The Blogosphere in 2015

SignalNoise.png

‘It’s hard to tell the signal from the noise.’

Nate Silver

In 2015, the blogosphere continued its unstoppable momentum. The Echo Chamber Uncut was set up by edublogosphere commander-in-chief Old Andrew in March, with over 60,000 blogposts in 2015, over 1,000 a week. There are now well over 2,500 education blogs in the UK. The Echo Chamber team selected 5,600 blogposts to reblog last year: over 15 a day.

 

After Britain’s general election in May, there’s to be a five-year consolidation of education policy in England at the Department for Education to 2020, with 500 new free schools to be set up over the next 5 years.

 

Here’s my effort to distinguish the signal from the noise in 2015:

 

5 top blogposts on this blog in 2015

Organisers

Revision

Workload

Marking

Resourcing

 

5 treasure trove education blogs

These are the blogs I’ve most often revisited this year:

Reading all the Books on memory

Clio et Cetera on history

Wing to Heaven on assessment

Tabula Rasa on reading

Filling The Pail on research

 

 

5 education highlights from 2015

Crowdsourcing Knowledge Organisers

James Theobold’s initiative to share knowledge organisers online is a great idea.

Wellington Festival 2015

Jonathan Simons, Rob Peal, Daisy Christodoulou on Gove’s reforms; Dylan Wiliam on assessment; Ken Robinson on creativity.

ResearchEd 2015

Daisy Christodoulou on comparative judgment; Tim Oates on textbooks; Katie Ashford on grammar; John Brunskill on moral psychology; Jo Facer on memory; Andy Tharby on research; Eric Kalenze on knowledge.

Teaching Learning Takeover 2015

Phil Stock on vocabulary; Chris Hildew on character; Andy Tharby on challenge; Mark Millar on data.

Debating Education at Michaela 2015

Daisy Christodolou and Guy Claxton on teacher-led instruction; Old Andrew and Bruno Reddy on setting and mixed ability; James O Shaughnessy on character; John David Blake and Katie Ashford on Ofsted; Jonny Porter and Francis Gilbert on Gove.

 

 

3 intentions for 2016

 

Re-Resourcing: improving our units on Antigone, Rhetoric, She Wolves and others.

 

Curriculum Design: creating units on War Poets & Holocaust Poetry, The Crucible; Civil Rights Rhetoric; in History, creating units on the Stuarts, French Revolution, The Slave Trade, The Industrial Revolution; The British Empire and World War.

 

School Visits: visiting other excellent schools in 2016, after invaluable visits to King Solomon Academy in 2013, Burlington Danes in 2014 and Dixons Trinity Academy in 2015.

 

 

3 hopes for 2016

 

Increasing Signal: hoping The Echo Chamber focuses on reducing the traffic and noise, and increasing the signal from the best blogs in 2016.

 

Surveying Teachers: hoping Nick Rose’s brilliant survey gets funded and expanded in 2016.

 

Sharing Resources: hoping the education blogosphere starts to collect and share pupil work in 2016.

 

 

 

 

 

 

About Joe Kirby

School leader, education writer, Director of Education and co-founder, Athena Learning Trust, Deputy head and co-founder, Michaela Community School, English teacher
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