Waterloo Station, London, by Terry Freedman via Flickr

London is a sprawling place and, depending on how you define its boundaries, is home to up to around 18 million people.

So what are the chances of this happening?

The reason I mention all this is, of course, by way of a prelude to, not so much an all-out attack on, but an all-out gripe about, academic research.

 

Image by Terry Freedman via Flickr

Malcolm McLaren is not, perhaps, the first person that would spring to mind in the context of education. Yet, as one of the keynotes at the Handheld Learning Conference 2009 he had much to say that was highly relevant – in an irrelevant sort of way.

On that criterion, I would say that the second day of the Handheld Learning conference I’ve been attending in London, especially the morning, was a great success. Under the heading ‘Reflections on Learning’, four speakers gave us their perspective on learning. In the case of Zenna Atkins of Ofsted, the UK’s school inspectorate, and especially Malcolm McLaren – yes, that one – the perspective was quite personal.

I watched an interesting TV programme last night. Called Electric Dreams, the programme followed the fortunes of a family whose home had been transported back in time to the 1970s. Each day brought a new year, and the technology that went with it.

Some insightful connections were made

I've had a great response to my call for submissions to this ebook, which seeks to collate information about interesting projects involving the use of Web 2.0 applications in schools.

The original deadline was 30 September, but last night I received some news which has led me to extend it until the 31st October.

"Sport England and Facebook have announced a new partnership that will transform the way sports bodies engage with participants as they deliver a lasting Olympic legacy of one million people playing more sport."

Is this a good thing or not?

I attended a fascinating talk at the RSA last week. In a lecture entitled “The Internet: Empowering or Censoring Citizens”, Evgeny Morozov questioned whether the internet really is the means to inevitable freedom and democracy it is often portrayed to be.

I've received some great-looking project ideas for inclusion in the new edition of the free Web 2.0 Projects Book. Here is a brief update on the current state of play.

I have recently stopped going to 'my' gym, and started going to an unfamiliar one instead. The small increase in travelling time and the extra cost in terms of parking are more than compensated for by the peace and quiet I enjoy as a result of switching.

So what's all this about, and how does it relate to educational technology?

Sophie Bessemer has emailed me to tell me about this new resource. It has sections for students and parent as well as teachers. As you might gather from its name, YJYW is designed for use in Citizenship and similar classes.

I've had a quick look, and I think that with a bit of tweaking it would also be useful in the Society, Health and Development Diploma, since that has a substantial legal element.

Read on for more information.

Attribution:

Jack Alibi knew how to work. He also knew how to work a scam. Sure, going legit was good, but it took time. Lack of time was something Alibi had plenty of.

Here's another article on the same theme, with 21 suggestions.

Some observations about troubleshooting tech problems.

Yesterday was one of those days. You know the ones: you wake up in the morning full of the joys of spring, or whatever the season happens to be, raring to go, and full of grandiose plans. They were not to be realised. For a while now, the tech force has left us alone.

Perhaps it was on vacation.

Yesterday it returned.

More interesting to me is the number of times a particular article is viewed at a particular point in time.

So that got me thinking: does a broken clock indicate that the management really doesn't care that much about such details because they are regarded as unimportant in comparison too customer service issues. Or does it imply that the management is so focused on what the reception area looks like, in order to attract more customers, that anything else takes second place?

 
• News
 
• Using computers to raise standards in mathematics
 
• The White Paper: your child, your schools, our future: building a 21st century school system
 
• Amazing Greats

Find out more by clicking on the title.

What did it have to say about the role of information and communications technology (ICT), and what are the implications for teachers?

"Are you trying to be impudent, boy?",

followed by the imposition of a detention.

Another teacher had a novel approach to teaching: if you didn't understand the stuff in the lesson, you had a 90 minute detention in which to practise with test papers until you did -- all in utter silence while the 'teacher' (I use the term loosely) did his marking.

In a recent address called 'What is education for?' to the Royal Society of Arts, Michael Gove bemoaned the fact that there is no government department in the UK whose sole remit is the pursuit of educational standards.

