OpenStreetMap

openstreetmap
Originally uploaded by Gordon McKinlay

I am sitting using my EeePC this afternoon. With everyone at home it is hard to get access to a computer! My son highlighted this site as something that might be interesting. I have had a bit of a look and think it might be of interest so I am just posting quickly just now to remind myself to look at it in more detail. I have added a link to the site in my del.icio.us tags.

OpenStreetMap creates and provides free geographic data such as street maps to anyone who wants them. The project was started because most maps you think of as free actually have legal or technical restrictions on their use, holding back people from using them in creative, productive, or unexpected ways.

It is possible to link the map to a GPS and trace new locations, etc. It is also possible to add your own locations, etc. AS guess it's a bit of a combination of a map and a wiki.

Periodic Table

I am not a chemist. My background is in physics. There was always far too much stuff to learn in chemistry. In physics you don't have to learn stuff you have to work it out. Perhaps that explains some of my thinking about education and learning. I am not a big fan of learning stuff. That's what books and the web are for. I can look up stuff that I need to know. What I do need is the skills to know how to do something. Hence, physics is a far superior discipline. We just need to be clear about that before you read on. Someone sent me a link to this site and when I had a look I reckoned that it could be very useful for all those poor people who have to study chemistry (apart from my son, Alistair, I am not sure that there are many of them now anyway). Each of the elements on the table has a link to a video about that element.

A good resource for all those poor teachers of chemistry.

Personas for Firefox

Personas for Firefox
Originally uploaded by Gordon McKinlay

I am not a big fan of customising bits of software. Life is too short! So I have just surprised myself by downloading and installed Personas for Firefox. This is dynamic theme software which allows different skins to be applied by selecting from a wee menu on the bottom left of the browser. The list is updated automatically and can be added to as time goes by. There are a couple of templates which allow you to make your own and then submit them for inclusion. Is it worthwhile or just fluff? Probably just fluff but a lot of folk do like fluff (why can't you buy that in the UK?)

Download it at the Persona Site.

The templates for designing your own persona are here.

Ubiquity add on for Firefox

Ubiquity add on for Firefox
Originally uploaded by Gordon McKinlay

My son pointed this add-on for Mozilla Firefox to me. It's a bit of an experiment with thinking about different ways of interacting with the interface. You can find it here . There is a tutorial to help getting you started here .The main idea appears to be about starting to type commands whilst browsing the web. For example, I typed to bring up the Ubiquity window and then typed W Glasgow in order to get a weather forecast for Glasgow. I don't think I could do a similar task any more quickly any other way.

My initial though is that it certainly appears to allow a far faster way of getting where you want to be. I will give it a whirl for a wee while. I only installed Firefox 3 on this laptop this week so I am still getting used to the enhancements it brings to browsing the web. We shall see. Have you had a look at it yet?

Creating a Word Cloud

word cloud
Originally uploaded by Gordon McKinlay

This is just a bit of fun but I like it. Wordle is a toy which allows you to create a picture from a series of words. The bigger words appear more often in the source text. I found out about it whilst scanning through Will Richardson's blog earlier this evening (well it beats trying to write the paper that I've got to write!). The Wordle blog gives some information and other stuff on how to use the tool.

Does Class Size Matter?

Day 234/366
Originally uploaded by Gordon McKinlay

I am currently in the process of gathering some research on the effect of class size on pupil performance. I knew that the question was controversial and that there was a fair amount of disagreement on the subject. I wasn't, however, ready for the sheer diversity of opinion across educational thinking. Plenty of different people have sought to research the subject over the years from all sorts of backgrounds and with all sorts of baggage before they start.

My only conclusion to date is that the subject is difficult and that it is not easy to make direct correlation between the number of kids in the class and attainment.

What the research is clear about is that the quality of the teaching has a far greater impact than anything else going on that child's classroom experience. One research project noted that if the quality of the teaching is not right then there is no point in having more of it.

I still have to write my paper and I still don't know where to start or what to include. What do you think?

An Odd Day at Work

Day 233/366
Originally uploaded by Gordon McKinlay

It was strange at work today. UNISON, UNITE and GMB were all taking strike action. This meant that the office was very quiet indeed. We spent most of the day answering questions from schools and being available for advice and support. I did not enjoy crossing the picket line. No matter how calm and peaceful, these are still very intimidating.

By lunch time they had all gone into Glasgow for a march. All that was left was a couple of very damp signs.

TES Website Refresh

I was interested this week more by the fact that I received an email about the new TES website than I was about the new site itself. That doesn't mean I don't like it and don't think it's not a good resource for teachers in schools. I do think it is a valuable resource and I do think that teachers need to keep up to date with TES as it is really the only professional journal for education in Scotland. I have had some concerns about some of the recent articles in the paper over recent months where I have been quoted out of context but that's a different story and not one that I intend discussing in a public forum like this.

The reason I was interested in the email was because it had pinpointed me as someone who blogs about education. I suppose I am just continually surprised that anyone would find what I have to say about education remotely interesting. This must be particularly the case now that I have to be so aware of what I can and can't say in public. I tend, therefore, to keep my views to myself now and only really highlight what I have been up to rather than passing much in the way of comment on them.

Anyway, they did. I have had a look at the new website and it looks pretty good. I will continue to read TESS and will continue to use the website. I just wish you could search the archive of articles from it. That would be a really useful resource. In the past week I have had to do a manual trawl of the past few months looking for articles that I knew were in there but couldn't remember when they were published.