*I know how he feels. Photo from Stencil. Licence: CC0*

Technology: take nothing for granted

October 22, 2017

As I always tell people I'm training, never assume anything, never take anything for granted. Here are a few examples that illustrate why not.

Learn something new, and have a good laugh, with Digital Education! Photo from Stencil. Licence: CC0

What's in the next issue of Digital Education?

October 17, 2017

The forthcoming issue of the Digital Education ezine features 9 interesting articles. This article gives you the lowdown on three of the topics covered, and how to sign up to it.

A screenshot of a print-out of a screenshot

A Visual Basic School Calculator

October 13, 2017

Back in 1994 I wrote a program for a school-oriented calculator to help me manage my departmental budget. Here are some retrospective reflections on my first Visual Basic program.

Technology-Authorised Madness

October 12, 2017

A blast from the past -- with the emphasis on 'blast'. What I thought of self-service checkouts when they first appeared.

This is an image I created using pulpomizer.com. Thanks to Julian Wood for drawing my attention to this application in one of his talks. — This is an image I created using pulpomizer.com. Thanks to Julian Wood for drawing my attention to this application in one of his talks.

A cornucopia of comic-making applications

October 10, 2017

If you like to use comics and cartoons in your teaching, and encourage students to do so too, you'll like this collection of comic-making utilities.

Robot, by Terry. OK, so I'm useless at drawing. Get over it!

Robots, artificial intelligence and all that

October 5, 2017

Call me a dreamer, but I think AI and robots are developments to be welcomed in education, not to worry about.

15 Ways To Make an Educational Technology Project Successful

October 4, 2017

How can you make an educational technology project, for example a school research initiative, successful? In a sense, the fact that it's to do with ICT in education is irrelevant. There are some generic 'rules' which ought to be abided by.

Presentation: 10 stimulating ideas for the Computing curriculum

October 2, 2017

Here is some information about the EduTech conference in general, and my session in particular.

Inspecting Computing in schools: 6 research questions

September 27, 2017

The schools inspectorate in England (Ofsted) aspires to become a research hub. How might or should this affect Computing?

Forthcoming education conferences in London, England

September 25, 2017

Here are a few interesting-looking conferences coming up in London, England, up to January 2018.

In the next issue of Digital Education

September 20, 2017

Algorithms, book reviews and review copies of my book. All in the latest issue of Digital Education.

Women and girls and technology: a matter of biology?

September 20, 2017

Are girls and women biologically predetermined to not be natural programmers? No, I don't think so either. This article contains some interesting points based on recent discussions, and links to (hopefully) useful articles.

8 Reasons to use project-based learning in computing

September 13, 2017

I’ve long been an advocate of project-based learning, or PBL. Done properly, it can be much richer in terms of learning opportunities, and more fun. I believe it is entirely applicable to the teaching of the new Computing Programme of Study, for the following 8 reasons.

Why recipes are a poor way of teaching algorithms -- and why they're not

September 12, 2017

Recipes as algorithms is one of the themes I'll be exploring in the next issue of Digital Education, which will be out soon.

Other themes include 'Is educational research worth the paper it's written on?' and much, much more.

Drones in the Computing curriculum

September 6, 2017

If you're considering using drones in your Computing curriculum, where do you start? This article has a few ideas.

What I've been reading: Weapons of Math Destruction

September 5, 2017

What's worse than being governed by algorithms? Not even knowing what the algorithm is doing. This very timely and readable book lifts the lid of what goes on in many walks of life.

The latest Digital Education newsletter

August 16, 2017

Exclusive article about the forthcoming changes in the EU's data protection laws, pseudoscience (?), biological determinism, back to school resources and more are in the current issue of the Digital Education newsletter.

Read on for the full list of contents of this free newsletter.

Getting the most out of education conferences

August 15, 2017

This book has received 22 five star reviews in total so far, and is the TESOL Institute's featured book. Read on for more information, and for details on how you can buy a personalised version.

Digital Education newsletter: what's in the next issue?

August 11, 2017

There's a lot of food for thought in the forthcoming issue of the Digital Education newsletter, plus useful resources and tips. Read on for more information.

Recent book reviews

Review: Power Up, by Matthew Lane

This book looks at the maths concepts — and, to some extent, the physics concepts — hidden in popular video games.

Review: The Shortest History of AI

How is it that ChatGPT, Claude and other Al models appear to perform so well at certain complex tasks that some people become convinced that they're sentient — only for them to then promptly fail at simple tasks that even a child could handle?

Review: Teacher Geek

Every so often I like to take a look, or another look, at a book published a while ago, and today I’ve been looking at Teacher Geek, by Rachel Jones.

Review: Teach Fast

The book contains some interesting ideas.

A question of leadership

I have somewhat dichotomous views of this question of whether leaders make a difference, or much of a difference. I think my views can be classified as macro and micro.