Referencing (sorry! But worth a read.)

Referencing is the great bug-bear of new students, and a serious distraction from what matters, which is content rather than form.

However. We refer to the accepted style as "Harvard" referencing. Even library guidance material does that. But that is just a label (which bemuses Harvard University, which has no connection with it.) for what is known across the pond--much more sensibly--as the "author/date" system. I'm not going to go into the details of this--it is all too easy to get sucked into them--but just to point out that it has two components:

1. How to refer to your source within the text, and
2. How to cite it within the bibliography.

#2 is the complicated bit. For those who care, the standard we adopt is "APA" (American Psychological Association). So (this is the bit which matters) they have a brilliantly helpful website:

http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2011/09/best-of-the-apa-style-blog-fall-2011-edition.html

I have reservations about the amount of energy students are called upon to divert to this nowadays, but do learn to play the game, because it saves a lot of hassle down the line!

Evidence-based Study Tips

Useful at a number of levels--for your students and even yourselves--and with links to follow up to sources.

A new network for PCE colleagues--please join.

Go look at and register with http://www.pcet.net/. It's a brilliant non-profit voluntary initiative to get us all exchanging ideas. Web 2.0/social networking for the PCE community--and of course the more you put in, the more you get out.

More on classroom management from TES

Including Sue Cowley. The linked articles are of course school-focused, but good ideas are good ideas.

Government response to the Wolf Report

Just getting down to work on your submission?

You might be interested in this new tool I review on my own blog here: http://recentreflection.blogspot.com/2011/05/on-next-step-beyond-wikipedia.html

Useful tools

For once, I have posted something potentially useful on my other blog (follow heading link)--it may particularly be of interest to those of you thinking of preparing your submissions. On the other hand, it may lead to hours of time-wasting...