Editorial

When 'teaching a class of daemons, dragons and trainee teachers' - learning the pedagogy of the virtual classroom

Virtual worlds can offer opportunities to further extend the experience, skills and understanding of professionals, in this case pre-service teachers. Based on the empirical evidence provided by professional, pre-service teachers, this paper describes the social and emotional aspects of being and learning in a virtual world and the implications for e-safety of the immersive experience. The management challenge is to ensure both the policy and practice of virtual world teaching provide an effective and safe environment for learning. The paper shows that the Byron Report grid provides a comprehensive structure on which the planning can be based and the challenges communicated.

Utilising podcasts for learning and teaching: a review and ways forward for e-Learning cultures

This article explores the usefulness of podcasts as a pedagogic tool.¹ It situates the adoption of podcasts for learning and teaching within the context of a brief history of e-Learning itself and briefly reviews the suggestion that e-Learning and social media suit the construction of a new learner – the digital native. While treating much of the ‘digital native’ debate with some caution, the argument is made that podcasting – as one pedagogic choice among many – is a fruitful avenue for practitioner exploration. It goes on to develop both an ideal-type of podcasting and some suggestions for a ‘podagogy’ (Rosell-Aguilar, 2007). The article argues that podcasting is a simple, cheap, accessible and powerful means to explore learning opportunities through the adoption of social media.² At the same time, podcasting represents a useful starting point for institutions, senior managers and e-leaders to develop e-cultures among teaching practitioners, within a context of leadership for creativity.

'It's quite liberating turning up to a classroom without a pile of papers and equipment.' Pedagogic bungee jumping: a strategy to rethink teaching in a technology-rich age?

Initial Teacher Education (ITE) for the post-compulsory sector (PCE) in the UK is currently under review. Despite earlier plans to substantially increase the use of technology in ITE the Lifelong Learning UK (LLUK) consultation findings recommend that ‘we will expect that teachers do develop their skills in this area to a limited extent on a mandatory basis' (LLUK, 2011b:12). This is a disappointing departure as other commissioned work such as that from the Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS) (2009: 8) review of workforce development identified that this area was in need of continuous updating. This article will consider the need more than ever before to explore what Barnett identifies (2007: 1) as the links between teaching and learning in higher education and ‘pedagogic bungee jumping’ with the development of cultures supportive to experimental technology use in ITE focusing upon a group of teacher educators in a West Midlands ITE Partnership (higher education institute (HEI) and partner colleges).

Distributed pedagogical leadership and generative dialogue in educational nodes

The article presents practices of distributed pedagogical leadership and generative dialogue as a tool with which management and personnel can better operate in the increasingly turbulent world of education. Distributed pedagogical leadership includes common characteristics of a professional learning community when the educational actors intentionally share a common mission. There, all stakeholders take collective responsibility for students' learning. Generative dialogue is a way to negotiate in this realm in generating new knowledge and understanding. To introduce this process in practice, the article describes two Finnish learning environments where the stakeholders define, first, the critical nodes, paths and contents in students' individual learning paths in vocational education, and, second, presents examples of generative dialogue within distributed pedagogical leadership.

Governance and school boards in non-state schools in Australia

The paper explores governance arrangements in non-state school in Australia, using 17 interviews in six schools. The focus is on board composition, structure and reporting. Useful contributions about innovative practice are identified. School boards may benefit from implementing more stakeholder engagement. Existing models of school boards from international state school literature, such as the democracy and trustee models, were useful for describing some aspects of non-state school governance, but a faith model is also suggested. Further research could operationalise governance elements to conduct a quantitative investigation with more schools and more informants. The paper adds to the expanding international literature on school governance by researching a country that has received little governance attention. The paper focuses on a significant area for school leadership: school boards in non-state schools.

Deployment and impact of higher level teaching assistants - how do small-scale local studies fit into the bigger picture?

Since 2003 over 39,000 higher level teaching assistants (HLTAs) have gained their status by proving that they meet a set of rigorous standards, which are closely aligned to those expected of newly qualified teachers. Taking as its starting point two research studies carried out in the East Midlands this paper seeks to demonstrate their relationship to national studies undertaken into the use and deployment of HLTAs and the impact this is having upon schools. Through consideration of the experience of one case study school and a questionnaire to HLTAs the paper seeks to identify some of the successes and problems that have been encountered along the way. The paper also considers the efforts being made both locally and nationally to address these issues.

Book review: Understanding Challenging Behaviour in Inclusive Classrooms

Book review: Leading the Strategically Focused School