Training sessions that threatened to go wrong -- and how I rescued them

March 26, 2025

The chapters in this article were originally published as separate articles. For a pdf version, sign up to the free Digital Education newsletter and download it from the Digital Education Supplement area, where it goes under the title of My Worst IT Training Days.

My worst IT training days #6: The day my website was shut down (updated)

September 4, 2021

I wonder if there is anything more discombobulating than announcing, with great fanfare, a brilliant resource to a class full of teacher trainees, only to be greeted by a dreadful error message instead?

Problems in the edtech classroom #5: Where's my website?!

May 27, 2020

In 2006 my website went down right in the middle of a lesson. Here’s what I wrote about it at the time.

My worst IT training days #6: The day my website was shut down

September 5, 2019

Logging in -- Photo from www.pexels.com CC0

My best and worst IT lessons #8: Logging in

February 8, 2016

logging in should take seconds -- not a whole lesson!

My best and worst IT lessons: why?

January 25, 2016

Why did I start the series called "My best and worst IT lessons"? Shelly Terrell interviewed me and asked:

What inspired you to share your best and worse lessons?

How can reflecting on our best and worse lessons enhance our teaching?

Questions, questions, questions Picture from www.pixabay.com CC0

My best and worst IT lessons #7: What's the interest rate?

January 18, 2016

Whether or not you can easily look up the answers to questions is far less important than asking the right questions in the first place.

Suspicious enthusiasm? Picture from www.pixabay.com CC0

My best and worst IT lessons #6: Adorable spreadsheets

January 14, 2016

Why a lesson on spreadsheets became the highlight of the kids' day, and a nightmare to haunt me forever.

Modelling and reality. Picture from www.pixabay.com CC0

My best and worst IT lessons #5: Modelling

January 13, 2016

How objective are computers really? It's importtant to try to work out what is actually going on when it comes to modelling or running simulations.

My best and worst IT lessons #4: Murder Mystery

January 12, 2016

Flat file databases don't have to be boring: they can be an opporttunity for pupils to test their detective skills!

Learning together. Photo from www.pexels.com CC0

My best and worst IT lessons #3: Internet training

January 11, 2016

"An incomprehensible error message scared the living daylights out of the teachers on the training course, all of whom thought it was their fault."

What I learnt about running a succesful course for teachers.

It's all about setting up the right conditions. Photo from Pixabay.com CC0

My best and worst IT lessons #2: The history lesson

January 8, 2016

What were the elements that made a history lesson (in a computer lab) about JFK so good?

Working together as equals can produce excellent results. Image from Pixabay.com CC0

My best and worst IT lessons #1: VBA conundrum

January 7, 2016

In this new series I look at some of my best and worst lessons in ICT and Computing, and analyse what caused them to work -- or not.

Recent book reviews

Review: When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing

Hopefully, neither you nor I will ever find ourselves in court, undergoing a medical procedure, or taking an important exam.

Review: Finding Fibonacci: The Quest to Rediscover the Forgotten Mathematical Genius Who Changed the World

Finding Fibonacci is a memoir of the authors’ quest to find out about Fibonacci.

The Teachers' Standards in Primary Schools.jpg

Quick look: The Teachers' Standards in Primary Schools

This is very well set out. It takes each standard, and gives you ideas on how to achieve it, and what success in this context looks like.

How Computer Games Help Children learn.jpg

Quick look: How Computer Games Help Children learn

When I was teaching Econnures I realised that I could have taught quite a chunk of the synabus if I'd been able to run Sim City on the school network.

Quick look: Reinventing Project-Based Learning

I can verify from first hand experience that PBL kept students highly engaged, and helped them to develop skills such as working with others and independent research.

Quick look: The Human Touch

Although this book is published by the BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, the focus is not on IT at all.

Quick look: Better Living through science

I have often thought that I would have been much more interested in science at school, and been much more successful at it, had the teachers taught us anything of practical value.

Quick look: Tubes: Behind the scenes at the internet

We are all so accustomed to using the internet, searching the world wide web — "going online" — that most of us most of the time probably do not stop to consider the question: yes, but where exactly is it?

Quick look: Profits, Prophets, Coaches and Kings: (When) do leaders make a difference?

I have somewhat dichotomous views of this question of whether leaders make a difference, or much of a difference.

Review: Power Up, by Matthew Lane

This book looks at the maths concepts — and, to some extent, the physics concepts — hidden in popular video games.