The specification and design of an interactive virtual environment for use in teacher training

The original concept was to create a 'simulation' which would provide trainee teachers, specializing in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) with the opportunity to explore a primary school environment. Within the simulation, factors affecting the development and implementation of ICT would be modelled so that trainees would be able to develop the skills, knowledge and understanding necessary to identify appropriate strategies to overcome the limitations. To this end, we have developed Allsorts Primary - the prototype of a simulated interactive environment, representing a typical primary school

Hermeneutics, accreting receptions, hypermedia: A tool for reference versus a tool for instruction

We provide a select overview of tools supporting traditional Jewish learning. Then we go on to discuss our own HyperJoseph/HyperIsaac project in instructional hypermedia. Its application is to teaching, teacher training, and self-instruction in given Bible passages. The treatment of two narratives has been developed thus far. The tool enables an analysis of the text in several respects: linguistic, narratological, etc. Moreover, the Scriptures' focality throughout the cultural history makes this domain of application particularly challenging, in that there is a requirement for the tool to encompass the accretion of receptions in the cultural repertoire, i.e., several layers of textual traditions—either hermeneutic (i.e., interpretive), or appropriations—related to the given core passage, thus including "secondary" texts (i.e., such that are responding or derivative) from as disparate realms as Roman-age and later homiletics, Medieval and later commentaries or supercommentaries, literary appropriations, references to the arts and modern scholarship, etc. in particular, the Midrash (homiletic expansions) is adept at narrative gap filling, so the narratives mushroom at the interstices where the primary text is silent. The genealogy of the project is rooted in Weiss' index of novelist Agnon's writings, which was eventually upgraded into a hypertextual tool, including Agnon's full-text and ancillary materials. Those early tools being intended primarily for reference and research-support in literary studies, the Agnon hypertext system was initially emulated in the conception of HyperJoseph, which is applied to the Joseph story from Genesis. Then, the transition from a tool for reference to an instructional tool required a thorough reconception in an educational perspective, which led to HyperIsaac, on the sacrifice of Isaac, and to a redesign and upgrade of HyperJoseph as patterned after HyperIsaac.

Two steps forward, one step back: developing the curriculum for training teachers for technical and further education England 1945-1956

This paper discusses the development of provision for the training of teachers in English further and technical education from 1945 to 1956. While these years saw little growth in this provision, they were formative in that the institutional and curricular patterns of teacher training for the diverse fields of technical and further education were developed at this time. The work of the three national centres in Bolton, London and Huddersfield, during the period of the Emergency Training Scheme (ETS) is summarised with particular reference to the influence of the Ministry of Education‟s conditions for ETS colleges and courses. With the ending of the ETS in 1951 the three centres were given permanent status as teacher training colleges which in turn brought them into association with their local universities as constituent colleges of their Area Training Organisations. The consequences of this transfer to the universities for the curriculum and assessment of technical teacher training and the 'policy dichotomy' of teacher training for secondary and technical education are examined.

Training teachers for further and technical education 1950-1982: staff perceptions of changing demands and policies

This paper aims to create a picture of aspects of the working lives of some trainers of technical and further education teachers in a specialist teacher training college in Bolton, Lancashire, from the 1950s to the 1980's. There is little reference to technical teacher training in the literature on teacher training in the second half of the twentieth century. With this gap in mind, this paper sets out to record some memories and impressions of staff involved during these years. Using data from a series of semi-structured interviews, the discussion centres upon their perceptions of their work: of their students, the working environment, the curriculum and their relationships with the technical colleges for whom they were training teachers. The paper has three sections. It begins with a brief discussion of the issues arising from the choice of research methods. The second section contextualises the study and traces the history of Bolton Technical Teachers' Training College from its establishment through to its merger with the Institute of Technology in 1982. This is followed by the presentation and discussion of the interview data.

What Education Studies is and what it might be

Education Studies at the University of Greenwich is presented as an example of what Education Studies is – at least at one Higher Education Institution. As a field of practice to which a body of knowledge can be applied, Education Studies shares common features with other disciplinary fields of study. It is also unique in that its field – learning, is also what its students do – learn. What Education Studies isn’t is then discussed in relation to studies of schooling, the psychology of learning, sociology of education, traditional education degrees and teacher training. Lastly, what Education Studies could become is presented with reference to Ranson’s (1993) argument for the centrality of education as the common focus of all HE study. It is suggested that the subject could then contribute to expanding critical space in (higher) education through making research/ scholarship and creation an integral part of the Independent Study of all students at all levels of learning. This would be a necessary complement to the wider democratic transformation now demanded for human survival. It would also accord with what Marx called humanity’s “species being” as a “learning animal” (Morris). Such a social theory of learning can discriminate between information and competence at one level of learning and (corresponding terms) knowledge and skill at another more generalised level in relation to new divisions of knowledge and labour. Potentially these levels can be combined to create a new form of polytechnic learning, relating theory to practice, education to training and further to higher education.