In Over to you… Ian tagged me
part of the ‘11 Questions’ meme. 11 people are each asked 11 questions and having provided their answers are exhorted to do the same for 11 further people.
. It is taking a while for me to, 1. the easy part, answer the questions, 2. the harder bit, think up some more.
- What teacher had the most influence on you and why?
My memory of school is not that good, I always struggle to identify that great teacher who affected me as a child when asked to do so as a CPD exercise or starter. I have however taught alongside and met some wonderful teachers. Two who have given me an ideal for what a teacher should look like are Moira McArthur and Linda Burke. HT and DHT at Sandaig Primary where I taught for most of my classroom life. Moira dragged me, if not screaming and kicking at least moaning quietly to using ICT in the classroom. She them gave me full support and trust as I played with technology. More important She and Linda exemplified how to care for pupils. I didn’t often live up to their example, but I felt pretty good when I did.
- During your career, which student (without naming them!) most sticks in your mind and for what reason?
One child that sticks in my memory was one that did not have success in education. Coming from a broken home with possible fetal alcohol syndrome, this child was a constant disruption in my class for two years. Full of anger and needs they moved through the school ticking and exploding. I was supported by the smt in all sorts of ways including a lengthy period when the child worked individually with another member of staff. Even then there not much progress was made. The child reminds me that at times we need more resources, schooling is part of society and social justice is needed for long term success. I have other memories of more successful pupils, some of who really stick in my mind too, but the question is ‘student’ and it has taken me over a week to get this far!
- What was your most abiding memory of school dinners?
A rather scary school sec standing behind diners making sure they ate the last drop of mashed turnip. In my time there was no pupil choice, but seating was social, serving a shared job and if you were lucky someone at your table would love boiled cabbage.
- Two Harry Potter inspired questions now. If you had Harry’s cloak of invisibility, what educational event would you like to unobtrusively observe and why?
I’d like to watch, repeatedly some of my own worst interactions with pupils, repeat it until it didn’t make me flinch and hopefully learn something.
- What aspect of education or the classroom would you most like to wave your wand over and why? Educatio revisiorum!
Tick boxes!
- For any historical figure of your choice, what might they have tweeted at a significant moment for them?
- What’s your favourite online video (for any reason) and why? (A link would be good).
I’ve favourited a few youtube and vimeo videos, but my all time fav is, Information R/evolution partly because it is so short.
I think this is lovely on all sorts of levels. As a target for screen-casting as communication.
- In Horizon report style, which technology-enabled educational activity is likely to be becoming more mainstream in 3-ish years?
I do not know about likely but I would love to see learning distributed over space and the experiences in those spaces described and recorded with geo tags to allow a map view.
- Which fictional character would you most like as a work colleague and why?
I’ve been blessed by being able to work with a lot of great folk and met online and off even more. At the moment I am delighted to be working with Ian Stuart and am starting to appreciate the skills of folk whose jobs I did’t know existed before 2014.
- What educational movement or initiative, currently in its infancy, will endure and why?
The Web Literacy Standard from Mozilla, soon to be rename as a map rather than a standard is a pretty interesting idea than covers all sorts of things, most of which fascinate me. I’d expect that the map will change as the terrain does over the years, but our literacies are expanding with the new mediums.
- Which educator (dead or alive, real or fictional, famous or not) would you most like to interview or enjoy the drink of your choice with and what would you be chatting about?
In this respect I an one of the luckiest folk in education, through Radio Edutalk I’ve talked to many fascinating educators. I’ve worked with great folk, I am working with Ian Stuart. Of the people I’ve never talked to, Tom Woodward would be a great choice, as he writes one of my favourite blogs.
My Questions
- What hour or less than an hour classroom activity would you describe and demo to show the value of technology in the classroom?
- If you read non educational blogs, give us one that people would be surprised to know you read?
- Where would you like to lead a lesson, cash, practical considerations aside, why?
- What is the biggest friction in using technology in the classroom?
- What is the biggest friction in your own use of technology?
- What question would you like to be asked? (You do not have to answer it)
- Should educators use open source software even if the commercial alternatives are ‘better’?
- Why don’t you listen to podcasts? (or if you are in the minority why do you?)
- Which learning activity do you think is underused and under valued?
- What educational movement or initiative, currently in its infancy, will endure and why?
- During your career, which student (without naming them!) most sticks in your mind and for what reason? (I’ve borrowed Ian’s question here.)
and a couple of questions recycled from Ian:
Here is a list of people I’d like to tig, some do not blog much nowadays, some I’ve only bumpped into occasionally online, this will either kick start them or make them want to kick me. Feel free to ignore this if you are in the list, or join in if you are not in this list:
Before August 2014 I used disqus for comments, so this form shows up on older posts.
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