Cascading the use of Web 2.0 technology in secondary schools in the United Kingdom: identifying the barriers beyond pre-service training

This paper reports on research that took place at two universities in the United Kingdom, over two years. The research focuses on the use of Web 2.0 technology, specifically blogs, with pre-service teachers, both during their university programme and the first year of teaching as full-time newly qualified teachers (NQTs). The purpose of this research was to add to a developing body of knowledge by identifying whether technology used by pre-service teachers during their training course can be cascaded into their practice once qualified. Key findings identify a number of enablers and barriers to cascading technology in the classroom; these include curriculum time, pupil skills and support. The research concludes that early professional support and development should continue during the early years of teaching and assumptions about new teachers as champions of cascading innovative use of Web 2.0 technologies into their practice as NQTs may be over-optimistic.     

Unvarnished Documentation: A Dialogue Between Teacher and Parent in Understanding a Child's “Bad” Behavior

Teachers are often asked to fill out progress reports that include check marks indicating if a child has met certain criteria. While this document offers a superficial glance at knowing a child, it is often the only kind of “assessment” a parent receives. The authors, a daycare teacher and a parent of Rosa, “the mean girl” in the daycare, show how the teacher's daily, unvarnished observations of Rosa and her daycare peers are written and shared publicly in a way that not only helps Rosa's mother gain profound new understandings of her daughter but also helps create a trusting community.     

How is the discipline of publishing studies accommodated within universities?

This paper offers an overview, both internationally and with a particular concentration on the UK, of how the profession‐orientated discipline of publishing studies (PS) is accommodated and established within those universities where it is offered. It presents a combination of data, gained from a survey of professionals teaching PS, desk research into courses of PS in the UK, and from Heidi and HESA. The findings offer information on the size of the field, the location, the employability of graduates and associated staffing and research support structures. While of interest to publishing studies per se, it should also be relevant to those working within other profession‐orientated disciplines; to those considering the employability of graduating students; and to those considering the value of postgraduate studies.     

'I never thought they would enjoy the fun of science just like ordinary children do'– Exploring science experiences with early years teacher training students and children with severe and profound learning difficulties

Alison Bishop and Phyllis Jones both work in the School of Education at Northumbria University where they teach on undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. Phyllis Jones specialises in disability issues and Alison Bishop focuses on early years education. For the project described in this paper, they combined their areas of expertise, devising a small–scale research project to explore the experiences of a group of early years science specialist student teachers as they took part in workshops with a group of early years children with severe and profound learning difficulties. The research explores the changing attitudes and perceptions of the students with regard to the learning and teaching of science with young children. It becomes clear that there is a realization for many students that science can make a significant contribution to the education of children with severe and profound learning difficulties in the early years. The authors also discuss the need for training to equip the students to meet the challenges and rewards of working with children with severe and profound learning difficulties in their future teaching careers.     

Connecting with connexions: the role of the personal adviser with young people with special educational and support needs

The Connexions service has particular responsibility for coordinating transition planning for students with learning difficulties. In this study Bob Grove and Alison Giraud–Saunders report on the development of the personal adviser (PA) role in two special schools and an FE college as part of the Lewisham Connexions pilot. This article is based on the evaluation report of the Connecting with Connexions project, which is available in full from the authors.     

‘What do you call the dull words?’ Primary school children using corpus‐based approaches to learn about language

This article reports on a study in progress which is exploring the potential for teaching Key Stage 2 pupils about the grammar and vocabulary of English with materials based on an electronically stored corpus of texts and associated software. It includes examples of the teaching activities used and extracts of discussions between the researcher and two groups of pupils. It illustrates children beginning to explore the distinction between ‘open’ and ‘closed’ classes of words.     

The value and impact of information provided through library services for patient care: a systematic review

OBJECTIVE: An updated systematic review was carried out of research studies looking at the value and impact of library services on health outcomes for patients and time saved by health professionals. METHODS: A comprehensive systematic search was undertaken of the published literature to September 2003 in ERIC, LISA, MEDLINE, PREMEDLINE, EMBASE, the Cochrane Controlled Trials Register and Google. Some handsearching was carried out, reference lists were scanned and experts in the field were contacted. Twenty-eight research studies of professionally led libraries for health-care staff, including clinical librarian projects, met the inclusion criterion of at least one health or 'time saved' outcome. Papers were critically appraised using internationally accepted criteria. Data were extracted and results were summarised using a narrative format as the studies were heterogeneous and precluded a statistical analysis. RESULTS: There is evidence of impact from both traditional and clinical librarian services. The higher quality studies of traditional services measured impacts of 37-97% on general patient care, 10-31% on diagnosis, 20-51% on choice of tests, 27-45% on choice of therapy and 10-19% on reduced length of stay. Four studies of clinical librarian projects suggested that professionals saved time as a result of clinical librarian input, and two of these studies showed evidence of cost-effectiveness. However, the clinical librarian studies were generally smaller, with poorer quality standards. CONCLUSIONS: Research studies suggest that professionally led library services have an impact on health outcomes for patients and may lead to time savings for health-care professionals. The available studies vary greatly in quality but the better quality studies also suggest positive impacts. Good practice can be gathered from these studies to guide the development of a pragmatic survey for library services that includes the direct effects for patients among the outcome measures.