http://timesonline.typepad.com/schoolgate/2010/03/school-admissions-why-demographics-and-not-the-recession-is-to-blame-for-shortages.html

Dr. Ravitch, a key academic supporter of the No Child Left Behind bill in the US, has developed increasing scepticm in three main areas of policy since 2003: Charter Schools (equivalent to the UK Academies programme), Standardised testing and private sector involvement.

I want to point out where her scepticism (based on observation of the results in America) has big implications for UK educational policy under the next government.

1. Repeat testing in core subjects = narrower, duller curriculum.

The unintended consequence of increasingly prescriptive curriculum guidelines, SATs and now Assessing Pupils Progress is that subjects that are not measured (or are hard to measure) get dropped from the teaching timetable. So humanities, arts and even the more experimental aspects of science and maths give way. Unfortunately, there is even little evidence that a decade of such testing in the UK has really increased numeracy or literacy rates either, probably because a dull curriculum does not inspire an inquisitive attitude.

2. Operational independence (i.e. Academies) DOES NOT necessarily lead to better results

Increasing educational standards relies on better teachers, but most Academies do not have the budget or flexibility to really pay much more for the best teachers, or the power to sack bad teachers. On the other hand, giving these independent organisations more spending power leaches talent away from LA-controlled schools. There are only so many teachers to go around, and unless new Academies make better use of them, by freeing them from paperwork and testing, they won’t produce much better results.

“Nations like Finland and Japan seek out the best college graduates for teaching positions, prepare them well, pay them well and treat them with respect,” Dr. Ravitch said. “They make sure that all their students study the arts, history, literature, geography, civics, foreign languages, the sciences and other subjects. They do this because this is the way to ensure good education. We’re on the wrong track.”

A new government in England should focus more on increasing status and respect for teachers and increasing the desirability of teaching (which is about pay, curriculum-flexibility and discipline) rather than just testing the outputs.

The entries closed at the end of January, but we are waiting another week before the results are announced – just to give time for a few outstanding contributors to publish their work.

In the meantime, here are a few already shortlisted for the two categories:

Most Creative Resource

• KS3 Physics Revision (Science)
• NMR Spectra (Science)
• Superbugs (Science)
• Atom Economy (Science)
• Introduction to pH (Science)
• Guide to word processing (ICT)
• Of Mice and Men Characters (English)
• A Valediction Forbidding Mourning (English)

Best Junior Science

• Harry Potter and the Variable Traits
• Quizzes for teaching compounds
• Science investigation starters
• Frankie’s Science Lab
• Describing Habitats
• Science Lab introduction

“i am komal prasadplease inves ment in this enterprises 009310336633 in india read this file stevi product”

Now i’m sorry, but if I get a link request to a new educational website with an errant apostrophe I generally judge them unworthy. To get an appeal for serious investment from someone who’s never heard of punctuation is more than laughable. I love the spirit of someone trying to start a Stevia (natural sweetener) cultivation by appealing to Western wallets, but it took me three reads to work out that the sentence had meaning at all. So no, Komal, I can’t investment in your enterprises.

But then he has got my attention..

Over the last couple of months we have been changing that process to encourage more reviews for members, and to make it faster for regular contributors to get their ideas live.  This involves an On Trial step where a small number of members can download the files for free in order to review.

The other big change is that contributors now have the power to decide whether to publish files in the light of feedback from the community.  We realise not everyone is confident their idea will be a winner, and may want to get some feedback before it goes on to become chargeable.

Once a contributor has proved their ability by having more than 5 resources approved on the system, we can skip the ‘Pending’ stage so their files go live quicker.

Basically its a nice chap who was a teacher but quit to do Sparklebox full time. He makes teaching resources which you can download for free.

I’m afraid not, fellas. He did it to make money out of advertising (so yes, every time you click on you are boosting his income in jail), and possibly to build a profile and reputation to approach children.

One comment Teachable is tired of hearing is that because we charge our users for access to files, the service is somehow less useful to teachers. At the Teachmeet BETT 2010 meetup last week we got a couple of comments along the line of “chargeable product = bad, ad supported = good”. Every teaching website out there needs funding, either from:

1. Advertising
2. Government subsidy
3. Charging end users

We believe advertising alone is both insufficient to run a good service, and can lead to conflicts of interest when trying to impartially offer educational content. Government subsidy is likely to run out in the UK pretty fast in 2010, leaving 3 as the only viable business model. We are proud to charge our users for teaching resources and half that money goes to contributors.

Unless, like Sparklebox, it’s not really a business at all, but something altogether more murky.

It has all the text and drawing features you’d see on ActivBoard or Smart Notebook, but it does currently lack animation features. At Teachable we looking at ways we could allow easy import of Teachable lessons into Scribblar – do tell us if this would be useful.

I know there is something similar in the Glow system for Scottish teachers, but this is the first such tool I’ve seen that is free for all teachers to try. Using it across a school would cost less than £1000 a year, and it is so simple to use that no-one should require training.

We’re considering working with them to provide more reviews of real-world resources, so please tell us if this would be useful to you.

We’ve listened to a cross section of members, and you said we could make it even easier to use and less full of distraction. The orange bar is still a bit Marmitey (you either love it or loathe it), but let us know if there are other aspects that frustrate or confuse you.

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P.s. If you like a more ‘hand-drawn’ style for websites, have a look at this tennis coaching for children website.