3D Printing

Over the past few years I've written several articles about 3D printing and its potential application in education. I first came across a 3D printer at a City Learning Centre in London. That was 15 years ago at the time of writing, ie 1998. What I had not realised back then was that 3D printing had already been around for ages -- since the mid-1980s in fact.

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Technology for an ageing population: competition

Here is a competition which is aimed at secondary school students.  I quite like the idea of this: both the topic and the nature of what has to be submitted by entrants: a video of not more than 90 seconds answering the question:

In the future, how will technology help an ageing population?

This is an opportunity to get some really interesting discussions going. Perhaps you could get other colleagues involved, such the RE department.

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ICT Lessons and internet privacy

Whatever you think of the current debate over news that the US Government may have been monitoring the online activity of not only its own citizens but those of other countries too, you have to admit one thing. It provides a great opportunity for ICT teachers everywhere to bring some real-world issues into their lessons, in a very newsy (ie current) way.

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Smart street signs

When I last visited Cambridge, England, I thought the street signs were pretty good. Rather than display how far away things are, they tell you how long it will take to walk to them: far more useful.

But a new idea, called Points, goes way beyond that.

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Cloud Services White Paper and Survey

Cloud Education ICT Design (CEID), which is run by the South-west Grid for Learning Trust, has published a very useful White Paper on Cloud Computing. At only four pages long it explains what cloud computing is, and what the benefits and risks are from an education establishment’s point of view. CEID intends to expand on the list of risks and benefits once it has analysed the survey results.

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4 ways to make your educational technology facilities more inviting

How do you ensure that the ICT facilities at your school are attractive enough to be used by pupils and staff? Even if your school has a Bring Your Own Technology (BYOT) scheme or a tablet-centred 1:1 scheme in place, you will want to ensure that the school’s own stuff is being used as fully and as effectively as possible. What can you, the ICT Co-ordinator/e-learning co-ordinator/senior leader in charge of ICT in the curriculum, do to help make that happen? Here are some suggestions.

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An unfortunate side effect of Linked-In?

I quite enjoyed this cartoon in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph. It pokes a bit of gentle fun at ‘consultants’, and

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A matter of trust: 7 ways of finding the right ICT supplier for you

Mullah Nasrudin was in a village he was visiting for the first time. He rushed into a shop, and demanded of the shopkeeper:

“Have you ever seen me before?”

“No!” answered the owner.

“Well then,” asked Nasrudun. “How do you know it’s me then?”

You might think that an ancient Persian folk hero would have little to say a 21st century citizen, but I think you’d be wrong.

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Teens and social media

There was an interesting article in the UK’s Daily Telegraph about the film The Bling Ring. Entitled “Is the Facebook generation anti-social?”, the article presents what I think is a fairly balanced view of how teens seem obsessed with recording every moment of their lives. Well, balanced in the sense that the writer, Tim Stanley, attempts to present it as something we have always done. He cites the example of people in years gone by insisting on showing their (boring) holiday snaps to their friends and family. Now they upload them to Facebook instead (thank goodness!).

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scribefire test

Updated on Saturday, May 25, 2013 at 6:01PM by Terry Freedman, Educational ICT Consultant

I've been having a play around with Scribefire, which is a blogging application you can use from within your browser. In this test, I tried the 'blog this page' feature, which enables you to, er, blog the web page you have open.

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Bring Your Own Technology Book Review

Here’s an interesting review of Mal Lee’s Bring Your Own Technology.

It’s good because, in my opinion, it’s pretty spot on. I also think the format is interesting.

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Alternatives to Google Reader

I have just updated my article entitled What’s RSS and why is it useful?

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