It took a while, but the second favourite time of the year is more evident as trees begin to enter senescence and those lovely autumnal colours develop. Seems later than normal; perhaps another indication of anthropogenic climate change.
The sound of "bonfire night" is a bittersweet memory at the time of writing, which evokes childhood recall of the smell and colours the characterise that quaint British celebration of —wait for it— political terrorism. No wonder the phrase "remember remember the fifth of November" is slowly but surely heard less, in favour of that less sinister, more superficial promotion of halloween tat (i.e. not the All Hallows' Eve religious commemoration).
The next holiday break seems a long way away; meanwhile, there are looming deadlines: parents' reports to write; personal contributions to departmental resources to plan and arrange; summative assessments to mark; extra-curricular projects to maintain. Am beginning to feel the pressure, especially as today was a "get some chores done" day. Tomorrow will not be a day of rest...
Targets to meet: the essence of the last few weeks. However, amidst the rush there has been some effort to think about how to do some things different, the hope of a beneficial impact sometime in the future. Reminded both by a recent blog post from Adam Boxer and observation of a colleague's usage, decided to try the micro$oft 'onenote'. The main motivation is to reduce paper print costs and share content in digital formats, for students to copy, annotate and make reference to, from their paper notes (exercise books, folders, etc.). What has been interesting to observe is that despite these youngsters being immersed in "technology" since conception (!), there is a notable weakness with development of hierarchical organisation of system. Documents are created; formative assessments are made, but after that there isn't much thought about what to do with such information. Ask a student the following week about a document created and the answer is invariably: "I lost it, teacher; I don't know where I saved it, teacher; let me try and find it...", with a quick view of the digital device to show a random mixture of stuff and the ubiquitious "scroll&aquot; action begins.
There has been news articles about how internet search engines have altered human perceptions of information. To paraphrase Prof. James Cortada, information collation has evolved from use of a book's table of contents, to use of the index as the first stage of information retrieval.
Is this important? Dunno, but if pupils are expectant that everything can be just "searched for", how will adequate comprehension of scientific knowledge be achieved, if there is a struggle to organise information from disjointed and disconnected information (in an index), to a hierarchy of knowledge whereby nodes of content are extricably linked? Back to 'one-note'. Application of the the biological taxonomy concept, time has been spent to show how the resources shared, can be organised in their machines, hopefully for effective retrieval in the future. Also, to observe if hierarchical organisation of the various activities provided, will enhance comprehension.
The default 'one-note' sections have been reduced to a single section. The 'content library' has been organised into the sciences disciplines (chemistry), sub-disciplines (physical), topics (atomic structure), pages created with indentation ('sub-page'), which is a nice reminder of the 'outline' of decent text editors (personal favourite, jedit). Will write later about any notable observations.
If truth be known, would prefer not to use 'one-note' at all and use 'freeplane', but uk education is completely embedded within the amgaf infrastructure.
The extant Chancellor of the Exchequer made a notable phrase during an interview before the so-called 'Autumn Statement'; the government want those on welfare to be supported as best as possible so that they can be: "well enough to work", including "working from home" according to the Prime Minister. Need anything more be said???
