Memories..

.. like the corners of my mind.

Ok, Christmas is over, and as I actually submitted my first assignment early due to my flight to England I now have to dredge the depths of my mind to remember what it was all about. It's quite amazing how a couple of weeks off from the hard slog, plus jetlag and small children, allows you to just forget what it was all about.

Well, I think it's starting to come back now. It was something to do with resourcing the curriculum.. yes?

I jest, of course. While the details are perhaps a little hazier, much like the English weather outside my window, there are a number of things I have learned from the process of this assignment. For a start, resourcing can be quite time consuming, but I think there comes an optimal moment where it would be counter-productive to continue. There are a number of useful OPACs providing lists of resources, and some of them have useful reviews, but after a while they begin to offer the same things you've already seen, or at least nothing better.

Obviously you don't want to get stuck in a rut, using the same tools every time, but the reality is that most people are going to settle on a few favourites that they think offer good value. I think I would find it useful to set a rule for myself that I would always try at least one new tool, or revisit a neglected one. If nothing else, this would help me stay in touch with new developments and keep things interesting.

I think my favourite discovery was the Follett Titlewave site. They seemed well set up to make things easy for schools who want to invest in eBooks, and judging by the email I received for their sales team they are keen to be helpful when a school wants to join them. It must be the Englishman in me, but I felt a bit embarrassed when they assumed I was the TL for my school and wanted to set up a credit line. I'd only signed up to see what they had available. Still, maybe I could select a few resources and suggest them to the TL at my new school in January.

Bibliography Blanket

I haven't posted much on my studies for ETL503 in a couple of weeks, mainly because I've been researching for my first assignment. I have to admit that I thought it would  be easier to find appropriate resources on the Industrial Revolution for year 9, but everything I found just seemed to be out of date or very adult. It'll be interesting to see if there are some more resources appear before the history curriculum is implemented in 2013.

Anyway, a change of topic, and a level I'm more familiar with: year 5 on the solar system. Lots more stuff available. To be honest, I'm now selecting more on what shows I can use a range of selection tools rather than what is the best item. My only difficulty is the requirement to select predominantly online resources. For this age group there is still a lot more available in hard copy format, and electronic resources such as CD-Roms, DVDs and ebooks don't all count because they're not on the internet, although free ebooks could be included if there were any decent ones available. The only one I've found of use is on Amazon, which is great, but a Kindle doesn't count as online either. So, it may be something of a struggle to select the best 4 offline resources.

Well, at least I'm almost there, and I've even written part A. I'm just finding it disconcerting that I'm not creating an extensive reference list as I write. I know this is because the nature of the assignment is very practical, but I realise that I miss my bibliography blanket. It makes me feel more secure to see a thorough list of research articles that prove I haven't just sat down and typed out the first thing that came into my head.