Electric Chalk

If you are responsible for the shape of your school’s curriculum development or working at a strategic level here’s some good bedtime reading.

It’s by George Siemens and was published a while ago in the International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning (phew!).

A lot of the recent developments in the UK national curriculum  seem to reflect his line of thinking but I’m still aware that the way that schools are driven and measured here revolves more and more round a narrower set of skills. Schools “succeed” or “fail” on their A-C’s in Maths and English. 

Surely schools will naturally focus resources on avoiding “National Challenge” status or “Special Measures” rather than equipping their students to become effective “future-proof” learners.

Have a look at this blog post. It was a finalist in the Edublogs 2007 Most Influential Blog Posts award.

Now look at this video on the BBC website about RSA Academy in Tipton and their approach to timetabling and the curriculum.

I know Tipton’s approach won’t be a magic bullet but it’s quite exciting to find how some schools are changing their teaching and learning structure.

It’s only an indirect link to ICT but with longer lessons and tis type of curriculum it’s easy to see how properly embedded ICT would add value and enhance the pedagogy.

Hope it goes well.