Oct #Edu resources - part 2 ????

I sometimes really wonder where time goes, every week seems to pass quicker and quicker. I'm not really complaining as I seem to be learning more new things every week too, but if anyone has managed to discover the magic "pause" button, I would be more than happy to take the advice, it's one topic where I am clearly a slower learner ??.

Before I forget lovely folks, I am always trying to grow my network so can I ask you to reach out and connect on these other social channels, some are for sharing and some are perhaps a bit more just me :

Connect with me on Twitter / X or on Instagram either my EdTech or Personal channels and yes I'm even living the dream on TikTok (just??).

So what did I get up to this week? I chaired the latest British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA) #EdTech Special Interest group meeting, a long title easily summarised as "collaborating with lots of like-minded people looking at ways to keep on improving technology in schools". I met with the lovely Carolyn McIntyre to discuss some great content for next year's EdTechX , visited Dogsthopre Infants school (including seeing lovely Eddie again, the school dog), headed to London on Tuesday for a brilliant Multi Academy Trust Association (MATA) Growth conference organised by Matt McDermott - met loads of familiar faces and friends including Baasit Siddiqui , Leon Riley & Phill Dalowsky , Martin Byford-Rew - MBCS and Louise Salmon . I also saw some great sessions including those by Peter Hughes and Jo Heaton OBE .

I had some really exciting meetings with the team at NetSupport who are busy preparing for another update to classroom.cloud which is absolutely flying at the moment. I had a visit to meet the new Head of School at Hampton College who has absolutely hit the ground running, and then capped that off with meetings with Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority on our ongoing support for Anglia Ruskin University Peterborough, Climate action plans, transport and regional Infrastructure. If you want to know what I shared publicly about that then have a read of my summary here. (well done if you clicked that link it is quite a "grown-up" business letter).

So on reflection, actually quite a busy week again, and next week I am off to lovely Amsterdam for the EDUtech Europe conference. Do come over and say hi, I'm speaking on a couple of sessions on Wednesday afternoon.

Day 1 @ 14:50 - History has its eyes on you: creating digital learning environments that promote equity and inclusion.

Day 1 @ 15:55 - The #Pedtech revolution: putting pedagogy at the forefront of technology decisions.

?? The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) shared their guidance report "Working with Parents to Support their Children's Learning" which aims to offer clear, actionable advice on how to develop connections with families in your school community. You can grab a copy from here.

?? Kai Vacher shares some excellent resources and he shared this week an article in International Teacher Magazine about how, at British School Muscat, ‘Learning Talk’ is freeing teachers from judgement and is creating a culture where dialogue and trust support professional growth. Have a read of the article from here.

And as a two for the price of one, Kai also chatted with the #Ai dynamo Dan Fitzpatrick on his podcast "Educator's Corner" about how teachers and students can use Ai in the classroom and wider implications in the school. Available on all usual platforms, this is the link to the Spotify episode.

?? Great one for young aspiring School governors. Shekeila Scarlett is running a webinar with Governors for Schools called "A Seat At The Table With Me!" It will be an interactive opportunity for young adults to come and find out how their strategic voice can make a difference and the ways to get into governance. One to share please and the link to book a free space is here.

?? There is always something super helpful shared by Dr Pooky Knightsmith every week, she always provides loads of supporting resources and slides too, so no surprise again with her resources on "Emotionally Based School Avoidance" a real topic of focus at the moment, her full slide deck is available here. Perfect.

She also shared a couple of days ago another great resource on "Creating Classrooms where Every Child Thrives" using "Maslow's Toolbox" check it out here too.

?? Another great release last week was the 2023 EDUCAUSE Horizon report "Holistic Student Experience Edition" This is jammed with insights on how higher education providers are recognising the value of empowering students to bring their "whole selves" to college and are providing holistic programming and learning opportunities. The 46-page PDF can be downloaded from here.

?? Change is always difficult, but Darren Coxon shared a great article on Substack "10 Reasons Why Schools Can't Change.... And Why They Have To" it's a challenging read, intentionally - Schools should be potentiality accelerators. Instead, most are potentiality killers.?Have a read here.

?? Might seem tough right now but would you like to have "Calm Leadership"? There is a new SecEd Podcast: "What is calm leadership & how can this approach help middle & senior leaders in schools to be effective in their roles? " with Patrick Cozier about his leadership philosophy & how it has helped him to thrive.

?? An interesting article on HeadTeacher update a few days ago by Robbie Burns , actually, it's a seven page guide on "Best Practice Focus: How to teach writing". You can download the PDF from here.

?? Very excited to share this headline "Multi-million pound extended reality centre to be created at Anglia Ruskin University Peterborough to offer workplace training" Some really exciting projects led by Professor Ross Renton and his team in Peterborough. Read the news article here.

#Ai

Don't forget that the Cricket World Cup "kicked off" ( is that the right term?!? ) this week, so naturally I donned my #Ai "whites" to get in some practice. Turns out it's harder than it looks.

Back to the sensible stuff .....

?? Nice one to kick off with as I shared last week a few sets of #Ai prompts by subject for Teachers from Mark Anderson FCCT - being the smartypants that he is, he's now collated all of these along with some additional subjects into "The Little Book of Generative Ai prompts for teachers" - it's a great resource which you can find here.

?? Laura Knight shared a great resource last week, she said "?? If you need a 0-60mph AI for educators briefing about the state of the world right now, I can't recommend this highly enough, and it is just as applicable to those in school settings. Mairéad Pratschke, PhD brings together such a super rundown of the platforms, tools, and news." You can watch the Youtube video from here.

