RichardRadio

I just went to this gig with Mark who used to share a house with Music for One who is supporting Bela. Great to see them ‘play’ the analog effects pedals and knobs – more compelling than guys hunched over laptops.

We enjoyed Music for one, moody, but the main act Bela is definately something special. She’s intense. Her basic Cello sound rubs your back then all these fantastic percussiony sounds pop and whiz to funk it up. Loop it in, cut it out, punch back in.. Schizo-fucking freenia with a good dose of doubt. The modern state of mind? Sure.

Recommend you go see the show. There are dates in London, Manchester and Sheffield (7thNov) etc. (£4)

Bela Emerson – latest news

Del.icio.us could be a really neat tool for us ICT teacher trainees to share web based resources, so I did a little screencast to show how I do it. Its much easier than sharing links on our Blackboard Site, Student Central. I have even pulled links from Student Central that Pete has posted and tagged them petebrown to save you a job.

In the latter part of the film I show how you can use RSS to keep upto date with someone’s Del.icio.us feeds. Judging on conversations with the rest of my group this might seem way over the top, but if you want to be a technology teacher you should really be up to speed on blogs and RSS by now, this technology has been around for five years or more.

We should really do a blogging and RSS session. Oh, and I will be trying to get this video up onto my Moodle site later on (tomorrow) I’m going to play with making a del.icio.us course.

I’m using Del.icio.us more and more now. Infact rather than writing short blog postings I find it easier to post in Del.icio.us, it allows you to write quite a long paragraph in the description field. Of course it doesn’t allow comments though.

download video

PS this is the first video to be shown on richardradio.com – yey!
Maybe you should subscribe!

PPS. I forgot to add that this idea was completely inspired by Jon Udell’s very similar del.icio.us: the screencast. You might find it better, its not related to education though.

One of the biggest worries to any would-be teacher is how are you going to get the class to behave. In my placement school the kids are lively to say the least. I don’t want to be on a power trip but its my responsibility to create a productive and supporting environment where the kids can flourish.

I’ve spent quite a lot of time with my Year 8 Tutor group and followed them round all day. It wasn’t difficult for me to drop back into being a school kid again. I traipsed around school immersed in my thoughts. I sat at the back and was bewildered by the instructions given to the kids about the task. Kids will turn around and say “Pst, Sir, what do we have to do?” And I sometimes I have to say “I don’t know!”. Poor instructions and a slow pace lead to boredom and boredom creates trouble.

There is an interesting Supply Teacher at school called Aine who is an artist but teaches art in schools when she needs the money. I was fortunate enough to be able to offer her and some other teachers who live in Brighton a lift back home. Upset with the hardline discipline stories of threats and detentions, I mentioned that I was looking for a non aggressive way of controlling the class.

She said (very roughly paraphrased) that it depends on your view of kids and how you relate that to your view of the world.. which includes things such as the Industrial Revolution and control of the masses… Well if you were to read richardradio you would know that this is a recurring theme for me – see a sample. So I pricked up my ears.

Aine says that she tries to feel the children’s energy and fuse all the different kinds in the class into something coherent. She tries to inject humour instead of challanging or being confrontational. She says she tries to mimic their energy and will even mimic their body language in order to point out the confrontational positions that they take.

She seems to be quite expert at going into difficult classes, who don’t know her. I’ve got a couple of free periods first thing tomorrow, so I’m going to ask if I can observe, the investigation continues.

Most teachers haven’t heard of, or don’t understand the importance of blogs. So tell them it improves pupils writing – they can’t ignore that.

a parent stopped her in the hallway to say how wonderful the blog has been for her son. He comes home every night and writes the happenings about the school day, or another part of the story that he is working on. The parent loves that she can check her son’s blog, and keeps track of what’s going on in his head. She’s even responded to her son with questions and encouragement. She said that she use to fight with her son about writing during his free time, now he asks if he can.

This quote is about using blogs in a primary school.
From: The Thinking Stick » Blog Reflection

I haven’t been able to find much on useage in Secondary schools though.