In my last interview of the summer with key individuals in the Educational Web 2.0 world I talked with the amazing Doug Belshaw.
Not only does he write an amazingly detailed practitioner blog
http://teaching.mrbelshaw.co.uk/, he is one of the leading lights behind the revolutionary NextGen Teachers Web 2.0 Ning social networking group and he also manages to do all this and cope with newly acquired fatherhood.
I have a lot of respect for his determination and vision. This country needs more teachers like Doug and they should be set up as examples of how to do it for the new generation of ultra professional teachers who are totally dedicated to their craft.
Doug Belshaw is currently a ‘Teacher of Humanities’ at Ridgewood School in Doncaster, an engineering specialist school, and very successful academically with 80% A*-C at GCSE last year. His one-year maternity-cover contract for this academic year has been extended to next and after that, he is hoping to be appointed Head of Department somewhere…
Doug has a very deep insight into how ICT, Web 2.0 and Social Networking technologies can be used in school from a practitioner perspective. If you are a teacher who has started out down this road listen to Doug speaking about his experiences here.
http://blip.tv/file/get/Learn4life-InterviewWithDougBelshaw249.mp3