According to Gove, education is not regarded as a good enough end in itself, but as something which can help to achieve some other goal.

In his exposition of his views in favour of liberal education, he used the term 'the tyranny of relevance'. Although he wasn’t talking about Information and Communications Technology (ICT), this phrase did strike a chord with me. In the continuing debate over whether ICT should be taught as a subject in its own right, is there perhaps too much store set by 'relevance'?

The woman at the end of the accusing finger pointing at my laptop edged cautiously towards the pub door, giving me a wide berth -- presumably in case the "thing" lashed out at her.

"I've tried, but they hate me, they do!"

Easy to dismiss such talk as the incoherent prattle of someone slightly unhinged. And yet, a part of me wonders whether she is not, on some level, quite right?

The Independent Review of ICT User Skills of Britain’s population has just been published. It makes for some interesting reading.

Miller (left) is a teenager living in the USA. It's always interesting to hear what young people think about educational technology, so I was delighted when Miller agreed to have a go at answering questions about it.

The questions below are all genuine, ie they have been submitted by real people, not just made up by me (although I can assure that I am a real person!).

Equally, Miller's answers are genuine too, which is to say she didn't receive any prompting or assistance from either her teacher, Vicki Davis, or me.

Today, Miller answers these questions:

 
1. How have you been made aware of e-safety (internet safety) issues - did your school have e-safety lessons or e-safety awareness programs. Did the school have an "Acceptable Use Policy" (a set of rules for the use of computers / the internet). is e-safety an issue for American teenagers (thinking of computers, hand held devices, cell phones etc)
 
2. As a young person what do you think would be most helpful to protect young people online?
 
3. Do you think it's necessary for schools to block social networking sites like Twitter & Facebook? Do you see any benefits that students can receive from this channels of technology?
 
4. How do you feel that your use of Web 2.0 apps will change over the next couple of years?

Here’s my response.

Miller (left) is a teenager living in the USA. It's always interesting to hear what young people think about educational technology, so I was delighted when Miller agreed to have a go at answering questions about it.

The questions below are all genuine, ie they have been submitted by real people, not just made up by me (although I can assure that I am a real person!).

Equally, Miller's answers are genuine too, which is to say she didn't receive any prompting or assistance from either her teacher, Vicki Davis, or me.

Today, Miller answers these questions:

 
1. Do you do think that technology in teaching is better than face-to-face teaching?
 
2. Do you ever use virtual worlds to socialize, like ‘Second Life’?
 
3. What mobile devices are students in America using, and what are they used for?

As the title suggests, this book is concerned with helping you improve your blog. Written by Darren Rowse, founder of Problogger, it started life as a series of daily blog posts and, latterly, a daily email task if you signed up to the course.

So, how good is it, and does it represent value for money – especially if you have already read all the posts?

It’s an unfortunate fact that the issues I raised in my book ‘Go on, bore ‘em: how to make ICT lessons excruciatingly dull’ are still relevant today.

This has been clearly demonstrated in  our interview with Edith, a 14 year-old, recently, and it’s also apparent from emails and other messages I receive. So what can be done about it?

We take it as axiomatic that we need to attend shows like the Education Show or the BETT show in order to find out what’s new in technology. But are we unduly limiting ourselves?

Can eBay teach us anything about assessment? At a recent conference, John Davitt made an interesting point.

In the UK the government is keen to get rid of, or at least reduce, the digital divide. For this reason it introduced a home access programme, the aim of which is to help the poorest families acquire a computer and an internet connection.

But what if this were a food relief programme?

According to David Anstead of Ofsted, there are 4 systemic problems in the provision of ICT, these being the use of assessment, some qualifications, value for money, and getting ICT to the learning. At the Naace 2009 Conference he discussed each of these. Here are my notes from that session.

Assuming that we think e-enablement is a worthy goal (definitions vary, but one of the most popular is that a school is said to be e-enabled if it could not function without its technology; I’m not sure that’s a good position to be in, but I get the point), how do we achieve it?

