Naace ICT Impact Awards - A Profile of Penny Patterson

Penny Patterson is on Twitter, but prefers to listen rather than talk, unless she has something of value to add to the conversation. She is active in ICT circles, though doesn’t have her own blog. And if you visit a conference she’s speaking at, you’re likely to chat to her while she serves the tea. She prefers, to use her own words, to be “one of the backroom team”.

Indirect evidence of this was seen in this year’s Naace ICT Impact Awards. When Penny was selected as one of the two people to be given a Lifetime Achievement Award, the look on her face was one of surprise, bordering on shock, and tinged with bewilderment. Typically, she told me that “other people deserve this award far more than I do.”

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Lessons from Reviewing the new Computing Curriculum

discussionThis is not so much a review or even a summary of the recent Westminster Forum Conference called ‘Reviewing the new Computing Curriculum’ as a series of observations arising from it and related articles. The reason for that approach is that I’d like to make this article useful and interesting to as wide a range of people as possible, not only those concerned with the ICT or Computing Programme of Study in the National Curriculum in England and Wales.
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It doesn’t have to be pink

Make my day, punkI turned my collar up against the wind. A useless gesture, because the wind contemptuously insinuated itself under my skin regardless, but it made me look hard. And hardness was needed in this job. I walked around the playground, glaring at kids who even just looked like they might be thinking of doing something wrong. Crowds of them parted as I approached. One looked shifty.

“You got a problem, son?” I gritted.

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7 images of London

LitchtensteinI’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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Reading and technology

Ebook readersWhat do you think of when you see the words “reading” and “technology” in the same sentence? I tend to think of e-book readers and how easy it is to transfer stuff to, and then read, on my phone. But there is more to it than that. According to Dyslexia Action, around one in ten students struggle to read standard print.

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E is for… Equality

Digital FlowEquality 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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A Map of the Internet

You are hereI recently discovered this map of the internet through Stephen Downes’ newsletter, OLDaily. Downes says, “It’s mostly eye-candy, but it’s good eye-candy”. I prefer to think of it as “interesting” eye-candy. It’s visually attractive, but what I find interesting is the fact that the descriptions are not necessarily value-free.

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5 ways to establish credibility on your blog

ezine-expert-authorI don’t know what it’s like living in other countries, but here in England we are fortunate indeed. If I want to have a discussion on any subject at all, I can simply walk into the pub nearest to where I happen to be at the time, where I am virtually certain to discover a self-styled “expert” declaiming about the economy, or what’s wrong with kids today, or how to solve the financial crisis, or whether or not kids should be taught how to programme, or how the entire education system should be put right.

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Typewriters? No thanks!

Royal portable typewriterThere is something romantic about an old manual typewriter. The clattering of the keys sounds somewhat industrial, which connotes “industrious”. Bashing away at a typewriter is what real writers do. No spellchecker, no thesaurus, no internet, and no forgiveness if you make a mistake. So typing something that looked reasonable, and which didn’t involve too much correction fluid, gave one a sense of achievement.

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A is for … Assessing ICT

Apple PieHow would you rate the apple pie shown in the photo? Yes, I know the first thing that comes to mind is probably “Disgusting!”, because my food presentation skills are not what they ought to be. (Believe it or not, the apple pie depicted has not been eaten.) But how you assess my efforts must depend on what exactly you’re looking for. (I realise this is kind of obvious, but please bear with me.)

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Adobe Helps Nurture Young Creative Talent with New Online Courses for UK Students

Adobe has rolled out an exciting series of online courses called Adobe Generation, which are designed to help students between the age of 14 and 19 develop new skills that will put them in a better position when exploring career options in the creative industry.

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Pictures as stimulii

girl and trainI always carry a camera around with me – as well as my phone. Why? Because you never know when you might see something interesting enough to use as a stimulus for an article. And why both? Because each one gives better results in different lighting conditions. Interestingly, my camera, which boasts a Leica lens, copes less well than  my phone in the dark – which is why I used my camera for the night street scenes shown here. I like the slightly out-of-focus effect, and the fact that in one of them the darkness is almost overwhelming. I think if you teach you should encourage your students to always carry a camera of some description with them at all times. And if you are a Head of Department, encourage your staff to do the same. Here are my reasons.

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Mobile Learning: A Visit to Flitch Green Academy

Flitch Green (4)Although I visited Flitch Green to talk about technology – specifically, iPads and mobile learning – I discovered that as in any good school the technology serves the vision of the school, which is about learning.

Flitch Green Academy is somewhat unprepossessing – at least from the outside. But once you go through the door, it’s a different story.

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