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ICT & Computing in Education

Articles on education technology and related topics
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Handshake, by Terry Freedman

Breaking the social media contract (Updated)

May 20, 2022

Why I’m unfollowing people more and more.

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In News & views Tags politics, swearing, ranting
TfL data by Terry Freedman

TfL data by Terry Freedman

An article about data

May 18, 2022

Elaine keeps telling me to remember to clock in and out at stations, even if the barriers are open. She’s right.

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In Blast from the past Tags data, Transport for London

Books To Be Reviewed #2: Futureproof

May 16, 2022

There are some interesting-looking books at the top of the to-be-reviewed pile. This is one of them.

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In Books Unseen Tags Futureproof, digital citizenship, digital literacy

Books to be reviewed #1: No Excuses

May 16, 2022

There are some interesting-looking books at the top of the to-be-reviewed pile. This is one of them.

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In Books Unseen Tags No Excuses, Colwell

Quick looks: Support Not Surveillance, by Dr Mary Bousted

May 14, 2022

As far as I’m aware no Education Secretary has had the ability or the courage to deal with the teacher recruitment and retention crisis.

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In Books in Brief, Bookshelf, Quick Looks, Reviews Tags Bousted, review, quick looks

Quick looks: Tools for Teachers, by Oliver Lovell

May 14, 2022

Overall the book is a good investment, although I did have some quibbles with it.

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In Books in Brief, Bookshelf, Quick Looks, Reviews Tags Oliver Lovell, quick looks, reviews

Quick looks: About Our Schools, by Tim Brighouse and Mick Waters

May 14, 2022

If you want to see the humble brag elevated to an art form, this is the book for you.

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In Bookshelf, Books in Brief, Quick Looks, Reviews Tags quick looks, Brighouse, Waters
Crowds and queues, by Terry Freedman

Crowds and queues, by Terry Freedman

Job-seeking as a metaphor for assessment in computing

May 12, 2022

jobs lineWhen 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.

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In Assessment Tags assessment, assessing computing

Assessment machine, by Terry Freedman

Artificial Intelligence and marking: pitfalls (2022 Update)

May 12, 2022

If AI generates an essay, and another AI grades it, has anything useful actually happened?

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In Assessment, News & views, Unintended consequences Tags AI, artificial intelligence, Warner, confirmation bias, essay-marking

“Erm, what?” Photo by Tadeusz Lakota on Unsplash

The "voluntary" national tutoring scheme

May 6, 2022

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…

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In News & views Tags National Tutoring Scheme, DfE

A 21st century skills paradox (Updated)

May 1, 2022

Every 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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In News & views, Thinking aloud Tags 21st century skills, Digital Native
Lights and alleyway, by Terry Freedman

Lights and alleyway, by Terry Freedman

21st century skills do not exist; here are 9 skills that do (Updated)

May 1, 2022

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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In News & views Tags 21st century skills, PLTS

Dystopian Visions, by Terry Freedman

Dystopian Visions: The Machine That Won the War

April 26, 2022

What really happens when a computer is invented that can make every decision in a war?

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In Discussion topic, Dystopian Visions Tags Asimov, machine that won the war, Dystopian visions
Dystopian Visions

Dystopian Visions, by Terry Freedman

Dystopian visions: The Cold Equations

April 25, 2022

The potentially devastating consequences of a drive for efficiency to the nth degree are shown in this science fiction story.

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In Discussion topic, Dystopian Visions Tags Tom Godwin, Cold Equations, Dystopian visions

Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash

Is objectivity in book reviews possible, or even desirable?

April 22, 2022

You want the review to be fair, but you also want it to be honest. Maybe being honest is neither objective nor neutral.

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In News & views Tags objectivity, neutrality, Roy Peter Clark, Stephen Downes, book reviews, book reviewing

An education technology co-ordinator's spring-cleaning checklist (Revisited)

April 19, 2022

Well, it's spring again, and time for a good clean-up. Here is a checklist for the ed tech co-ordinator.

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In Leading & Managing Computing & ICT Tags maintenance, spring clean

Managing Change: The Importance of Planning (Updated)

April 19, 2022

I 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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In Leading & Managing Computing & ICT Tags change management, managing change, planning, strategic planning

Just because everyone says something is good, doesn't mean it is.

Making and programming

April 18, 2022

Is 'making' really an effective -- or cost-effective -- way of learning programming?

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In Computing, News & views Tags making, maker, maker movement, coding, programming

Review: The Self-Taught Computer Scientist: The beginner’s guide to data structures & algorithms

April 9, 2022

As its name suggests, this book is aimed at those who want to teach themselves computer science.

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In Bookshelf, Using and Teaching Computing & ICT, Reviews Tags review, self-taught computer scientist, computing, programming

Review: Book Wars

April 9, 2022

The digital revolution was not just about books, but social factors, personal desires, institutional goals and more.

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In Bookshelf, Reviews Tags Review, Book Wars
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This book looks at the maths concepts — and, to some extent, the physics concepts — hidden in popular video games.

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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?

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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.

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Review: Teach Fast

The book contains some interesting ideas.

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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.

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Review: Making Good Progress?

Daisy Christodoulou carefully picks apart the pitfalls of various kinds of assessment, drawing on different subject areas to do so.

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There is plenty in this book to like.

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Review: Effective Teaching: Evidence and Practice

Although this is a few years old now (2018), it has stood the test of time.

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This wide-ranging book takes in probability, fractals, astronomy, Babbage, Lovelace and a host of other areas and people.

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Reviews: Two for History teachers

Two books on the Nazi era.

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