I’ve been thinking about definitions of success recently.
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EdTech Diary: Talking the talk
Imagine the scene: a visiting dignitary, or an inspector, is shown into your classroom and, as is expected of anyone in that situation, walks around the room chatting to the pupils. She notices...
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Stuck, by Terry Freedman
How to make your classroom a stimulating environment
FREEBIE! Having been going through my files and digitising them, I came across this little booklet I created back in 2005.
Read More10 ways to make an impact
The way some people describe Computing makes it sound (let's be honest here) dead boring. The subject gets reduced, in effect, to 'coding'.
Read MoreReflections on assessing computing
This article was originally published some time ago, when there was a previous iteration of the National Computing. However, although the context has changed, many of the issues remain, which is why I've decided to republish. I hope you find it useful. It has been lightly edited to remove dud links)
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Review: Quiet Power, by Susan Cain
Introverts thrive by being allowed to be quiet, having time for reflection and not being required to 'perform' all the time.
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Quick look: Desirable difficulties in action
The idea of desirable difficulties has always appealed to me. In my teaching I’m partticularly in favour of applying Vygotsky’s concept of the zone of proximal development.
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AI for bloggers?
In my recent blogging course, I abandoned my carefully-prepared lesson, or part pf it, threw caution to the winds, and suggested to the class that we experiment with using AI for writing blog posts. Here’s a partial blog post it came up with, which you will agree is utter rubbish…
Read MoreReview: The Collaboration Book – 41 Ideas for Working Better
Most people would agree that collaboration is a good thing – so how can we collaborate more effectively in school settings?
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Click the image to see this book on Amazon (affiliate link)
Review: Listen: On Music, Sound and Us
This book might not directly address obvious aspects of the music curriculum, but it can certainly give teachers access to a rich seam of facts and anecdotes with which to embellish their lessons.
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The perfect evaluation method is an ever-receeding goal. Photo by Terry Freedman
Course evaluations and their pitfalls
I think evaluations are very odd devices to be honest. Someone once “marked me down” on her evaluation of a one day course I was running on the grounds that the traffic was terrible. I pointed out to her that I wasn’t in charge of local traffic conditions and that she should complain to the council.
Read MoreI prefer a malignant super computer to a benificent one
Imagine being in the situation where your kitchen won't allow you to rustle up an egg in case you burn yourself.
Read MoreFrom online to offline: how I prepared for one of my courses
In the Digital Education Supplement there is a document about how to convert an offline course to an online one. This is the inverse of that process in some ways.
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Review of Destination Time Travel, by Steve Nallon
A book on temporal adventures may seem like an odd inclusion here, but it can actually be used in many ways.
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Review: The Language of Deception: Weaponizing Next Generation AI, by Justin Hutchens
AI might not be ‘intelligent’ in the strictest sense – but it can certainly appear to be, which is almost as worrying.
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Review of Tips for teachers: 400+ ideas to improve your teaching
Don’t let this book’s size (nearly 600 pages) put you off. It’s comprehensive, and very well structured and laid out.
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It’s a start! Photo by Terry Freedman
Money, money, money -- again
This is an updated version of an article I published on my writing website in 2015. In my experience, it absolutely applies to artists, teachers and other creatives as well as writersor consultants.
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Snowball, by Terry Freedman
I don't like ice-breakers
One of the more unfortunate effects of lockdown and its concomitant requirement of online learning is the application of different kinds of ice-breaker. To be fair, most ice-breaker activities leave me cold…
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This is what Ideogrm.ai came up with in response to the prompt “Person using AI”.
Do kids still need to learn how to code?
A week or so ago we were chatting to a neighbour. She said she thinks her daughter, who looked about six years old, should learn how to code, as that’s the future. Didn’t I agree? I’m afraid I said that didn’t.
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Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay
The Joint Consultative Committee
Every so often I read about a headteacher caving in to students ‘demanding’ their rights, or demanding something or other. The usual technique is to go from zero degrees to boiling in no seconds flat, bunking off lessons to ‘protest’. My response would be to (a) suspend the lot of them
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