Rubrics look like an easy way to tackle assessment. But they can be deceptive in that respect, and can cause the unwary to slip up.
Read MoreOn this day: 5 reasons to join Computing communities
Teaching can be a lonely profession, especially if, as is often the case, you are the sole teacher of ICT or Computing in your school. Whether you’re on your own or part of a team, I’d thoroughly recommend joining a community or several. Why?On this day: Presentation: 10 stimulating ideas for the Computing curriculum
This is an article I originally published on 2 October 2017. The conference it refers to has been and gone, but I’ve added a few annotations relating to my methodology.
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Archives, by Terry Freedman
On this day: my blogging course contingency plan
Like many other people, last year I was in the position of having to run my introductory course about blogging online. Just in case things went pear-shaped, I came up with a contingency plan.
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Archives, by Terry Freedman
On this day: words have precise meanings (or should have)
On 25 June 2020 I wrote about words and their connotations. That was in the middle of lockdown, and was prompted by a specific news story. But the general principle still applies.
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On this day, by Terry Freedman
On this day #22: When to be over-cautious
I’ve seen a lot of half-baked initiatives emanating from schools. As for governments, well it’s almost what we’ve come to expect.
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On this day #21: An interesting meeting at Bett
Gosh! It’s ten years since I wrote about meeting at Bett someone who had approached me for advice from the other side of the world. How far off those days seem right now.
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On this day #20: Digital literacy and "coding"
Is being digitally literate synonymous with being able to code?
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Celebrate! by Terry Freedman
Happy birthday, Digital Education!
Six years ago today I announced the launch of free newsletter, Digital Education. Back in 2000 I had started a newsletter called Computers in Classrooms. That name was pretty cutting edge at the time, but after 14 years how quaint it seemed!
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On this day #19: Who's in charge
Target, by Terry Freedman
On this day #18: Don't focus on the goal
As an education technology leader you need to have a vision, you need to have goals. But once you have established the vision and goals, it’s a good idea to forget about them.
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Question marks, by Terry Freedman
On this day #17: A really bad question
These days, students can find out things like the rate of interest in real time without even leaving their seats. That doesn't make the question ["What's the interest rate?"] itself any better.
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On this day #16: The trouble with women
When I was reading about Ada Lovelace I found it quite appalling that in her days men thought women were too mentally fragile to cope with mathematics or science.
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On This Day
On this day #15: Technical support
I would say that these days an efficient and effective technical support function is more important than ever. I have been at the sharp end of technical glitches in Zoom and so on, and although I was able to figure them out for myself, it was a very frustrating experience.
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Not sure, by Terry Freedman
Twitter: a re-evauation
I imagine I’ll be on Twitter for a while yet, but I do find myself spending less and less time on it, and engaging in conversations less and less.
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On This Day, by Terry Freedman
On this day #14: Enforced independence
For those of us who are bemused by the Department for Education’s new-found interest in digital matters (starting in 2019 with their Education Technology strategy), this might be of interest.
Read MoreOn this day #13: Welcome back, VBA!
To borrow from Mark Twain, reports of the death of Visual Basic for Applications as a viable programming language to teach in schools are exaggerated.
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On This Day, by Terry Freedman
On this day #12: usability, assessment, tiffs, pointless data and Computing
Gosh! I don’t know if there is something special about the date December 6th — like the Ides of March, say — but I seem to have been astonishingly prolific on that date.
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On this day, by Terry Freedman
On this day #10: Important questions to ask about speakers
Given how much competition there is for our time now that so much is on offer online, I think these suggested questions are as important as ever.
Read MoreOn this day #9: Web 2.0
An old article about Web 2.0
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