Any UV researchers particularly those working in schools and who want help with resources should head over to this website ttrb offered by the TDA, funded by Microsoft. The online e-librarian is a free service, use it!

This resource came from Marilyn Leask Head of Effective Practice and Research and Dissemination of the TDA in a day long conference at Anglia Ruskin University Chelmsford.

Marilyn started by pointing out that the rate of required adoption for teachers is increasing rapidly. She cited the TVEI initiative in the late 80’sthe first example of the government bypassing the ‘system’.

The big challenge however, is what evidence is there to base changes in practice – a key concern is that changes are based on evidence not anecdote!

The role of teacher as researcher is at the heart of Marilyn’s belief about a key element of teaching but how do they access knowledge that is available, but not being forced to use only established publishers who often see no profit in much valuable research.

Marilyn made the case for a systematic review of the huge body of research evidence out there by the practitioners and researchers working collaboratively to work on projects that are well grounded and substantial. Small scale research does not provide the evidence required on its own, but if co-ordinated and combined with rigorous methodology it can contribute significantly to the knowledge base.

She then ran off a list of other professions who already have large only databases of research to support her argument for an educational database and made the argument for such a resource for education.