ESCalate Bulletin No. 10 (1 October 2002)

Many of you will feel that we are well into the new academic year! Colleagues in Scotland and Northern Ireland begin earlier than the English universities and colleges, and colleagues who teach on PGCE courses in England may also have started some time ago. However, welcome to a new year and the first ESCalate bulletin.
I hope that during this year more colleagues will pass on local or other news to pass on to the constituency. The Bulletin will be issued every month, except for April, from now until July. Copy reaching me (A.Gilpin@bris.ac.uk) by the 15th will be included in that month's issue.

When Professor Sonia Blandford moved to Christchurch College, Canterbury. The Westminster Institute appointed a new ESCalate team, led by Dr Brian Marshall (bmarshall@brookes.ac.uk). The core team comprises Liz Browne, Bob Waugh, and David Wood.

I mentioned in the last Bulletin that the main emphasis of ESCalate's work in 2002-3 will be developing resources - on the website, and in paper guides where appropriate. I can now add some more detail.
We are redesigning the website to make way for a 'Resources' section to replace the rather obscurely named 'Learning Exchange'. Following consultation with colleagues this Resources section will be divided into sub-sections by course/programme. A designated team will manage the development of each section, as follows:

Initial Teacher Education for Schools (PGCE and first degrees)
Team leader: Professor Colin Harrison, University of Nottingham (Colin.Harrison@nottingham.ac.uk)
Initial Lecturer Education and CPD (FE)
Team Leader: Liz Browne, Oxford Brookes University (lbrowne@brookes.ac.uk)
Initial Lecturer Education and CPD (HE)
Team Leader: Terry Atkinson, University of Bristol (Terry.Atkinson@bristol.ac.uk)
First degrees in Education (non-teacher education)
Team leader: Bob Waugh, Oxford Brookes University (Bwaugh@brookes.ac.uk)
Masters degrees
Team Leader: Professor Stella Parker, School of Continuing Education, Nottingham (Stella.parker@nottingham.ac.uk)
Doctoral degrees
Team Leader: Professor Rosemary Deem, University of Bristol (R.Deem@bristol.ac.uk)
CPD and short courses
Team Leader: David Wood, Oxford Brookes University (dwood@brookes.ac.uk)
Pages for Foundation degrees will be developed and a team will be announced later.

Each section will contain an overview paper, and resources for learning and teaching, assessment, quality management, student support, and research. We hope to be able to collect and collate a wide range of materials including articles, book reviews, papers, artefacts, data, teaching ideas and materials, links to other relevant sites and so on. We hope that many in the Education and Continuing Education constituencies will find time to contribute something towards the development of these resources. While stocks last we still have some book tokens left with which to reward contributors. (Details of the book tokens can be found at http://www.escalate.ac.uk/exchange/tokens.php)
Please send any contributions in the first instance to Helen.Ireson@nottingham.ac.uk and Helen will redirect them to the appropriate team or teams. You may contact the Team leaders above directly if you have a specific query you would like to have answered.
We hope that the redesigned website will be on line by December this year, but meanwhile we shall be putting materials onto the web in the old pages.

We have a good selection of new book reviews for you to browse through at http://www.escalate.ac.uk/briefing/Reviews/
New books on offer include the following:
- Brown S. & Race P., 2002, Lecturing: A Practical Guide, Kogan Page Ltd., London
- Crosling G. & Webb G., 2002, Supporting Student Learning: Case Studies, Experience & Practice From Higher Education, Kogan Page Ltd., London
- Fallows S. & Bhanot R., 2002, Educational Development Through Information And Communications Technology, Kogan Page Ltd., London
- Forsyth I., 2001 Third Edition, Teaching & Learning Materials & The Internet, Kogan Page Ltd., London
- Hayton A. & Paczuska A., 2002, Access, Participation And Higher Education: Policy and Practice, Kogan Page Ltd., London
- Keogh B., Naylor S., de Boo M. & Barnes J., 2002, PGCE Professional Workbook: Primary Science, Learning Matters Ltd., Exeter
- Ketteridge S., Marshall S. & Fry H., 2002, The Effective Academic: a hand book for enhanced academic practice, Kogan Page Ltd., London
- Macdonald R. & Wisdom J., 2002, Academic And Educational Development: Research, Evaluation and Changing Practice in Higher Education, Kogan Page Ltd., London
- Penny S., Ford R., Price L. & Young S., 2002, Achieving QTS: Teaching Arts in Primary Schools, Learning Matters Ltd., Exeter
- Salmon G., 2002, Etivities: The Key To Active Online Learning, Kogan Page Ltd., London
- Sharp J., Potter J., Allen J. & Loveless A., 2002 Second Edition, Achieving QTS: Primary ICT - Knowledge, Understanding and Practice, Learning Matters Ltd., Exeter
- Simpson O., 2002 Second Edition, Supporting Students In Online, Open And Distance Learning, Kogan Page Ltd., London

In addition we have some 'old stock' which still awaits review, so if you are a new reader please contact Sue.Battin@bristol.ac.uk for a complete list of what is still available.

All ESCalate one-day seminars and conferences are free to users, and this includes refreshments during the day.

Heads of Department Forum
Last year we circulated colleagues about the possibility of having a one-day Head of Department Forum to discuss the interface between research and teaching. We are currently consulting with HoDs and hope to hold this event soon. More details in next month's Bulletin.

Scottish Initial Teacher Education event
Our Scottish representative, Professor Bart McGettrick, is currently working with the PGCE schools team in organizing a conference on initial teacher education, to be held in Scotland in February/March. As the details are firmed up they will be reported on the web and in the Bulletin. We hope to hold events in both Northern Ireland and Wales during the year, and there will be a range of events linked to the different programme areas listed above.

Reception at SRHE in Glasgow
We will be hosting a reception at the SHRE conference in Glasgow in December for young researchers and research students. This will be a good opportunity for networking and meeting like-minded researchers in a social setting. All colleagues are welcome. Professor Rosemary Deem, Centre Director, will host the event.

We had a good number of applications for the June tranche of small grants funding. The successful applicants were:

Lifelong Education Research Networking (LERN) Phase Two
Professor Geoff Chivers
Email: g.e.chivers@lboro.ac.uk
Partners:
Dr Lis Smith, Salford University
John Moorhouse, Warwick University
Mick Brennan, Queen Mary, London University
Amount awarded: £5000

Developing and evaluating a collaborative research tool
John Grey, University of Sunderland
Email: John.grey@sunderland.ac.uk
Partners:
Caroline Walker & Alan Gleaves, Sunderland University
Graeme Blench, North Tyneside College
Alberto Basile, East Durham & Houghall Community College
Amount awarded: £4975

Each department has a contact person, who will forward this Bulletin to all colleagues, and perhaps post a hard copy on a notice board or circulate it by some other means. If anyone is not sure who their contact person is, then please contact Liz.Hankinson@bristol.ac.uk or Sue.Battin@bristol.ac.uk and they will be able to tell you.