When it comes to mobile learning, timing is everything

I was discussing with a colleague the fact that some of us were trying years ago to introduce mobile technology into education. I can’t speak for others, but certainly for me it was an insight into how Sisyphus must have felt. He, as you may know, was the hapless guy who was condemned to push a huge rock to the top of a hill, only to see it roll all the way down again within inches of reaching the top. Doing that once would have been bad enough, but he was sentenced to do it forever.

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Two effects of new technology

Here are a couple of interesting cartoon strips about the (possible) effects of new technology. Yesterday’s one is more about unintended consequences, while today’s is really about how apparently intelligent software and monitoring systems might be fooled.

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Are acceptable use policies acceptable or of any use?

Should schools have Acceptable Use Policies? The following article was originally published in April 2008. Apart from the references to the ‘recent’ Byron Review and to Becta, it still seems very apposite to me. If I were writing the article today, I’d bring in Responsible Use Policies, but otherwise I believe it still stands. What do you think?

One of the things recommended by the recent Byron Review into keeping children safe in a digital world was for schools to have acceptable use policies

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7 images of London

I’ve had the enormous pleasure of having to go into London two days running! “Pleasure?!”, you say. “What? With all those people?” Definitely. In fact, it’s partly ‘all those people’ that make  it a pleasure. That, the architecture, the general buzz. I’m definitely with Samuel Johnson on this one:

Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.

Which is partly why I always carry a camera around with me. As I explained in Pictures as stimuli, pictures can act as, erm, stimuli. You should always  carry a camera of some sort around you, and so should the kids you teach. Oh wait, yes, many of them probably have mobile phones that can take photos and video. Fantastic!

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BYOT Case Study: New College, Swindon

Why has New College gone down the Bring Your Own Technology (BYOT) route? An obvious factor is cost. But there’s also another, less prosaic reason...

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What is Both good and original in the world of educational technology?

When a young man with dreams of becoming a writer sent a manuscript to Samuel Johnson for his opinion, Dr Johnson is reputed to have replied:

“My congratulations to you, Sir. Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.”

I thought it might be interesting to look at 10 ideas that have gained popularity in the world of educational technology and ICT in recent years, to see if they meet the “good and original" test”. Here are my considered, though possibly opinionated, views.

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3 General Prequisites of Bring Your Own Device

If a school wishes to go down the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) route, what are the conditions necessary to make this possible in a useful (ie learning enhancing) and hassle-free way?

From my research into schools which have gone down this road, or at least started to, I have come to the conclusion that there are three at least three general conditions which have to be met.

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M is for … Marginal Cost

Marginal Cost, like Opportunity Cost, is a concept used in Economics. It’s so useful, I’m surprised it isn’t used more often, or at least more explicitly, in general. It definitely comes into its own in the world of ICT or education technology.

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BYOD Case Study: Invicta Grammar School

The Bring Your Own Device scheme implemented by Invicta is a hybrid of school-supplied or specified technology for the younger students, and a true BYOD scheme, within certain limits, for the older ones.

The question arises, why have a 1-to-1 scheme given the fact that there is so much technology in the school already?

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Impressions of BETT 2013

What a week this has been! The Education World Forum kicked it off, where I had the pleasure of discussing matters of consequence with some very interesting people, followed by a gruelling but fun BETT. More about the EWF soon; for now, I'd like to focus on BETT.

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BYOD Case Study: Tideway School

In late 2011 the issue of mobile technologies and their use in school began to be discussed at a senior leadership team level in Tideway School. However, the school resisted the temptation to race headlong into improving the infrastructure in order to allow students to use their own devices to access lesson and learning resources, because the benefits of doing so in terms of either pedagogy or learning gains were not self-evident.

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E is for… Equality

Equality is a big issue in education, especially in connection with technology. For example, we are used to hearing phrases like “the digital divide”. But what does “equality” mean in this context – or, more pertinent perhaps, what should it mean?

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