What ICT (educational technology) skills should the modern journalist have? Earlier in the year Tony Johnston, of the Press Association, gave a talk online for a “Teachshare” session for Vital. It was fascinating, and a few things stood out for me:
Read MoreWhy you should review your ICT purchasing plans
When the cost of calling an engineer out to fix your printer is greater than the price of a new printer, you know it’s time to review your printer spending plans. That’s the situation I was faced with when I joined one particular school: a top-quality printer had been bought, one which was so highly engineered that you couldn’t fiddle around with it yourself if it stopped working.
Another unfortunate consequence of having such an expensive printer was that it
My blackberry isn’t working: technology and language
I attended an interesting event yesterday, which I’ll write about shortly, but I thought I’d share this video with you. It was shown at the event, and is a nice, humorous illustration of how technology has influenced our language.
East Sussex County Council Re-Define It Service Delivery To Schools With Centrastage
The Schools ICT Services division of East Sussex Local Authority supports 194 schools. During 2009, East Sussex Local Authority began a strategic review of all ICT Services including those provided to schools. An extensive consultation process with schools was undertaken, to better understand the ‘customer’ requirements from an IT service point of view; members of the school ICT support team at East Sussex also visited other Local Authorities to see how school ICT services were being delivered elsewhere. This process ultimately led to a complete re-design of school IT support services within East Sussex.
Read MoreWhy should students type in data?
Is there ever any justification for getting students to type in huge amounts of data? It’s a point I raise in my book, Go On, Bore ‘Em: How to make ICT lessons excruciatingly dull.
Read MoreCrowd-sourced reference books? No thanks
Language used to evolve slowly. Now it evolves much more quickly. Apart from the fact that new technology – of which there is more and more every week – spawns new terminology, trends are spread with lightning speed across the internet via social media. There is a temptation to rely on crowd-sourced reference works when trying to find out the correct word or correct usage, because they will be bang up-to-date. Unfortunately, in my own experience these are sometimes wrong or contain discussions by people whose expertise in the matter is not obvious.
Thoughts on ICT leadership
Being appointed to a leadership position gives you some power, but it does not automatically give you authority.
What is the difference between power and authority? I think it can be summarised fairly simply, as follows.
Read MoreA film competition, video judging and a consultation
Childnet International, a registered charity whose mission is to work in partnership with others around the world to “help make the Internet a great and safe place for children”, is running a film competition. Here are the details:
City Learning Centres: The end?
Becta. The Harnessing Technology grant. Building Schools for the Future. The once-familiar landmarks of the English educational technology landscape are disappearing or gone. The indications are that they are being followed by City Learning Centres. These CLCs, set up around a decade ago to both provide facilities for local businesses and serve as beacons of innovation and excellence to the schools in a locality, are being closed down, threatened with closure, or reduced in staffing and funding. The question is, though: should we mourn?
25 Ways to make yourself unpopular: #21 Use old technology
Everybody involved in ICT loves gleaming new technology. But in my opinion the guiding principle in decisions about purchasing or deployment should always be what is appropriate and cost-effective.
Read MoreWhy I still love paper
The last time I saw my desk was around 18 months ago, give or take. Until yesterday, that is. It hadn’t been stolen, lost or mislaid, just buried under a pile of paper. And books. And mugs, pens and stickies garnered from various conferences. As you may know, if you've been reading my blog recently, I've been doing a whole load of clearing out.
Read More25 ways to make yourself unpopular: #20 Be persistent
One of the most irritating things about children – but also one of the most endearing – is their tendency to ask lots of follow-up questions. They are never fully satisfied with the answer to their original question: each answer leads to a further enquiry. I think that ICT leaders can learn much from children in this respect.
There are two areas in which this sort of dogged persistence can pay off.
Open Door Classrooms
Should classrooms be open to the world, in the sense that anyone might see what's going on, and perhaps even take part in them? Is this an inevitable development anyway, given today's technology?
Read MoreThese are the sorts of issues that Steve Wheeler raises in his reflections on Open Door Classrooms.
The iPad and the train
I think that cartoonists often are among the most perspicacious of us when it comes to reflecting on the (side) effects of technology. I particularly liked today’s Alex cartoon in the Daily Telegraph about the effects of the iPad on people’s expectations whilst travelling on trains. Take a look, and bring a smile to your face.
How might you use this as a starting point for discussion with students about how technology changes our expectations in a whole variety of contexts?
Update on 2011-05-10 21:46 by Terry Freedman, Educational ICT Consultant
The original link in the above post was changed by the Daily Telegraph -- good job I spotted it! All corrected now!
Two questions about ICT capability
Here are two questions you might like to use in order to get a discussion going with your colleagues.
They are both concerned with assessing ICT capability.
Read MoreConference: The Future of Education: Creating an Education System Fit for the 21st Century
This conference takes place on 24th May, and has a most timely agenda, with a focus on the Big Society, Free schools, and ICT.
Two slots in particular caught my eye, these being Teaching in a 21st Century School and ICT as a Driver of Educational Reform.
Read MoreConference: The future of education
This conference takes place in London on Tuesday 17th May. I’ve looked at the programme, and it looks pretty good, with some high profile speakers and some useful-sounding topics.
Read MoreLearning from the past
As I said recently, I’m currently clearing out tons of paperwork, books, reports, CDs -- anything, in fact, that I have had no need to bother with for the past several years. It is a process that has been as slow as I’d feared rather than as fast as I’d hoped, mainly because ordinary life always seems to intrude on even the best laid plans.
Read More