Being connected without being connected

SPARK LONDON AT THE HACKNEY ATTICI have finally – finally! – realised what all the Facebook status updates I find so tedious have in common. That is, apart from the fact that they ostensibly have nothing in common, and that I find them tedious. I talked about the things I find irritating in How much should we share online?, so there's no need to rehearse it all over again.
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Getting the best out of Bett now available

Bett Guide cover 2Over 170 hints and tips from a Bett veteran! Yes, this is my UNOFFICIAL guide. Feel free to download it or share it, via an embed code.

Now includes a floor plan!

If you have already downloaded it, you may wish to download it again, as this is a revised edition containing extra information.

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Assessing “soft” skills

Do you have anything you’d like to add to the discussion, Terry?

The scene was a meeting at the Edusummit conference at UNESCO in Paris in 2011. The question came from the Chair.

Thank you, but no: everything I was going to say has already been said.

That was my response, because I didn’t see any purpose in repeating points that had not only been made, but also generally agreed upon. In fact, my contributions to many meetings are based on Salvator Rosa’s, dictum:

Be silent, unless what you have to say is better than silence.

The question is: does that make me a good collaborator, or not so good? How do we measure such things? And does any of it matter anyway?

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Plagiarism in education

It’s often said that if you steal from one person’s work, it’s plagiarism, but if you steal from lots of people it’s “research”. Very droll, but plagiarism is a serious business. As well as being potentially economically damaging to the victim, it is demeaning for the perpetrator – although, like all thieves, they probably don’t realise it.
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Applying computational thinking in the “real world”

... analog computer!One of the justifications for teaching computing and coding is that “computational thinking” is a useful skill for pupils to have, in order to apply it in wide variety of situations. A worthy aim, but I’ve heard very few convincing examples given. Actually, I don’t think I’ve come across any examples of how pupils might use computational thinking in a broader context, or how it applies beyond the relatively narrow confines of computer science.

However, Anna Shipman, a software developer, currently working for the Government Digital Service, believes that a software development approach can and should be taken in other areas of life. In particular, she relates how it proved useful in the context of fixing a leaky roof.

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Competing with World of Warcraft

World Of Warcraft DVD + ManualI’ve just started reading Focus, by Daniel Coleman. If a book may be judged by the degree and speed with which it raises one’s blood pressure, I have to say this is pretty good value. I’m only 3% in, according to my Kindle status bar, and already I’ve found three things to disagree with. And let’s not forget that that 3% includes all the “prelims”, i.e. title and copyright pages, table of contents, and so on. 
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6 Ways to respond to requests for pointless data

So, there you are, basking in your new-found freedom to report to parents what their children can actually do in Computing and ICT, when the data impresario in your school says they want you to supply the school office with a “Level” for each child. And for good measure, they want you to do that four times a term in order to monitor progress. How should you respond?
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Preparing for the new Computing curriculum: what if #4

The new Computing curriculum is little more than a checklist. But what it lacks in detail, especially regarding progression, it more than makes up for in terms of the freedom it affords schools to interpret the new Programme of Study in a way that suits them.

With that in mind, have you ever researched your own area

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5 reasons schools need computing teachers with expertise in the subject

Some Principals and Headteachers think that a good way around the problem of teaching computing is to not worry about whether teachers have subject knowledge at all. “All we need are facilitators”, they say, “while the kids can teach themselves and each other.” This is, as any teacher knows (or should know), easy to say, less easy to do, and not altogether the most desirable thing to do even if you can do it. However, just in case your school happens to be “led” by one of the aforementioned Headteachers, here are some arguments you may want to use. I think that any one of them should suffice, and all of them together make for a cast-iron case.
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Getting permission to go on an ICT or Computing course

On this date 4 years ago I published an article that I think is still relevant today.

It strikes me that, what with a new Computing Programme of Study coming into effect in September 2014, ie under a year’s time, Getting permission to go on an ICT course or to a conference is rather timely. Teachers of ICT having to become

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Report from the 3D print show

Richard Smith, of Igloo in Education and Amazing ICT, recently visited the 3D Print Show in London. What did he make of it?

Hi, Richard Smith here from Igloo in Education. I am delighted to have been asked by Terry to do a guest blog post on the 3D print show that took place in London from 7-9th November.

The venue of the event, the Business Design Centre in Islington, sent out a clear message out to visitors: 3D printing should be about innovative design and the encouragement of original business ideas. Of

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My analogue program

Absolute and comparative advantage bookWhen, on my teacher training course, I was told I had create a resource to be used in school, I thought it would be fun to devise a programmed learning guide to the economic concepts of absolute and comparative advantages. Unfortunately, that was in 1974. Word processors were not yet ubiquitous, and home computers had not yet been invented. That came a year or two later. In any case, when I finally did get my hands on a word processor, courtesy of a friend of mine on my MA course, it was slo-o-o-o-o-w.
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A history of data storage and recovery

I once mentioned to the kids I was teaching how useful I found having CD-ROMs to store stuff on. “What?!”, they said. “You had CDs back then?”

Young people always seem to have a working assumption in life that the technology they use only came into existence when they did. Anything else is ancient history. With that in mind, perhaps your pupils will find the infographic below useful and interesting. It charts the development of data storage and recovery from the time of Babbage, in 1834. Along the way there are interesting articles, photos and videos.

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EdExec Live - ICT Matters: A conference worth going to

I look for three main things in a conference:

  • Good topics, by which I mean not only ones about the latest fad but useful, down-to-earth ones too, and ones that make you think and reflect
  • Good speakers, by which I mean people who are experts in their field, and not merely good entertainers
  • An opportunity to meet and network with others
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10 reasons to attend BETT

BETT2013It’s that time of year again. No, I don’t mean the Christmas lights and shopping, but starting to think about BETT in January. If you’re serious about educational technology you really must try to get there, even if you can only manage a day: you’re bound to see something that you find interesting and useful.
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Computational thinking and spreadsheets

Data Model Template - Excel spreadsheetOne way you can “get into” computational thinking is through spreadsheets. Taking a practical view of what “computational thinking” means (see What is Computational Thinking?), I’d say that spreadsheets definitely fit the bill. In order to try to solve a problem using a spreadsheet, which is a tool for modelling or simulation, you have to do the following things:
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