If there is an option to send a text or email message to parents with the information, obviously there needs to be a box to be ticked for that, but all the business of copying information from one place (the database) to another (text message), formatting the message and then digging out and inserting the parent’s contact details should all be automated.
Read MorePowerPoint without tears
The slides should be a starting point for more material, or a summary of something you have said. If all you're going to do is read out the slides, why not just give them a set of notes and head for the nearest café?
Read More
Click the pic to see the book on Amazon (affiliate link)
Review: Windows 10 Portable Genius
Many people need to find ways of shaving time off of tasks, and getting more done in a day. This book covers both.
Read MoreReview: Portable Excel Genius
Although the book has not been written with teachers in mind, it contains information that many teachers would find useful.
Read More
Think outside the box, by Terry Freedman
The Tyranny Of Relevance (Updated)
In his exposition of his views in favour of liberal education, he used the term 'the tyranny of relevance'. Although he wasn’t talking about Information and Communications Technology (ICT), this phrase did strike a chord with me. Is there perhaps too much store set by 'relevance'?
Read MoreIn ICT, the past is not what it was (Updated)
From 1997 there was an almost palpable – some would say relentless – commitment to educational technology in the UK. Although not always strategic, it was both consistent and persistent. It was a qualitative as well as quantitative break with the past. Yet, whilst I would never disparage these efforts, I don’t believe they were necessarily as wonderful as people remember them to be.
Read More
The scream by Terry Freedman
Sense and the Census
What's the point of your product or service?
If you can’t explain what problem your product solves, you’ve got a problem.
Read More
Rules, by Terry Freedman. I thought this sign is a reasonable analogy to the likely rules in a post-lockdown world.
Writing during Covid
Do you read people’s writings about covid? I don’t, if I can help it.
Read More
Do not adjust your set, by Terry Freedman
Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible
I’m hoping to get things back to normal soon, that is, publishing articles several times a week.
Read More
Click the cover to see this book on Amazon (affiliate link)
Review of Science Fictions (Teach Secondary)
Even where there is no outright fraud involved, simple statistical errors, “publication bias” and perverse incentives can render “breakthroughs” less noteworthy when the studies reporting them are looked at more closely.
Read More
Click the cover to see this book on Amazon (affiliate link)
Review of The Read Aloud Cloud
What a strange book this is!
Read MoreChecklist: Converting an offline course to an online one
In case you missed this when I posted it during half-term… I’ve written a long article about how I converted a course I’d taught in a classroom to one I was able to teach online.
Read More
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.
Read MoreResearch, teacher training, teachers' email addresses -- in the year 2000
“It seems to me that the folks at the Teacher Training Agency have not so much *lost* the plot as are still looking for it.” Another delve into the edtech issues of the day in the year 2000!
Read MoreFree books on Artificial Intelligence, Lisp, Deep Learning and others
Robot, by Terry Freedman
Author Mark Watson has generously made some of his ebooks available free of charge. See the books section of his website:
If you wish to pay for them, there is a choose-your-price (within certain limits) over at Leanpub, where you can also see the books’ tables of contents and blurbs.
Terry Freedman qualified as a teacher in 1975, has written for educational publications since 1989, and has published this website since 1995.
Don’t frustrate your visitors! Drawing by Terry Freedman
We have contact... or do we?
The average attention span of internet users is virtually zilch. According to an article, people spend under 6 seconds looking at a website’s content. Can your contact details be found in less time than that?
Read MoreBroadband in schools -- circa 2003
If you look up broadband in schools, the story these days is that the provision is deemed “inadequate”. I think that’s a lot to do with how aspirations have risen over the past couple of decades, and is therefore a good thing.
Read More
Discussing, by Terry Freedman
Discussing exam grades with students
Is there anyone in the Department for Education who understands that education is more than issuing edicts?
Read More
Conference, by Terry Freedman
Conference: The future of education technology UPDATED
* UPDATED * The folks at Westminster Forum are running a very timely conference on 11 March 2020, about the future of edtech.
Read More