A topic to discuss with your students perhaps: the hidden bias in algorithms.
Read MoreIllustration of algorithmic objectivity, generated in ImageFX
Too protective by half?
Why I dread the thought of benign algorithms (Updated)
Science fiction writers would have us believe that intelligent machines will either enslave us or get rid of human beings altogether. But what if they were extremely benign and protective towards us? What could possibly go wrong?
Read MoreWhy I dread the thought of benign algorithms
Science fiction writers would have us believe that intelligent machines will either enslave us or get rid of human beings altogether. But what if they were extremely benign and protective towards us? What could possibly go wrong? This article may be used as the basis for a discussion with your pupils.
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BREXIT and education technology
This is a round-up of views about how the decision to leave the EU might affect some of our laws pertaining to technology, such as data protection, followed by some suggestions on how one might use these notes in the classroom.
Read MoreArticles on Ed Tech: Retrospective #4
Here's a collection of articles you may have missed, on a variety of subjects including Brexit, Master teachers and ebooks.
Read MoreComputing discussion topics 2016-09-14: Brexit and biometrics
It's very important to cover the Computing curriculum in a way that relates it to what is actually going on in the real world. Here are two more discussion topics to help you to do that.
Read MoreComputing discussion topic 2016-05-25: The algorithm that is too effective
Here's an example of a computer program that prevents people buying stuff, based on their address.
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Do algorithms have a secret bias?
Computing discussion topic 2016-05-23
A topic to discuss with your students perhaps: the hidden bias in algorithms.
Read MoreQ is for … Quiet time
How do you learn best? The reason I ask this question is that the conventional wisdom these days seems to be that people learn best through collaboration. Hence lessons are planned with as much time for collaboration built in as possible. But is this always useful?Let’s hear it for the lurkers!
Lurkers – those people who hang around in forums and other online places, saying nothing but seeing everything – have a pretty poor reputation. They are generally viewed as takers rather than givers. But, as a part-time lurker myself, I think lurking has much to recommend it, and is not all bad for everyone else.25 ways to make yourself unpopular: #25 Contribute to education technology discussions
Contributing to discussions is good in my book, but there are some ways of going about it which could be counter-productive. Here are some pointers about what not to do if you can help it.25 ways to make yourself unpopular: #24 Do not contribute to education technology discussions
There is little I find more annoying than being lectured to by people who have all the answers, but do not engage in (rational) discussion on the subject.
For example, a deputy headteacher once informed me that his school was going to spend thousands of pounds on instruction technology known as “integrated learning systems”, and that they were going to get the least able students to work on them all day.
I told him that some recent research said that the benefits of such systems was short-lived if all you did was use them and nothing else, and that such intensive use of them was counter-productive anyway. This had no impact at all, because
Online discussion about educational technology
At the time of writing this, there are 15 minutes to go before Drew Buddie and I conduct what may be our last Teachshare discussion. Some of the topics to be discussed are:
Read MoreE-Moderation
It is a matter very much to be regretted that, over the years, management types have usurped perfectly innocuous phrases and converted them to euphemisms or, worse, their precise opposites.
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