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= Welcome to the current home of Addysg Cymru. =

Who we are:
We're a group of educators in Wales looking for new ways to collaborate, share ideas and develop professional practice. We're always looking for more people to get involved, so please use any of the methods on this page to join in!

Where we are:
Follow us with the [|#addcym hashtag on Twitter]

Our current members on twitter are:
 * karencymru
 * [|wjputt]
 * [|cerirwilliams]
 * [|bevevans22]
 * duckinwales

Join the addcym group on Edmodo - Join [|Edmodo] and email ds at mrstacey dot org dot uk for the code

There is also a Diigo group. Sharing web page addresses and other links and discussion. Set up by karencymru

What we're doing:


 * Currently:**

The #addcym chat is moving to a Tuesday night from 8-9pm. Poll to follow shortly.


 * Archive**


 * 24th May Summary**

Below you will see the outcome of the Twtpoll for the weekly #addcym Twitter discussion. As you will see the topic for debate was “How could the training of teachers be changed?” with a landslide 72% of the vote. No need for AV there!

How will the education landscape look in 20 years time? [ 5% (2 votes) ]

Which countries have the 'best' education systems? Why are they the best? [ 10% (4 votes) ]

Why did you become a teacher? [ 8% (3 votes) ]

What is it that helps you get up on a dark and freezing February morning? [ 5% (2 votes) ]

How could the training of teachers be changed? [ 72% (28 votes) ]

There were 330 tweets in this week’s chat with between 20 and 30 contributors.

Initially there was some focus on the ICT training within Initial Teacher Training & Education [ITTE], not unexpected given the fact that the cat was using a Web 2.0 tool - Twitter. There was a suggestion that ‘trainees’ should sign up to twitter and get a Personal Learning Network of their own.

‘Trainee’ was not regarded as the best term so I will use ‘associate’ in this summary from now on!

Suggestions were made about having a longer course - for PGCE I assume as BEd can be three or four years - as is the case in some other countries. Concern was expressed here about the cost implications given the rises in tuition fees etc..

A healthy debate ensued about getting the balance right between practical ‘learning’ as a teacher i.e. time in schools and theoretical ‘learning’ at college/university. Clearly there needs to be a balance here.

One suggestion was that all ‘associates’ should follow or spend time with an excellent teacher. No definition of an excellent teacher was put forward although there are plenty of these on twitter. To some extent one could say that following an excellent teacher in any subject area could be very beneficial as it would be about understanding the pedagogy i.e. how the learners get to learn rather than what they are learning - the subject preoccupation.

Later on it was suggested that the selection of mentors in schools needed to be better as in school experiences did not have the same consistency as the college/university based input. It was suggested that being asked to be a mentor should be regarded as an ‘honour’.

This was a very interesting debate as they often are. It was great to have a real PGCE associate along @simonjperry - thanks for the input. Equally there was some involvement from colleagues across the educational sectors in Wales and I think this is something that we should encourage more of.

Here are a few tweets that really resonated with me:

@bevevans22 tweeted - addcym more focus on practical skills &experience balanced by good grounding in pedagogy. + make joining twitter compulsory...

@ anhalf tweeted - plenty of time to observe,teach,learn,peer mentor,range of experiences,excellent support and more defined career guidance #addcym anhalt

@ sh1916 tweeted - @addcym #addcym A change might be a strict control on the experienced teachers invited to mentor new teachers. Should be regarded as honour!


 * 8th May** - Topic: What is the purpose of education? [[file:Twitter_Chat_Archive8_05_11.pdf]]

Here is the archive:


 * 1st May** -

Topic: How can we use and develop thinking skills in our classrooms? Archive to follow. Apologies this chat has not been archived.
 * 24th April** - Twitter chat archive of tweets with # #addcym **- [[file:#addcym_Twitter_Archive240411.pdf]]**This is pdf & here is a brief summary:

Topic: Creating a 'real' audience for your students. How do you do it and what impact does it have?

Most recent posts are first.

In summary there were 152 tweets sent by 10 different tweeters. Relatively quiet and no one should have been working as it was Easter Sunday - even Sainsbury's was closed. Nevertheless we were learning not working! It was great to here from Le_Gugu - a mathematics teacher from Lille, France - & tweet of the session can go to him with this one: 'Le_Gugu Things will definitely change because a french teacher can chat with you : innovatives teachers no longer alone and desesperate #addcym' There was plenty of discussion on Face2Face presentations etc by learners to a variety of audiences and also engagement with local community groups. Blogging also featured and a new word entered my lexicon 'quadblogging'. Read the tweets to find out more. Primary Blogger was alluded to and it is not blocked in LEAs although I will need to check in Flintshire. The place of school councils in student voice and other related maters was also discussed widely. I feel that learners get opportunities to do things in primary school that we do not always give them credit for in high school [there may be schools that do more]. We can learn a great deal from each other on this and that is why we have #addcym. Just reflect on Le_Gugu's statement: 'things will definitely change.'


 * 17th April** - Twitter chat archive of tweets with # #addcym - [[file:Addcym_Twitter_Archive17_04_11v2.doc]] This is a Word document.


 * 11th April** - [|Karen] presented on [|Diigo] (watch it [|here] ). Followed by Twitter chat on Encouraging Literacy. Archive to follow

3rd April - Elluminate Meeting + Twitter Chat **. Discussion on this [|Primary Pad] **

[|Primary Pad from March 20th]. Or see here for text

[|Primary Pad from March 15th]. Or see here for text [|Primary Pad from March 13th]. Or see here for text

Other Links

 * #ukedchat
 * [|NGfL Cymru]
 * [|Rhannu]
 * [|Teachmeet]
 * [] A list of education related chats created by []