My New Online Home

For those of you who I can see have subscribed to this barrel-load of content, I’ve moved the entire operation to a new site, which you can find at http://jpdaly.com

So, if you’d like to update your links, aggregators etc. then please do so – because if you hadn’t realised before, this blog is no longer being updated

Glow and Agrega

I have been closely following the development of SSDN and latterly Glow over the last few years, and I feel that, used correctly, it will prove to be a powerful tool in the future. A lot of this depends on the uptake by professionals, which might just prove to be a sticking point. Certainly in Primary education, my experience shows me that levels of computer literacy among teachers is generally good in a check-my-email, print-in-Word way. However, developing the skills and attitudes required to create your own, and harness other people’s, rich web-based content is the key factor in the roll-out of the service.

Much of the training that my authority provided was focused on Glow’s interface – how to log in, how to access the calendar, how to create a group. All well and good, but I wonder whether more training is required on a deeper level – why bother to create a group? What’s it for? Am I going to have to stay logged into this thing over the weekend to answer forum comments and moderate content? Many of the conversations I have had with other teachers indicate that there is a feeling that Glow is going to be another thing to mark, foisted upon them from on high. To access the full potential of Glow, there is a need to share the understanding of the power of social networking, the way that our Bebo-totting students already do

On a related note, I am following the activities of Agrega on Twitter and on their blog. Agrega is a collaboration between the Spanish government and its regional comunidades autónomas; Spain’s take on educación 2.0. Agrega means Gather (for want of a better translation) and is designed as an online repository for educational resources and material. While it doesn’t promise to be as feature-rich as Glow, it pushes hard for collaboration and a networking approach to gathering its materials. Certainly, the Common Craft-style video explaining how the service works could be an example to us over here – to think of ways we can properly describe Glow to our colleagues. Only when people understand Glow will they be motivated to use it.

Not my ideal first post…

I created this blog a few months ago, just before the summer holidays, inspired by John Johnston, John Connell and a plethora of others, whose blog feeds I subscribe to. I thought it would be worth my while chipping in my tuppence-worth to the number of Scottish teachers and educators, sharing ideas and thoughts and generally contributing to the hive mind.

I had hoped that my first post would be of some swell project I had started that would push back the boundaries, and in my own small way, revolutionise the education profession (there’s no point in thinking small!)

It is with no small amount of disappointment then, that my first post is going to be a gripe about the horrendous job situation that me, and thousands of new teachers are experiencing at the moment. I must confess that I’ve been a good deal luckier than many of my cohorts – an illness at my probation school has meant that I’ve been able to get 3 weeks supply out of them. For many, however, even getting one day is manna from heaven. One girl I spoke to today (in her third year out of college) was chuffed, because 3 weeks into the new term, she’s worked the princely sum of four days.

Knowing that as of Thursday, when my supply runs out, I’ve got that to look forward to is a devastating thought. The drive for new teachers and the continuing high numbers being admitted into Scottish teaching colleges mean that this situation isn’t going to abate any time soon.

So: no jobs, ludicrous numbers of teachers coming through their Initial Teacher Education, and an ageing – but alas, not yet aged – teaching community. What’s going to give? And when?