Author: Sal
Joe Dale: Nodehill Middle School Teacher on Radio 4 PM (podcast)
Thursday, 26th March, 2009 at 1:03 pm, Isle of Wight
Education, Island-wide, Media, Overseas, Technology, podcast
Listeners of BBC Radio 4’s ‘PM’ News programme might have heard the Isle of Wight being represented yesterday, as Nodehill Middle School’s modern languages teacher, Joe Dale, took the airwaves.
Thanks to the BBC who have given permission for us to re-broadcast the part of the show (listen below) where Joe was discussing the use of technology in schools.
Joe Dale has been a pioneer in this area and has a world renowned reputation for the use of technology in modern languages.
He spearheaded the Technology In Schools conference, two of which have taken place on the Isle of Wight, attracting attendees from around the world.
More ICT Skills in School
Being asked to take part in discussions on one of the most prestigious news programmes in the UK can only add to Joe’s accolades and of course, is great publicity for the Isle of Wight.
The discussion focused around the teaching of ICT skills in schools, including training on the use of social media tools such as Twitter.
As you can imagine, VB is all for technology and whilst there is no denying that our children’s education needs to be broad, teachers might find that many young people don’t need to be taught a lot of these packages – because they’re using them already on a daily basis.
In our view it would be far better for technology education to go back to teaching programming and logic rather than how to just use software.
Anyway, we’re sure you’ll all have your own views on the subject, so feel free to comment below.
To listen to the broadcast, click on the play button below
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Audio: Copyright permission granted by BBC.
Image: Joe Dale
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So, Simon, would that be you then? A fetishist? ;-)
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Joe Dale is one of my heroes, and one of many reasons to keep Node Hill afloat! We asked Christopher how he was getting on in French not long after he started at the school, and were able to hear him and his class reciting it via the school website the following day, thanks to Mr Dale.
His use of computers in school complements the stuff he teaches, which is how it should be. When computing is taught as a separate subject, I’m with Sal – one of the reasons that we as a nation excel (or did) at programming, is that millions of youngsters cut their teeth on early computers like the Sinclair Spectrum, which encouraged them to write code. It is not necessary to spend lots of class time learning work/office applications in fine detail, not least because by the time children leave education, those won’t be the programs they meet!
Microsoft likes to encourage schools (and councils) to spend large sums with them on the pretext that their stuff is predominant now, but who knows what will hold sway in a decade or so? It won’t be Office 2007, that’s for sure, and may not even be Windows…
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Astonishing piece on this in today’s CP by Charlotte Hofton, who seems to be wholly anti-technology! I wonder how she files her copy? On clay tablets perhaps…
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I noticed that, too. But having heard the original item on R4 Joe Dale made some good points, and he clearly uses ICT to good effect in his work at Nodehill.
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Quite agree, Wendy, but I was more concerned for the people whose introduction to Joe was via Ms Hofton’s article, which conveniently fails to mention that he has an national reputation, or that if the class of 15-years olds mentioned had really never read a book before, they would hardly be ready for Joseph Conrad!
It also sits uneasily with the predictably pessimistic ‘bottom of the class’ headline about KS2 results on the front page, which gives no context (‘details next week’) but can’t resist parroting the council line.
I admit to being defensive about middle schools and Nodehill in particular, but a level playing field would a nice start!
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Don’t knock Charlotte Hofton. If it wasn’t for her the Island’s clay tablet industry would have collapsed long ago. Although I hear that the schools reorganisation will have the positive effect of increasing the use of clay tablets in not just the faith based schools, which should bring about a further boost to this important industry. It is predicted that by 2012 there will be a clay tablet bubble which when it bursts will make the 2000 technology bubble look like a tiny blip.
Back to Nodehill…together with Solent and Ventnor Middle all of these schools had above England average KS2 results and that should have been the headline. Whatever happened to sharing best practice. But of course that was the job of the IWC and they failed. You can hardly blame the County Council Press for that can you?
The great work done by schools like Nodehill should have used to improve all our middle schools. What a waste.
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I seem to recall a distant CH piece where she expressed surprise (and apparent alarm) at the presence of ‘high cut knickers’ on the shelves at M&S. Clearly she belongs to a bygone age, where exposed limbs caused fits of the vapours and the fountain pen was a tool of the Devil… :-)
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On balance, I’m a fan, James. Her accounts of council meetings as viewed from the public gallery are very funny and astute, and in a recent column she was also spot on about the launch of the competition to run schools – a subject close to my heart:
http://www.iwcp.co.uk/news/the-view-from-here/young-need-more-than-a-try-25097.aspx.
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I don’t disagree, Wendy. I think she’s very sharp on council meetings and local politics, but I thought her take on a subject about which she clearly knew little was misplaced. As with the Thwartists who’ve neither seen nor heard a wind turbine in action… :-)
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