The free teaching resources, lesson plans and work sheets cover, ks1, ks2, ks3 and ks4 and all school curriculum subjects. There are write ups on each resource and a link to where you can get the lesson plan from.

PETA Foundation
An extensive range of teaching resources including posters, videos and more

Visit their website
Find out more

AA Driving School
Free financial awareness lessons from AA Driving School

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PDC Careers
Download three activities introducing career options
Find out more

They are intended ‘designed to support the development of generic skills, knowledge and understanding of trainee teachers in the lifelong learning sector’, and ‘as part of … continuing professional development’.

So where are they, and how are they organised?

They resources are now part of the ‘QIA Excellence Gateway‘, and start at

http://excellence.qia.org.uk/Golddust/

As the QIA has just become LSIS, the ‘Learning and Skills Improvement Service‘ (on 1st October), I hope these links stay as they are for a while!

The ‘Gold Dust‘ resources have been available since 2007, but I’m not sure how widely used they are. Having had a pretty comprehensive browse of them, this is my review of the resources.

They are ‘designed to support the development of generic skills, knowledge and understanding of trainee teachers in the lifelong learning sector’, and ‘as part of … continuing professional development’.

So where are they, and how are they organised?

The resources are now part of the ‘QIA Excellence Gateway‘, and can be found at

http://excellence.qia.org.uk/Golddust/

As the QIA has just become LSIS, the ‘Learning and Skills Improvement Service‘ (on 1st October), I hope these links stay as they are for a while!

The categories are:

• Session planning
• Differentiation
• Assessment and feedback
• Assessment and feedback – personal and social skills
• Reflective practice
• Gaining from technology
• Active learning
• Tutoring – personal and social skills
• Tutoring – communication skills
• Professional values
• Questioning techniques
• Using group work
• Discussion
• Numeracy and mathematics
• Literacy and language
• Activities to adapt
• Observing an experienced teacher

When you select a category (I’ve chosen ‘active learning‘) you get a screen which organises the resources clearly and categorisies them by type. There’s also a useful cross referencing to other categories.

I’ll go through each section of this page looking at a selection of the resorces, with my comments italicised:

The first category is ‘information sheets‘

• What is active learning? – Word or PDF
• From passive to active learning – Word or PDF
• Some underlying principles – Word or PDF
• Some frequently asked questions – Word or PDF
• Introducing active learning to learners – Word or PDF
• Characteristics that illustrate inspectors’ judgements about teaching and learning – Word or PDF
• Success factors for level 2 programmes – Word or PDF
• Skills for Life information sheet – Word or PDF
• Example of active learning – from chaos to database (all resources required for the activity are included here)
• Questions to consider when planning an activity – Word or PDF
• 8 principles for effective teaching – Word or PDF

The information sheets are clear, generally well put together, and provide a good range of useable activity and knowledge about active learning. The next section is ‘activities

• Activity-based and target-based schemes of work – Word or PDF
• Planning for variety – ideas to help – Word or PDF

The last section is video footage

• Learners’ views – Watch video or Download Real video (2 MB) WMV video (6 MB)
• Geoff Petty and teachers’ views
  • what is active learning? – Watch video or Download Real video (4 MB) WMV video (15 MB)
  • using active learning – Watch video or Download Real video (2 MB) WMV video (4 MB)
  • challenging learners – Watch video or Download Real video (1 MB) WMV video (2 MB)
  • involving learners – Watch video or Download Real video (1 MB) WMV video (3 MB)
• Planning and preparation – Watch video or Download Real video (2 MB) WMV video (8 MB)
• Frank’s experience – Watch video or Download Real video (4 MB) WMV video (14 MB)
• Learners talking – Watch video or Download Real video (2 MB) WMV video (4 MB)

You get the added bonus of Geoff Petty in the video footage, as he was a consultant on some of the videos.

Overall this is a really good resource for anyone interested in teaching and learning. My one minor quibble is that it would be good to be able to embed the videos in blogs etc, but you can download them if you wanted to.

All teachers should take a look! 

Is a new browser, and here are some reviews

Nicholas Carr + Seb Scmoller http://fm.schmoller.net/2008/09/nicholas-carr-o.html

Google Chrome by Dick Moore, who is impressed. http://fm.schmoller.net/2008/09/a-quick-review.html

Thanks to the Marchmont Observatory for the reviews.

Have you tried it?

What do you think?