Crowds and queues, by Terry Freedman
When I saw several hundred people lining up for some sort of job registration recently, I immediately thought of the challenges of assessing pupils’ educational technology capability. A bit of a stretch? Not necessarily.
Assessment machine, by Terry Freedman
If AI generates an essay, and another AI grades it, has anything useful actually happened?
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“Erm, what?” Photo by Tadeusz Lakota on Unsplash
The Department for Education’s newly beefed-up National Tutoring Scheme enables schools to arrange tutoring for their students at discounted rate is purely voluntary, but…
Read MoreEvery time I attend an educational ICT conference, at least one of the speakers talks about how little we know about the future. But their argument doesn’t make sense.
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Lights and alleyway, by Terry Freedman
Has there ever been such a frenzy of thinking and activity over a concept which does not even exist? I am referring, of course, to the ridiculous notion of so-called '21st century skills'.
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Dystopian Visions, by Terry Freedman
What really happens when a computer is invented that can make every decision in a war?
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Dystopian Visions, by Terry Freedman
The potentially devastating consequences of a drive for efficiency to the nth degree are shown in this science fiction story.
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Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash
You want the review to be fair, but you also want it to be honest. Maybe being honest is neither objective nor neutral.
Read MoreWell, it's spring again, and time for a good clean-up. Here is a checklist for the ed tech co-ordinator.
Read MoreI can't count the number of times I've sat in meetings and heard the team leader say, "OK, so by next month X will have happened. What's the next item on the agenda?", to which I've piped up: "Er, exactly how is it going to happen?".
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Just because everyone says something is good, doesn't mean it is.
Is 'making' really an effective -- or cost-effective -- way of learning programming?
Read MoreAs its name suggests, this book is aimed at those who want to teach themselves computer science.
Read MoreThe digital revolution was not just about books, but social factors, personal desires, institutional goals and more.
Read MoreMy public writing tends to be mostly about education technology, and the craft of nonfiction writing. My interests are more varied than that brief description would suggest, but to avoid muddying the waters I either attempt to skew an article so that it fits into one of those categories, or not publish it at all. But now that has changed…
Read MoreMark Bentley shares his views on the Government’s Online Safety Bill.
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You don’t need an arrangement as elaborate as this! Photo: Press Association newsroom, by Terry Freedman
One of the ways in in which you can help enliven the Computing curriculum is to allocate some time in every lesson (yes, every lesson) to news. There are several reasons for this.Here is some news about an update to a program that enables children to write something and illustrate it. It was demonstrated at Bett.
Read MoreThe British government wants to make technology companies more responsible for policing online harms. It's one of those ideas that sounds great in theory but is fraught with difficulties.
Read MoreYou may not know this, but I really really try to greet pronouncements from the Department for Education in a positive manner. But, quite frankly, they make that impossible.
Read MoreJust in case you weren't aware, the previous Education Secretary in England, Gavin Williamson, is going to be given a knighthood. Admittedly he had a rotten task, having to deal with education during a pandemic and lockdowns. Even so….
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