Why did the Chickenman cross the road?

How the brain learns to read?

Teachers know more about the workings of their car than the workings of their children’s brain! By empowering teachers to understand cognitive science can revolutionize learning.

How literacy acquisition changes the brain?

By scanning brains of children they have been able to map the areas of the brain that changes when you learn to read. Initially visual recognition of letters and the combinations of letters (learn the shape) This then passes to the visual cortex which makes sense of the coding or visual element. Next the representation of speech sounds are altered when learning to read (phonetics). Scanning can track microstructures in the brain where connections are reinforced through reading.

The brain research backs up that Phonics is superior to whole-word training – in adults reading is automatized, we no longer realise how difficult it is, we have an illusion of whole word reading when in reality we don’t actually do that. For children reading requires slow letter by letter decoding.

A lot of the rest went over my head

Here is my latest article in the TES on the web 2.0 tool Wordle, what do you think? Special mention for the International School Seychelles

http://www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6287787

This is a fantastic website that I often check and keep updated on. It is Anthony Salicito’s daily adventures blog. Anthony is vice president of education for Microsoft Corp.’s Worldwide Public Sector organization, He works with education institutions and partners globally to embrace technology to optimize learning environments and student achievement. This website is a vehicle for his experiences about education worldwide and definitely worth checking out.

Especially this recent daily adventure where I feature.

I am super excited to be featured among such great teachers and others in education.

http://dailyedventures.com/index.php/2012/08/13/dan-roberts/

Last week I happened to be in London for some other things and then just by chance turned up at the #TESSAS and pick up an award which I was shocked about as was Rob Brydon who was presenting. He even said I am sorry but Dan can’t be here today… as I got on stage I said I am Dan Roberts and Rob said but you are in the Seychelles and I said no I am here ha ha! It was also lovely to meet Kerri Facer and spend time with staff and students from Saltash.net who were also up for an award.

If you are a regular reader of the blog or you have ever met me face to face then you will know that I am always shocked and never feel I really deserve these awards when I win them, it is also not the reason why I do what I do. My students are the ones who have taught me that I should be proud of these achievements and they wouldn’t have happened without the support of students, staff in the schools I have worked in and basically people all over the world who I collaborate with all of the time (This is those of you who read this blog). I would like to thank you all, this award is also for you!

The rest of this post is copied from what was written by the TES about me, thank you to them for such an amazing write up, you are very kind.

Dan Roberts of Saltash.net Community School, Saltash, Cornwall has won the ICT Visionary in Education Award at last Friday’s annual TES Schools Awards.

“Dan Roberts deserves the title of ‘visionary’ for being consistently innovative in educational ICT over a long period of time,” said the awards judges. “He is no one-trick pony (or even a one-trick chicken), but a bold scavenger who explores all sorts of different technologies and discovers new approaches for other teachers around the world.”

The former science teacher and assistant head at Saltash.net Community School is known to many who read his blog as “The Chicken Man”. One example of his work is the Recharge the Battery science project, which began when pupils wanted to rescue battery chickens from a local intensive farm to live a free-range life at the school. This scheme became the basis for a unique curriculum involving the innovative use of technology such as webcams, which has since been disseminated around the globe by Microsoft.

His recognition was witnessed by over 800 people gathered to celebrate the sector’s achievements at the awards ceremony held at the Hilton Hotel, Park Lane on Friday 6 July.

16 awards were given out in total; winners came from schools across the UK, from Cornwall to the Isle of Skye, and from Vale of Glamorgan to East Ham. “The awards are now in their fourth year and the quality of entries is higher than ever, with a greater range of schools taking part from across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland,” said Gerard Kelly, TES editor.

The TES Schools Awards (or TESSAs as they are affectionately known) were launched in 2009 by the Times Educational Supplement (the teacher’s paper) to recognise and reward the professionalism and flare of those teams making an outstanding contribution to primary and secondary schools in the maintained and independent sectors.

For more coverage of the awards, photos and all the winners across the 16 categories, visit www.tesawards.co.uk or pick up a copy of TES available from 13 July.

