GTC Chair Judy Moorhouse talks technology
Welcome to the summer issue of Teaching: the GTC magazine. This is our e-special issue, run through with classroom tales and more of how new technology is being used for learning today. Our centre spread shares the e-learning experiences of four teachers, from nursery to secondary, with tales of finding new opportunities to be seized, overcoming initial scepticism, and spotting the potential of new tools. Share their experiences in Chapter 5, and see Chapter 6 to find how the ICT Test Bed project is faring in the very different contexts of rural Durham and inner-city Barking.
But there has to be a big word of caution. No matter how good the kit in schools might be, for many children from disadvantaged backgrounds, the high-tech revolution ends as soon as they leave the classroom. One child in four lacks good quality access to a computer at home.
So we launch this issue with news of the Equity campaign, interviewing its patron / former Secretary of State for Education and Skills, Estelle Morris, and finding out how it aims to overcome what it calls 'the digital divide'. Read our interview with her in Chapter 4. We step outside the school context too. Can there be any harder to reach group of pupils than those who, for whatever reason, have stopped attending school? Notschool.net uses new technology to give them another chance to re-engage in learning.
The young 'Notschoolers' have very different stories but share overwhelmingly successful results, with 98 per cent actively learning again. Find out how Notschool works in Chapter 8.
One of the flagships of the GTC's flourishing research programme, run by a team from Manchester Metropolitan University, is called Developing Pedagogies for E-learning Resources - PELRS for short. In Chapter 7 you can see how schools in the project encourage pupils' own creativity, hence tapping into the great capacity of e-learning to enthuse both teachers and pupils. Our chief executive Carol Adams writes more about our research programme in Chapter 9.
And finally, in March we set out our plans for the GTC's next 12 months across our remit, from registration and regulation to policy and research. These include plans to develop our professional networks and the GTC Teacher Learning Academy - for as thousands of teachers already know, these are effective ways to share and extend your expertise, or receive accreditation for professional learning. We summarise this plan, For children, through teachers, in Chapter 10, and the whole document is available as a free download from the website or by phoning 0870 001 0308.
As always, if you would like to comment on any issues raised in this magazine, or share your ideas for improvement, we'd be delighted to hear from you. Contact us at: magazine@gtce.org.uk
Judy Moorhouse
Chair
General Teaching Council for England
