehensive resource directory with links to teaching resources, professional organizations, grant opportunities, and more.

Neilsen Norman Group: Children get just as frustrated as adults when navigating around poorly designed websites, a new survey has found. A study by the US design think tank, the Neilsen Norman Group (NNG), observed children using a wide range of websites. It found that the bells and whistles often used on sites designed for kids do not necessarily impress. "Our study convinced us that most websites for children are built upon pure folklore about how kids supposedly behave," said web design guru Jakob Nielsen from NNG. "While it is true that kids love whizz bang animation and sound effects, even these things won't hold their attention if they come upon something too difficult to figure out or they get lost on a website."

Learning Circuits: ASTD's website provides a collection of articles on e-Learning. It currently includes a fascinating article by Randall W. Kindley on Scenario-Based e-Learning. Kindley argues that scenario-based e-learning differs from traditional e-learning as it places the learner in real situations and requires behaviour choices rather than simple answers to knowledge questions. Other articles include E-Learning: Building the Ramp for Equal Access (Karen Beauregard), TechTools: Blogs (Jay Cross) and Retooling for E-Learning (Laura Moushey and James Kirk).

European Schoolnet is a unique international partnership of 23 European Ministries of Education developing learning for schools, teachers and pupils across Europe. It provides insight into the use of ICT (information and communications technology) in Europe for policy-makers and education professionals. This goal is achieved through communication and information exchange at all levels of school education using innovative technologies, and by acting as a gateway to national and regional school networks.

Virtual School Library: This website reflects the fact that information is becoming digital and this implies changes in the way we access resources, communicate, handle meta-data, exchange, share and present information. In The Virtual School Library you can explore the possibilities of being providers of information instead of consumers, and the user shall be able to communicate, publish and distribute as easily as they can search and retrieve. The website claims it will help students to become more and more responsible for their own learning and the teacher progressively will become more of a mentor and guide.

ENIS is the European Network of Innovative Schools. For every Ministry of Education that takes part in the ENIS organisation, there is an ENIS Co-ordinator, who is responsible for the national network of innovative schools. This person lays out the agreed European criteria and procedures in his/her own Ministry, and identifies how they can be integrated into national policy. The best way to identify schools on a national level is determined by the Ministry, which certifies ENIS schools to be integrated into the European Network.

myEUROPE: The myEUROPE project is a European Schoolnet initiative at the disposal of all the teachers who wish to involve their pupils, colleagues and schools in European issues and values around three main thematic areas: European Citizenship, Cultural Diversity and Young Mobility. It provides news, services, tools, activities, projects and resources. Teachers can either use the resources we provide or contribute, participate in pedagogical activities or set up cross-European collaborative projects.

Adventure Learning Foundation: This comprehensive site takes students and teachers, as virtual participants, on real and virtual expeditions around the world. Through a collection of original pictures and journal excerpts, visitors can follow in the footsteps of travelers exploring the natural environment, culture, and peoples of different continents. Past expeditions include Alaska and Yukon, Baja California, American Southwest, Southern Africa, Mexico and Peru. Each expedition is accompanied by a mixture of information, links, and classroom activities.

e-Learning Centre: The e-Learning Centre is a one stop e-learning resource. It provides access to thousands of links to selected and reviewed e-learning resources in 4 main categories: Resources; Showcase; Vendors and Events. eCLIPSE, the e-Learning Centre's e-Learning Intelligence Service, is a free subscription-based service that adds intelligence to the vast amount of resources available by providing further value-added information (eg its Top 10 series) and a pathway through the materials via their work-based, role-based and technology centres.

Timesavers for Teachers is a Consortium Member of the GEM project sponsored by the United States Education Department which accepts only quality education sites. Timesavers for Teachers specializes in offering teachers teacher resources and tools that save time. The website provides practical, visually appealing often-used forms, checklists, units, timesaving ideas, and other reproducible worksheets for busy classroom teachers.

Online Learning Magazine is the leading information source for readers who need quick, targeted, relevant information about e-learning and its impact on business. Through a combination of case studies, product comparisons, trend coverage and industry news, Online Learning Magazine helps readers make sense of an industry that's growing at Internet speed. Stories are written in a lively, interesting, concise manner and covers all the ways technology can be used to help people learn, including online courses, virtual collaboration, knowledge management, and performance support.

Grid Club: Initiated and funded by the Department for Education and Skills, the Grid Club is designed to help 7 to 11 year old have fun pursuing their interests online. Schools that register can recruit pupils as Grid Club members. This enables the pupils to gain access to a range of clubs covering interests such as sports, music, puzzles or art. On school days GridClubbers are invited to take part in 'Talk-Live' events: Monday to Friday 12 - 2 p.m, and Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays 3 - 4 p.m. The Grid Club also run sessions on Sundays at 12 - 1 p.m. Here children can publish their work safely and take part in online conversations and debates.