I am very excited to announce that I have been appointed as Headteacher at the International School of Seychelles. This week was my first as Headteacher in the final week of the summer term, I have been extremely proud this week to see first hand how amazing this school is and have received such a warm welcome from students, staff, parents and the governing body. I want to share more about the school with you but the website is a couple of years out of date but there will be a new one very soon for now check out the standard blurb below:

The International School of Seychelles ISS is an independent, non-profit school that delivers excellence in education. We do this through a safe and caring learning environment where students are challenged to reach their maximum potential through academic success and personal growth, becoming socially responsible and active global citizens.

ISS provides students with a comprehensive university preparatory education utilizing best practices in education from around the world.

Our school is a partnership of excellent staff, committed parents, and dedicated students serving a varied international community

Vision

The International School of Seychelles is locally and internationally recognized for excellence in education. ISS is a school in which every student reaches his or her maximum potential through:

• a high quality academic curriculum, a wide array of additional programmes, and an outstanding faculty
• a newly build campus
• an environment which embraces cultural diversity and recognizes that each student is unique and valuable
• The school is recognized as the premier school in the Seychelles and aims to maintain this pre-eminent position.

Educational Philosophy

The Board, staff and parents of The International School of Seychelles believe that:

• Each student is unique and valuable;
• A safe and stimulating learning environment is necessary for fostering student growth;
• An education which celebrates cultural diversity fosters respect among individuals;
• Education should be student centred and is a partnership among students, teachers, parents and the broader community;
• We must challenge and provide support for students to reach their personal potential;
• By providing a broad-based curriculum which emphasizes strong academics and creative expression, students will become self directed learners, effective communicators, collaborative workers, analytical and creative thinkers, producing quality work;
• Education is not limited to the classroom; excursions and travel offer valuable learning opportunities;
• Technology and computer literacy is an integral part of education;
• Physical fitness promotes team building, self–discipline and a healthy lifestyle;
• On leaving ISS, our students are thoroughly prepared to meet the challenges at their next school, whether that be university, secondary or primary level;
• A well-rounded education should provide meaningful opportunities for students to become active, positive members of their community.

I will be posting more information soon on the school and how it will develop so watch this space.

So this is the first week of nearly two weeks off timetable for us while the whole secondary section of the school from Year7-Year10 sit end of year exams for every subject. Year 11 and 13 have left and Year 12 have just returned from study leave so their normal lessons are resuming and any of the Year 11 students who are returning to Sixth form have started their induction.

My question is are end of year exams a good or bad idea? I haven’t worked in a school before that collapses the timetable, however I have worked in one where they don’t have any exams at all and one that had exams but they were carried out during the normal lessons.

At the moment students are sitting exams in two set timetabled blocks each day and actually get to go home at lunchtime while the teachers start to mark them. The exams are carried out like real exams in real exam conditions and the students are taking them very seriously. All of the students I have spoken to today are very positive about the exams and have carried out lots of revision for them, would this have happened if it wasn’t taken as seriously and carried out in lessons? Would students normally talk so positive about exams? I asked some of them why? The main answer was that they could prove what they had learnt in the year and were looking forward to the results.

I can also see the benefits of students getting used to the format and certainly being more calm and less stressed about exams when they get to GCSE as they have been doing it for years.

What do you think? Do you think this is a good idea? Do you do it? What do your students think?

I have been working at the International School Seychelles (ISS) for nearly two weeks now and I really love it, the staff and students are very friendly and supportive. Resources wise (ICT etc) are at time patchy and I am adapting to life with less opportunities for reliable and effective use of new technologies but still enjoying it. I will try my best to blog about what is happening here over the next few months.

In my first week here I asked over 150 students to select one word that summed up their school to them. As a group we then recorded them saying their word in a Word Wave using Audacity and captured a visual expression of this using Wordle. Here is our video of it:

http://youtu.be/ODLi0r3ZM-g

It was the first time they had seen wordle or audacity!