bellblog | Frances Bell

Frances Bell

home at last – for all the mes

Libraries in my life

I have always loved libraries. The first one that I remember is Withington Library from when I lived in Withington in Manchester as a child. It’s great to see it is still there and operating as a community hub. When we moved to Middlesbrough, I became very excited that I could join two different libraries…

A story of connection and disconnection around #ALTC

I was very aware of the ALT-C conference on 8-10 September even though I was not a registered delegate. For a start, it was in Manchester, just down the road from me. I used to be a regular attender at ALT-C and over the years have given workshops, organised symposia, reviewed abstracts and research papers…

Connection and Locus of Control

These are some very half-formed thoughts that I want to capture so I can re-connect and learn more later. I have just read a post by Laura Goglia about an experience she had in school from reading part of a textbook when she was supposed to be reading Beowulf. She saw a picture that fascinated…

A wee poem – The Voyeur

Tonight, I was feeling like I needed a wee rest from my desperate attempt to complete the paper from hell, and I plucked a book of poetry fom the shelves to give me a different perspective. Here’s what I found The Voyeur by Tom Leonard what’s your favourite word dearie is it wee I hope…

Technology and Change in Education #ED1to1 #TJC15

I have arrived at #ed1to1 ( a twitter chat organised by Bon Stewart over 3 days) via #tjc15 (a monthlyish one hour twitter chat organised by Laura Gogia about a journal article). The framing article for #ed1to1 is (25 years ago) The First School One-to-One Laptop Program by Audrey Watters. I didn’t know the first…

When we can’t see the trees for the wood

Martin Weller posted a post on the role of personality in education that has attracted many comments. I could have written about many of the thoughts that the post and comments have sparked for me but I thought I would concentrate on one perspective- how we can view an educational experience, as either generalised or…

Slowing down the journal club

The journal club #TJC15 is a fascinating phenomenon. Laura Gogia ‘birthed’ it from her spontaneous live-tweeting of an article written by me and Jenny Mackness. As authors, it was exhilarating and informative to see live responses to our work. It was spontaneous, people responding to our paper as they encountered it, and I was thrilled…

Arguing the case for qualitative research on learner experiences

Reading Simon Ensor’s article in Hybrid Pedagogy about the paper Jenny Mackness and I wrote about Rhizo14 reminds me that I made a promise to Simon and others, a promise that I haven’t kept. I said back in March that I would respond to some of the criticisms that Simon and others made of…

The tea cosy that taught me – a story about knitting and learning

I am a fairly unprolific knitter who loves knitting. I do knit repeats of things I have knitted before, like the berry hat and Saartje bootees that I have knitted for many babies of those connected to me. But what I really like in a new knitting project is a…

Facebook and #GE2015

Like anyone else from UK on Facebook this morning, I saw the 2015 General Election I voted button that asks you to confirm if you have voted. I was interested to see the data it presents – a time series graph of number of voters who claim they have voted, and an age/gender distribution of…