Eteach is the largest interactive database of teaching jobs in the UK, with hundreds of new teaching vacancies posted on the site each week. Join Eteach for free to search for jobs, hear about the latest jobs by email, post your CV and apply for jobs online. The site also enables schools to find you by matching their vacancies to relevant CVs on the site. In addition, Eteach brings you help and advice on looking for a job, the latest education news and an online Staffroom where you can contact other education professionals.

Guidelines for Schools: Sophos has produced guidelines outlining how schools can protect themselves against virus attack. These guidelines are designed to warn pupils of the risks associated with computer viruses, as well as assisting teachers in teaching school children about computer security. These guidelines give an overview of what the different types of virus are, how they infect computers and how to effectively protect against them. The guidelines also include some suggestions for classroom activities relating to computer virus prevention.

BBC Learning is now providing a series of short online learning courses. This includes Computers and the Internet (Becoming Webwise), Design & Technology (Build-A-Bot Techlab), Gardening (How to be a Gardener), Health (First Aid Action), Modern Languages (Talk French, Deutsch Plus, Italianissimo, Spanish Steps), Nature (Blue Planet Challenge), and History (Archaeology, Family History, Local History, Wars & Conflict, Victorian Britain).

Spring Day in Europe: The European Convention, with representatives from 28 countries, is discussing the future of Europe. Spring Day in Europe is an event organised to bring this debate right into schools - your class can take part. Every secondary school in Europe is invited to join in. At a time when important decisions need to be made about the future of Europe, it is an opportunity for pupils to learn, discuss, and have their say on the European issues they care about. Schools can decide exactly how and to what extent they participate; organise a debate in the school, invite an expert on European issues to speak, or join with other schools to exchange views on the future of Europe. The Spring Day in Europe website will help with activities, ideas and tools for teachers.

Comenius Space: Comenius is is a European action programme to encourage schools to collaborate across borders. Comenius projects can improve professional skills, knowledge of culture and languages, and innovation in teaching. Comenius Space is a site for teachers and trainers active in Comenius projects and for those that would like to join. On the website you can find services, people, experts, and advisors that can help set up an international project. Comenius Space is available in English, French and German.

Association of Teacher Websites (ATW): How often have you visited an "educational" web site, only to find an apparently random jumble of pages that bear no relation to your subject, teaching or learning? The ATW is an association of websites created by the real experts - teachers. The ATW helps its members share ideas and work together. It provides a single portal, which is a guarantee of quality for pupils, teachers and parents. It does not charge its members for any services, and contributors share any organizational tasks. The ATW currently has 88 approved sites covering all curriculum areas and key stages.

Simon's Raising Achievement Website: Produced by Simon Midgley, the aim of this website is to show how students' educational achievements may be increased. It does this both by linking to research, in the UK and around the world, on strategies which may help to raise achievement and by providing practical examples of teaching approaches and resources which may help educators do this more efficiently - and enjoyably! In particular, the site focuses on the emancipatory power of ICT - looking equally at theoretical and practical issues. Additionally, there is practical help and ideas for teachers and teaching assistants who are supporting dyslexic and other students who learn differently. To show how all of the ideas and strategies fit together in an actual school situation, details are included of the Raising Achievement project at one school, Rhyddings High in East Lancashire.

Gender and Achievement: Produced by the Standards Unit this website claims to be the first place for teachers, LEAs and parents to visit if they want support and information on gender and achievement. It will help those who are interested in raising the performance and aspirations of underachieving boys and girls by providing an online resource pool of best practice, analysis and practical advice.

Teachers' Magazine: Teachers magazine was launched in the spring of 1999 and is the Department for Education and Skills' magazine for the teaching profession in England. The magazine is primarily written for classroom teachers in the primary and secondary sectors. There are now two versions of the magazine; one for primary and one for secondary teachers. The magazine is published bi-monthly and is available online.

First School features fun preschool lesson plans, educational early childhood activities, printable crafts, printable activities, calendar of events, and other resources for children of preschool age. The preschool lesson plans and activities are appropriate and adaptable for toddlers, preschoolers and kindergarten level (ages 2 to 6). First-School's content is ideal for home schooling, preschool and kindergarten teachers, child care providers and babysitters.

Virtual Magazine for Teachers: Every day the eSchoolnet Virtual Magazine offers the latest news about eLearning in Europe's classrooms. Whether you're interested in news about events, training, resources, technology, or the future of schools, the eSchoolnet magazine is for you and your school. The current edition includes Technology Training for Head Teachers, Canada: Virtual Institute for Innovative Schools and Can We Learn Digitally?