On the day that the front page of the TESS is talking about probationer teachers as a “Grotesque waste of talent”, I had the privilege of speaking to Perth & Kinross Council’s latest batch of talented teachers. The sad fact is that some of them will have to wait for a while after qualifying before they get a permanent post, but I do take some pride in the knowledge that PKC do try their hardest to place people.
I promised the probationers that I’d post links to the sites I referred to during my talk to them. They are meant to be a ’starter’ pack to introduce the wide variety of new primary and secondary teachers to the joys of education blogging. It is, as always, a limited selection (I only had about 10 minutes to cover Bogging and other Web2.0 tools…), but I hope you’ll add some more choice picks in the comments… The slides are on Slideshare (though without my improvised narration), and you are welcome to read them there.
So… my starter pack of blogs for the new PKC teachers are as follows:
Credit: AnnieMole on flickr
Primary Teacher: John Johnston
Secondary Teacher: Me (Look, it was my talk!)
Depute Headteacher: Ollie Bray
America: CoolCatTeacher
Australia: Graham Wegner
South Africa (British by adoption?): Karyn Romeis
China (Or rather, a teacher in China): Thinking Stick
Inspiring: Hot Milky Drink
Education Support Officer: Health & Wellbeing in Integrated Learning Communities
Teacher Teacher: EdCompBlog
Education Researcher: Neu-Thinking
The Ex-Teacher (and Daddy Glow!): John Connell
Groups of Teachers: Connected Live Blog
Director of Education: Don Ledingham of East Lothian
The Pupil (now, an ex-pupil!): The Bass Player – Students2.0
And I know there are many many more I should have included (Ewan and Stephen and David and Will and danah to name but a few!) but time was against me… so… over to you!
The Brief: Which blogs would you recommend for someone new to the teaching profession? (And maybe even why…) I know that quite a few of the 80 or so new teachers I spoke to will be dropping in to see what you suggest, so go for it!
August 30, 2008 at 8:50 am
Probationer blog : Krysia (or me
)
August 30, 2008 at 10:26 am
Infantile moment alert
You were covering ‘Bogging’ during your talk?
August 30, 2008 at 1:17 pm
@stuart: Argh… trust me to forget the really obvious and useful ones… no excuse for that at all! To the new teachers, check out Stuart and Krysia’s blogs… well worth reading to find out some of the trials and tribulations that lie ahead….
@Ian: Absolutely… originally meant to be blogging, but time limitations meant I had to cut bits out. I also talked about wiis despite being originally scheduled for wikis! ;0)
August 30, 2008 at 4:38 pm
I would recomend the blog of my South Lanarkshire colleague Caroline Gibson
http://carolinegibson.wordpress.com/
If you want to have a look at what its possible to achieve as a teacher, her posts about the global teachers trip to Malawi are inspiring I tink..
Jaye
September 2, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Thanks for including me
September 4, 2008 at 1:16 pm
Thanks for including me. I hope my blog may prove useful to your new teachers, and I’m always happy to share anything that may help a fellow learning professional, but honesty compels me to point out:
Yes, I am South African, but I have been living in the UK for 9 years, so my views of the South African education system may well be dated
My own working experience is primarily in the corporate sector, although I maintain that learning is learning regardless of where, why or how you do it