Policy Schizophrenia

January 12, 2011 — Daniel

Am I alone in thinking that the ConDem education policies are fundamentally schizophrenic?

This week we have the release of the new school league tables for England. These include the results and league rankings for the new English Baccalaureate which was only announced weeks ago. So schools are already being rated on a new system which they have not been given any opportunity to prepare for. And what is this English Baccalaureate anyway? Well, its a set of different subjects – English, Math, one science, one modern language and either history or geography. If a student passes these five subjects, they have achieved the English Baccalaureate.

Many head teachers are unhappy that the results of this arbitrary new qualification are already in the league table:

ASCL’s Brian Lightman said: “We are in favour of a broad curriculum and for as many pupils as possible to get into the best universities – but education is not just about university entrance.

“This will devalue vocational education and marginalise it.”

The selection of courses that count as a humanity for the Baccalaureate is very arbitrary – Religious Education, Music or Art don’t count. A very academic (non-vocational, non-creative) model is now being pushed for schools while at the same time David Willetts, Gove’s Conservative cabinet colleague, is promoting vocational education as an alternative to academic education for school leavers and considers that too many children may be going to university (e.g. here and here).

That there is no need for, and that government should not support, lots of (unneeded) humanities graduates is a recurring theme of commentators in the Telegraph – so why is history being given more importance as a school subject than art, at a time when creative arts (including animation) are a cornerstone of modern commerce and industry?

I watched this Ken Robinson video again on YouTube. I wish Michael Gove would watch it and pay attention. But given Gove’s brush off of similar complaints that his Baccalaureate undervalues creativity and art, I doubt it would have any effect.

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Call for Papers: MoodleMoot UK 2011

January 12, 2011 — Daniel

Edit: Links fixed – apologies, Outlook email inserted redirects. Also note that early bird registration has closed already.

From email:

MOOTUK11 ticket prices announced

We finally managed to tie down the costs and work out the ticket prices for this year’s UK Moot. Full details about the updated price list and ticket options can be found in our latest blog post entitled ‘MOOTUK11: Ticket options and prices’.

Early Bird Tickets will be available from our online store from 11am on Monday, 17 January 2010. Please be advised that payment by credit or debit card is required to complete the booking and secure your place. If you have question about the booking process or experience problems on the day please email us at booking@ulcc.ac.uk to ensure your query is received and acted upon

Call for papers
Last but by no means least, we wanted to inform you that the call for papers for MOOTUK11 is now open and submissions are accepted. Full details on ‘how to submit your proposal’ can be found on our conference website. We encourage proposals from all backgrounds to showcase Moodle’s strength and diversity.

Best wishes
The MoodleMoot UK Team

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Call for Papers: 5th ECGBL (October 2011)

January 12, 2011 — Daniel

This is a second call for papers for the 5th European Conference on Games Based Learning being held at The National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece on the 20-21 October 2011.

Over the last ten years, the way in which education and training is delivered has changed considerably with the advent of new technologies. One such new technology that holds considerable promise for helping to engage learners is Games-Based Learning (GBL). The Conference offers an opportunity for scholars and practitioners interested in the issues related to GBL to share their thinking and research findings. Papers can cover various issues and aspects of GBL in education and training: technology and implementation issues associated with the development of GBL; use of mobile and MMOGs for learning; pedagogical issues associated with GBL; social and ethical issues in GBL; GBL best cases and practices, and other related aspects. We are particularly interested in empirical research that addresses whether GBL enhances learning. This Conference provides a forum for discussion, collaboration and intellectual exchange for all those interested in any of these fields of research or practice.

The conference committee welcomes both academic and practitioner papers on a wide range of topics using a range of scholarly approaches including theoretical and empirical papers employing qualitative, quantitative and critical methods.  Action research, case studies and work in progress/posters are welcomed approaches. PhD Research, proposals for roundtable discussions, non-academic contributions and product demonstrations based on the main themes are also invited.

You can find calls for papers for these tracks at:

http://academic-conferences.org/ecgbl/ecgbl2011/ecgbl11-call-papers.htm

Conference proceedings are submitted for accreditation on publication. Please note that depending on the accreditation body this process can take up to several months.

Papers accepted for the conference will be published in the conference proceedings, subject to author registration. Papers presented at the conference will also be considered for publication in a special issue of the Electronic Journal of e-Learning.

Papers presented at the conference will be published in the conference proceedings, subject to author registration and payment.

For the first time there will be a prize for the best PhD paper and the best Poster presented at the conference.

Please feel free to circulate this message to any colleagues or contacts you think may be interested.

Posted in Call for Papers, conferences, Games Based Learning. Tags: . No Comments »
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