Learning Stuff About Stuff

Here's a wordle from all the blog posts listed in the Scotedublogs rss feed:

The TIMSS (Trends in Mathematics and Science Study) 2007 report is out.  The headline news is that England has jumped up the ranking for performance in science and maths at P2 and S2, whilst Scotland has remained pretty much where it was back in 2003. This is clearly not good news for any politician, but I was rather alarmed to hear Fiona Hyslop's knee-jerk reaction that these figures called for urgent action. Don't we have a clear agenda in Scotland for progress in education, called A Curriculum for Excellence?  Doesn't it say that we seek to develop 4 capacities in our young people?  Is it not inevitable that our attempt to develop these 4 capacities might result in our youngsters doing slightly less well in dry measurments of subject-based competencies?  Is aCfE not doomed if we launch into defensive action the first time a study suggests that this might be happening? I am certain that the Latin skills of the average 16 year old in Scotland have declined dramatically

Terry Freedman ( http://terry-freedman.org.uk/ ) and Miles Berry ( http://milesberry.net ) are presenting at the BETT show (on the Saturday, see http://www.bettshow.com/page.cfm/action=Seminars/SeminarID=64 ) for the BCS, exploring children's informal learning outside the classroom and what implications this might have for  teachers and schools. As well as a literature review and some case studies, they've also put together a quick google-form based survey (see http://edtechuk.net ) to get some quantitative data of our own. Miles has asked me to spread the word, so please do take a minute or two to fill in the survey:  http://edtechuk.net