Education, education, education.

Writing yesterday, I explained how I suffer from my eagerness to bookmark.

This evening while culling bookmarks I came across all these links to the excellent reporting of educational issues from the BBC that I stumbled upon over the Christmas break. I shall note them here and then press the delete button.

E-mail school reports considered.
I like these ideas. I'm not certain about the sense of sending reports via mobile phones, but maintaining contact with the home by informing parents of absent, misbehaving or unpunctual children would be so easy by text message. I would also want to send praise messages informing the home of good work or behaviour.
As ever the issue of the digital divide needs to be considered! Despite what they say, this is undoubtedly about middle class parents getting an easier service.
I know of one school in Cardiff, where a blog is used to provide information about a particular course of study and where the PTA contacts those parents with email addresses in the name of fundraising.

Stars must "check science facts"
as must the rest of us!
Especially when writing on publicly accessible blogs.
This is a message that has to be brought to the attention of a minority of student bloggers.

Change on the way in tests and tables (in England).
and about time too. How lucky we are to be in Wales where league tables no longer exist. What worries me here is the use of the word "personalised" as if it were something new. In the primary school before the introduction of SATS education was always personalised. Teaching to the tests reduced personalisation, the introduction of literacy and numeracy strategies reduced personalisation. Now it has become the new buzz word. We hear it mentioned in Higher Education, e-learning, blended learning, individualised learning, private learning etc. etc. Learning has always been personal, it can't be sold, bought, traded or centrally imposed.
Equally we have to grasp the fact that not all children are actually capable of achieving the jump between levels of attainment required by our political masters. When will they learn?
Equally dangerous is the way that no one really knows what personalised learning means. Beware the emperor's new clothes.

Finally
GP launches YouTube health films.
I love this. Web 2.0 at its best, providing a personalised service to the residents of rural Wales (but again we need to consider the digital divide). I'm not sure I'll be watching the cervical screening film but I might need the others one day.