For the Monday group and an invitation to colleagues to contribute to an educational conversation.
5.00-7.00 1WN 3.8 Monday 16th January 2006
News in from last week:
Kari Flornes writes:
First
of all I want to wish you and your colleagues in Bath a very Happy New Year. I
feel that my visit to Bath, the participation in your Monday discussion group
and the workshop conducted by Margarida are among the most meaningful
avtivities I have done recently. In fact the material Margarida gave me and her
approach to creative learning have given me a lot of inspiration for a course I
was asked to run at the college and in 4 schools in my area this term.
Together
with a critical friend who is a mentor and has taken part in my PhD-project I
am creating a workshop about how mentors can create good interactions with
student teachers. It is based on SOL- self-organised-learning and LC- learning
conversation which mentors can conduct with student teachers.
I
was also very happy to receive yesterday the book: Action Research for
Teachers- A practical guide.I intend to give a short presentation of your
living theory of practice and your AR approch and the book will be on the
reading list. I hope I'll be able to join another Monday discussion group this
spring.
(Kari
– you might also find useful the latest book, just published on All You
Need To Know About Action Research, Sage, 2006).
Kari works in the Faculty
of Education, Bergen University College, Norway and I'm hoping that we can
share more of Kari's ideas on the work she is doing.
Margaret Farren's paper on How can I support a web of betweenness
through information and communications technology (ICT), presented at an EARLI invited SIG
symposium in 2005, was published yesterday on e-learningeuropa.net at:
http://www.elearningeuropa.info/index.php?page=doc&doc_id=7020&doclng=6&
|
Maggie
is Lecturer E-Learning, School of Education Studies, Dublin City University |
Hoping to hear before Monday
from Jean about her AR workshop in Khayelitsha, South Africa. You can also follow some of Jean's work in
supporting the National Council for Guidance in Education, in Ireland at:
John writes:
I
wanted to pass something on that I thought might be of interest to the
group. It involves an educational initiative called Calm Classrooms,
which has been pioneered by a friend of mine, Vo Fletcher, who lives in Great
Malvern - he is a musician and has composed a series of music designed to be
played during classtime and to put students in a receptive mood for
learning. Initial trials have had remarkable results. Thought it
might be an interesting point of conversation for a Monday evening and
something even that Vo might be prepared to come and share with the group some
time. This is a link from the TES online about his work.
http://www.tes.co.uk/search/story/?story_id=2108372
I've been playing with the multi-media technology and the
video of John's presentation on astrology of 14th Nov. 05, from his
masters programme at Bath Spa. I'd like to show the implications for my understandings
of inclusionality (I know Alan can help with this because of a contribution he
made last Monday) of moving from the linear presentation on the original video,
to a relationally dynamic awareness in the multiple and interconnecting
pathways of communication opened up with e-media. The participants in the
B&NES Breakfast Cafe Conversations of the 23/11 & 21/12/05 have given
permission for me to share a DVD I've made using this multi-media technology.
I'd like to share this and explore something I'm working on with e-media in
terms of enhancing the educational influence of racialising, with whiteness, my living
educational theory. I'd like to connect this with a video clip of Eden Charles
talking with me about his doctoral research and the development of his thinking
about the influence of an African cosmology on his life as a parent, an
educator in the Sankofa Centre in London for black youngsters, and as
management consultant in a range of national and international contexts. To see
Eden at work go into http://homepage.mac.com/echarles/My%20Research%20Website/index.html
and click on video (not advisable unless you have broadband
– or faster connections)
Moira has passed on the latest action research report from
Lui Hui from China's Experimental Centre for Educational Action Research in
Foreign Languages Teaching. It is on How can I help my students become more engaged
in reading comprehension through Integrated Skills of English? (just
click on the title to access it). Jean and Jack have accepted invitations to
present at a conference being organized at the Centre in May 2006. Moira hopes
to join us on the 6th February to share ideas on how her work may be
moving on in a way that helps to sustain the accomplishments of the last 4.5
years in Guyuan.
Alan has finished a complete draft of his new book on 'Feeling Space:
the inclusional nature of neighbourhood' and I'm hoping that we can share this
writing over the next month or so. The details of the international conference
Alan is helping to organize as an enquiry into the nature of addiction can be
accessed at:
http://www.unhookedthinking.com/
Ben Cunningham is planning
to attend this with his colleague Grazyn Fylan and you can access Ben's
doctoral thesis on How do I come to know my spirituality as I create
my own living educational theory?at:
http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/ben.shtml
Viv's draft dissertation on bullying is in for readers' responses.
Marie's Ph.D. proposal is in. Alon is working on the first complete draft of
his doctoral thesis as
an answer to the question, How do I lead a more meaningful, ontologically
secured, sustainable, productive, gratifying, dignifying, fulfilling and
contributing existence in, with and towards the world for myself?
Anna
– if you fancy sharing more of your ideas on the development of your
thesis it would be good to hear your insights into the implications for teacher
education of the transformations from teacher education in the Soviet system,
to the Russian system of recent years.
Pirrko
– not sure if you got my message about sharing more of the ideas you
raised at the Womens' Study Seminar, at a Monday evening conversation, but you
are always welcome.
Looking
forward to seeing you at Monday evening's conversation – if you can't
make it or have ideas/resources to share just e-mail me with details or bring
them in. If anyone fancies sharing a review of 'What Difference Does Research Make and for Whom?' edited by Francoise Bodone and published by Peter Lang in 2005, do bring it along.
Yaqub, this is something you might like to do when you come along with Allan? I've just finished a draft of my enquiry, How am I enhancing my educational influences with racialising discourses of whiteness in living educational theories? and I'm hoping to share these ideas in one of our Monday evening conversations. You can
access the paper at http://www.jackwhitehead.com/monday/jwrace.htm
Love Jack.