7 images of London

LitchtensteinI’ve had the enormous pleasure of having to go into London two days running! “Pleasure?!”, you say. “What? With all those people?” Definitely. In fact, it’s partly ‘all those people’ that make  it a pleasure. That, the architecture, the general buzz. I’m definitely with Samuel Johnson on this one:

Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.

Which is partly why I always carry a camera around with me. As I explained in Pictures as stimuli, pictures can act as, erm, stimuli. You should always  carry a camera of some sort around you, and so should the kids you teach. Oh wait, yes, many of them probably have mobile phones that can take photos and video. Fantastic!

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I was a teenage geek

tfscaredThis article is a bit autobiographical, but there is an objective point to it. Actually, it’s completely autobiographical, but there is still a point to it.

One day when I was 15, I was milling around in this youth club trying to look cool, when someone came up to me and asked me if I’d be interested in joining a cinematography club he wanted to get started. He explained to me that I’d learn how to use a cine camera to shoot films, edit the films,learning about lighting and all that other technical stuff, so I said “Yes!”.

I’d never touched a cine camera in my life.

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What is Both good and original in the world of educational technology?

... No!NO!NOOOO!When a young man with dreams of becoming a writer sent a manuscript to Samuel Johnson for his opinion, Dr Johnson is reputed to have replied:

“My congratulations to you, Sir. Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.”

I thought it might be interesting to look at 10 ideas that have gained popularity in the world of educational technology and ICT in recent years, to see if they meet the “good and original" test”. Here are my considered, though possibly opinionated, views.

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3 General Prequisites of Bring Your Own Device

Bring Your Own DeviceIf a school wishes to go down the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) route, what are the conditions necessary to make this possible in a useful (ie learning enhancing) and hassle-free way?

From my research into schools which have gone down this road, or at least started to, I have come to the conclusion that there are three at least three general conditions which have to be met.

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M is for … Marginal Cost

Marginal Cost, like Opportunity Cost, is a concept used in Economics. It’s so useful, I’m surprised it isn’t used more often, or at least more explicitly, in general. It definitely comes into its own in the world of ICT or education technology.
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Review of BETT 2013

BETT2013The BETT Show is, I’m reliably informed, the biggest education technology show in the world. It takes place in London, England, every January. This year it was slightly later, but I’ll come to that in a moment. The first thing I’ll say is that even if you didn’t attend you may find this article interesting, as I suspect that several comments will apply to any education technology conference.

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BYOD Case Study: Invicta Grammar School

Netbook ShelfThe Bring Your Own Device scheme implemented by Invicta is a hybrid of school-supplied or specified technology for the younger students, and a true BYOD scheme, within certain limits, for the older ones.

The question arises, why have a 1-to-1 scheme given the fact that there is so much technology in the school already?

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We are running a good service –you can see it in real time

Transport for LondonHere’s a photo I took recently on the London Underground. There are periodic announcements, static noticeboards, and electronic delays constantly assuring us that we are experiencing a good service. I presume it is intended to introduce a feel-good element into an otherwise mundane existence.

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The sound of being connected

Dial up modemWhen I first had email and an internet connection, it was made possible by using a dial-up modem. These modems were positively snail-like compared to today’s devices. For example, my first modem could transmit data over the telephone line at the blistering speed of 9 kilobytes per second (kbps).

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Unreliable information is worse than no information

informationI will never understand why so many people think that Wikipedia is OK to use for serious research on the grounds that it is mostly reliable. Mostly? Some years ago I posited the idea of a wiki timetable, in which people get to edit train timetables how they like. Some of the information displayed on the electronic noticeboards would probably be accurate some of the time. Useful, eh?

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Impressions of BETT 2013

Kevin HoganWhat a week this has been! The Education World Forum kicked it off, where I had the pleasure of discussing matters of consequence with some very interesting people, followed by a gruelling but fun BETT. More about the EWF soon; for now, I'd like to focus on BETT.

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