?? Well it wouldn't be a complete #Ai section each week without including something shared by Melissa McBride ?? - this week amongst many resources, she shared on article on Cryptopolitan "The Future of Education: Ai Tutors, Virtual reality and Personalised Learning" - think ahead to 2050 and classrooms where AI tutors deliver knowledge directly into students’ brains, personalized lessons cater to individual DNA, and virtual reality becomes the primary. Big thinking! Have a read here.

?? There have been lots of updates recently across the Generative #Ai space. The fab Victoria Davis shared an article from VentureBeat discussing how ChatGPT "can now browse the internet to provide you with current and authoritative information, complete with direct links to sources,” thanks to an integration with Microsoft’s Bing search engine. The article is here.

?? Ray Fleming wrote about AI regulations emerging internationally and that with the emergence of regulations and advice for specific countries and regions - and probably industries - companies and organisations creating solutions built on #Ai will need to be mindful of where their solutions are used. Have a look here.

?? The lovely Dan Fitzpatrick has also created a super handy Toolbox of #Ai resources on ThingLink that you need to check out. There is something for everyone and you know with Dan it will be fully researched and evidenced. Click the image above or here to take a look.

?? Always happy to have an #AertsAlert from the lovely Carla Aerts again I had plenty to choose from but this one was specifically of interest, an article on Education Week around learners and their use of #Ai. A US survey highlights how general assumptions of their use may be just that, assumptions. The article by Arianna Prothero "How Students Use AI vs. How Teachers Think They Use It" is definitely worth a read "What if much of what we assumed about students and ChatGPT was wrong?" Discover for yourself here.

?? Barbara Anna Zielonka shared an article about how Spotify has recently announced a new #Ai feature that can translate podcasts into different languages using the host's own voice. This could potentially have many benefits for education. The article "Spotify’s AI Voice Translation Pilot Means Your Favorite Podcasters Might Be Heard in Your Native Language" can be found here. I can definitely think of plenty of applications.

?? Another handy share by Barbara was an article in Tes "DfE looking at how AI can tackle inequality in education". The article by Matilda Martin suggests schools have been burned by #EdTech that failed to deliver on "promised marvels" and are now looking at ways to test out Ai solutions. The language is a bit black and white to me, there are plenty of solutions backed by evidence-delivering impact so I think it unhelpful to treat all EdTech solutions as a whole, but we have moved into a bit of a convenient "who to blame" phase right now.

?? Another great share from Amanda Bickerstaff a nice video walkthrough about how to access and use the curated prompts for effective use of #GenAi chatbots. Have a watch of the Youtube video here.

?? Special addition ??- my daughter Niamh Kingsley works heavily in the tech space involved with #innovation and #Ai and she wrote a great article on Medium this week using some great real-world examples to step you through using the new ChatGPT "Vision" feature. Of course, I am biased, but it's a cracking read.

?? Are you getting increasingly #Ai curious or have colleagues struggling with the first steps? The team at Educate Ventures Research are offering a free introduction to AI in education webinar. It's next week on Wed 11th Oct at 4pm. You can sign up here.

#EdTech

?? Mr Microsoft Education Mike Tholfsen shared a handy update to what's new in Microsoft Teams for Education this month, there is quite a bit on the list from improvements to reflect, Video camera enhancements, "Mark as Excused", importing assignments and grades and more. Discover here.

?? As a 2 for 1, Mike also shared a video on "Microsoft OneDrive Tips and Tricks" It's an all-new looking Onedrive and this is a great summary to get you up to speed. Watch on Youtube here.

?? Here's a really handy resource for schools looking to review their assessment and moderation plans or improve their moderation processes. Pobble Education has a range of moderation support for 2023-24 including the opportunity to choose them as your statutory moderation partner. Check out this link for more information. Simon Blower and the Pobble team come with a real pedigree in the space. ( declaration - I have known Simon for quite a while, and love their solutions.)

#Books

?? I had a lovely review of "My School Governance Handbook" by the fab folks at HeadteacherChat which you can see below and the book can be found here.

?? Regular contributor Cristóbal Cobo has also been busy putting pen to paper with a new book which is definitely worth taking a look at. It's a proper book, not like my lightweight guides, called "What is ‘algorithmic education’ and why do education institutions need to consolidate new capacities?" which provides a scholarly investigation of the new era we have entered, in which platforms can replace or profoundly modify educational systems. The book questions the role of educational policy in this new stage of platform-based digital technology. The book can be found here by the folks at Routledge Education .

#GoldenTicket

?? Don't forget I now have 43 Education Suppliers who have all agreed to support my Golden Ticket voucher and provide you with a discount on products or services. No cost to take part, just ?? lots of savings ?? to make. Click on the image below to find out more.

And that is that for this week. Hopefully, a few more fresh ideas to share in the weeks ahead. I hope you all have a lovely weekend. It takes a fair bit of time to pull together all these resources every weekend, so if you enjoy it, please take a moment and share it across your socials, tag me in, I'd love you to help spread the readership.

Have a good one, and see you next week, Al.

I do try and keep my newsletters very agnostic, but of course I am proud of my printed musings, so if you have time please take a look at these handy #CPD resources for your school ... they are really jolly good ( honest).

??2023 EduFuturist of the Year

??2023 Outstanding Achievement winner - Educational Resources Awards (ERA) Awards

??2023 Inspiring Leader winner - British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA) Awards