How I hate the word “narrative”! At least, I detest the way it has been usurped by smart-suited political advisers who say things like “We need a new narrative”.
But sometimes, like now, I get what they are talking about, though I prefer to use the word “story”. And my question is: what is the story, what is the whole experience, of Computing in your school?
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Pardon? By Terry Freedman
A technical support reporting system is only as good as the information you can extract from it.
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Whether you are moving to a new school, or staying where you are, it’s good to stand back and try to gauge what the school’s education technology is like. Why you would want to do that if taking up a new post is obvious: you want to see how the land lies so that you can start to identify any improvements that could be made.
The UserID interface, by Terry Freedman
We should encourage pupils to write useless bits of code. Here’s why.
Read MoreIf you lead a team of ed tech or Computing teachers, you can do a lot with team meetings; in fact, you can turn (at least some of them) into opportunities for professional development. It's a very good idea to occasionally depart from the standard team meeting format and put on a "special". This helps to keep interest high, and enables various goals to be achieved, including staff professional development.
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The forthcoming edition of the Digital Education newsletter features some great links and resources. See if you can figure out what topics are covered from these illustrations!
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MS Decoded, by Terry Freedman
The 2018 Microsoft Decoded event was a good conference, especially in the area of artificial intelligence and its applications. This year’s conference promises to have some interesting sessions too.
Read MoreHere in England the Government, in its quest to put Computing on the map, did its best to make sure the rest of the map was blank – by getting rid of qualifications that lots of students took (especially girls).
Read MoreIf part of your job is to encourage other teachers to use technology in their lessons, this article, based on my own experiences, may help.
Read MoreThe next edition of this esteemed newsletter has a cornucopia of links that will be of interest to teachers of computing and media literacy especially, and very little commentary! Read on to find out more.
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Presentation on a mobile phone, by Terry Freedman
“It’s not about the technology” sounds logical, but in my experience it is certainly not the whole story.
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Training manual, by Terry Freedman
If you are responsible for the ed tech/Computing/ICT training in your school, here are a few questions which you might like to consider.
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The Scream, by Terry Freedman (with apologies to Munch)
How vulnerable are schools to viruses and so on? Here are the results of a survey, plus some comments on the role of the ed tech leader in the school.
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Whiteboard, by Terry Freedman
Worthy cogitations about what I might have done to avoid being faced with a non-working whiteboard — and why that situation arose in the first place.
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admin burden, by Terry Freedman
How the admin involved in a course led to its being abandoned by one group of trainers.
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Why do many people seem to be addicted to their smartphones? This book explains how we get drawn in to constantly checking for updates, and suggests what we might do about it.
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Books for the classroom, by Terry Freedman
As well as having an ed tech library, why not look into inviting an author of a computing book to speak to your pupils?
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Computing and Related Qualifications
Here’s a brief note about why I wrote this mini-guide, and a couple of screenshots from its pages.
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If you’re looking for a course in computing or a related area, and you live in England, look no further! This ebook contains over 200 entries all in one place.
If you’re looking for a course in computing or a related area, and you live in England, look no further! This ebook contains over 200 entries all in one place.
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Harmonicas by Terry Freedman
How can you encourage other teachers to use the ed tech facilities? You may not know this, but there is not a lot of difference between a Lee Oskar diatonic harmonica (the type used by blues and folk musicians) and a Hohner Blues Band harmonica. The Lee Oskar is said to have been engineered to give a “sharper” edge to the tone, which suits the blues sound, whereas the Marine Band, being slightly “softer”, works well for folk music too. Unless you’re a purist, there is probably not much in it. As someone once said:
Read More“A difference is only a difference if it makes a difference.”
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