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NSC Home Page > EUAS Contents > Information sources
EDUCATION
Information sources
In order to assist those not involved in education on a day-to-day basis but contemplating working say with schools, it might be useful to track how a teacher might typically approach research into a topic. As has been previously mentioned (see also Appendix 16), until fairly recently it would have been standard practice to rely heavily upon textbooks and colleagues for information. Whereas this is still the case for routine, tightly curriculum-based teaching or where the same subject content has been taught for a number of years, more and more use is being made of the internet, particularly where new themes are being developed, e.g. in response to syllabus changes or new government policies. In this context the following comments apply:
· Every teacher has been required to learn at least basic ICT skills following a major government initiative; to ensure this happened, training was specifically funded and followed through.
· Teachers acquire considerable amounts of information about useful websites. This can come from government periodicals issued to every teacher, union magazines, Times Educational Supplement (TES - every school get a copy for their library), journals of subject associations (e.g. for science/the various sciences, geography, design/technology),the school librarian - who will carry out research for teachers/specialist publications colleagues, TV programmes.
· The websites best known to teachers are the government sponsored ones - DfES/TeacherNet/NGfL. These are the most used starting points for research into a particular topic, because they each have powerful search engines and a vast range of links to other useful websites.
- www.bitesize.co.uk is a revision website for students at KS4 and sites like this, are also very useful.
- For information on available courses, vocational and more academic, visit the government site, www.learndirect.co.uk
Further examples and details are given below.
So
- First of all, search the government sponsored websites looking for a chosen topic, typing in the keywords/phrases to attempt to pull up a relevant unit of work.
- Follow up any potentially useful web links leading to further information.
- For most teachers, this approach is usually more than sufficient.
- If this proved to be less productive than hoped, a teacher would more than likely use Google.com or a similar search engine. This never fails to get content and excellent pictures. The problem of course is filtering out the unwanted/irrelevant information. One can frequently find other teacher's worksheets on specific topics this way if you are persistent, but beware, quality is not always consistently good and much non-UK material may be of questionable relevance.Examples of specialist websites useful for education:
General
Department for Educational Skills www.standards.dfes.gov.uk
National Curriculum www.nc.uk.net
Teachernet www.teachernet.gov.uk
Learndirect www.learndirect.co.uk
Bitesize www.bitesize.co.uk
National Grid for Teaching www.ngfl.gov.uk
Apprenticeships www.apprenticeships.org.ukScience/Geography/Technology
Inst of Physics www.iop.org
Inst of Biology www.iob.org
Royal Society of Chemistry www.rsc.org
Joint Earth Science Education Initiative www.jesei.org
Design and Technology Assocation www.data.org.uk
Association for Science Education www.ase.org.uk
Geographical Association www.geography.org.uk
Royal Geographical Society www.rgs.org
Earth Science Teachers Association www.esta-uk.org
Geological Society www.geolsoc.org.uk
Science Active www.science-active.co.uk
British Geological Society www.bgs.ac.uk
Mineralsuk (BGS Minerals data) www.mineralsuk.comSee also specialist sites offered by Industry (Information sources) and a number of other contacts given in the Post 16 formal education and Community education sections.