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Edhub goes online!

The Educational Hub went online on January 1st. I’ve been using it for my regular teaching (John Wilson’s pages) and to showcase the educational videos I’ve been working on since I retired (Ano sensei!), and now I’m opening it up to other teachers.

Essentially, it’s a free hosting site for teachers to showcase their materials. I’m starting small – just grapevining, rather than advertising – because I wouldn’t be able to handle a large influx of people wanting to use it, but the long-term aim is to attract as many users as possible.

I’m hoping to establish a nucleus of about a dozen users at this pilot stage, before moving on to advertise it more widely. Any teething difficulties should get sorted out at this stage, and I’ll be able to get a feel of how it will work. Will it be a bunch of teachers who just happen to host their materials on the same site? Or will it become a kind of community of educators, sharing their concerns and airing their views? Obviously, the latter would be more exciting, but only time will tell!

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Back to blogging!

I launched the Free Educational Resources (“Fredures”) search engine back in February 2017 … and then largely forgot about it! The initial aim had been to link it with a hosting site for teachers, but I got sidetracked into another project (Ano Sensei! Educational videos).

Now, finally, I’m ready to get back to this project and the hosting site. Watch this space for exciting new developments!

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Blogging on educational resources

FRee
EDUcational
RESources

These last few weeks, as I’ve been putting the FREDURES project together, I’ve been overwhelmed, once again, by the sheer volume of goodwill and generosity that make up a large part of the internet. I’ll be writing reviews of some of my major discoveries over the next days and weeks, but let me just start with something called Ragged Universities, for no better reason than that they befriended me on Twitter a couple of weeks ago (which is how I got to know about them!).

They’re based in the UK, so there’s a good chance that I’ll have a chance to meet up with them on future visits and participate in some of their events, which seem to be focused in Edinburgh and Manchester.

The setup reminds me of something known in Spanish as “la tertulia”. Potentially just a glorified name for a bunch of people sitting round drinking beer or coffee and having a natter, la tertulia at its best is a free informal learning network where people share their knowledge in social spaces … which is precisely how Ragged University describes itself.

The name is obviously inspired by the Ragged Schools of the nineteenth century, which also had their beginnings in Edinburgh.

So, there you have it! If you’re feeling bored and aimless and you’re anywhere near Manchester or Edinburgh just visit the Ragged University website and add one of their events to your calendar!