Or, to be somewhat more accurate, how do we achieve it faster? In the UK we’ve had a massive investment in technology in schools over the past decade, but many schools are still not e-enabled. (Figures vary, but the percentage of schools said to be e-enabled seems to be somewhere between 11 and 20%.)

Perhaps this is an illustration of seeing a half-full glass as half-empty. I certainly don’t wish to come across as a pessimist – I think there have been huge achievements. Nevertheless, I think it would be an incredible feat of self-imposed blindness to not wonder how come we haven’t achieved even more. At the Naace09 Conference, Niel McLean had a few suggestions.

I was struck by this expression of John Davitt’s, at the recent Naace Conference. This and a couple of other expressions make interesting potential starting points for discussion.

There are several compelling reasons for starting such an enterprise.

Miller (left) is a teenager living in the USA. It's always interesting to hear what young people think about educational technology, so I was delighted when Miller agreed to have a go at answering questions about it.

The questions in this article are all genuine, ie they have been submitted by real people, not just made up by me (although I can assure that I am a real person!).

Equally, Miller's answers are genuine too, which is to say she didn't receive any prompting or assistance from either her teacher, Vicki Davis, or me.

This week, Miller answers these questions:

 
1. Do you or your teachers make use of any social bookmarking tools (like Delicious). If so, which do you use?  Thanks, Ian
 
2. Should teachers stay out of your facebook? Or would you like learning stuff and school info to roll through like status updates? Or maybe an application you can install to see your school related stuff?
 
3. What role would u like to have in helping less savvy adults understand new media?

We're always interested in hearing the views of young people, so it was with great pleasure that Elaine and I interviewed Edith. Edith is a teenager living in England, and has some definite views about the teaching of information and communications studies (ICT). I saw her, not for the first time, at a recent Teachmeet and was struck by her statement that she, and her peers, were being 'under-taught'.

In this interview we explore this and other issues.

Rather than respond immediately to the publication of the Rose Review of the Primary Curriculum, I have looked at the report and some additional documentation, and produced a Computers in Classrooms Briefing as a result.

In the briefing, I have summarised the main points of the documentation in terms of information and communications technology (ICT), and added my own comments. I hope that this will prove to be useful for colleagues as a basis for discussion and as a handy summary of the proposed changes.

The briefing also includes a comparison of the current Level Descriptors for ICT and the proposed changes to them. I find it inconvenient to keep flipping from one document to another in order to compare the two versions of each statement, and if you have a similar opinion then you should find this combination of the two sets quite useful – I know I do!

Read on for details of the programs, and how to sign up. The draw will take place at midnight British Summer Time on 1st May 2009. That's today, folks!

Open to UK subscribers only.

Miller (left) is a teenager living in the USA. It's always interesting to hear what young people think about educational technology, so I was delighted when Miller agreed to have a go at answering questions about it.

The questions in this article are all genuine, ie they have been submitted by real people, not just made up by me (although I can assure that I am a real person!).

Equally, Miller's answers are genuine too, which is to say she didn't receive any prompting or assistance from either her teacher, Vicki Davis, or me.

Miller works on the digiteen site

This week, Miller answers these questions:

 
1. Do you do other things online, like play online games, second life etc?
 
2. Is it ever an issue for you, knowing the audience that can view your work?
 
3. If so how do you control who can view?

• Computing at school, by Roger Davies
  
  
• Behind the masks of social networks, by Miller Singleton
  
  
• Is social networking all bad?, by Terry Freedman
  
  
• Facebook's flawed photo privacy, by Dai Barnes, with additional reporting by Lois Whitehead
  
  
• The Facebook party-pooper: tips for protecting your privacy on Facebook, by Scott N Wright
  
  
• Meet Henri: a novel approach to raising personal safety awareness in the primary school, by Dughall McCormick
  
  
• New technology to protect pupils against email abuse from sexual predators, by John McLear
  
  
• What is Twitter, and why is it so important?, by Tom Barrett

I thought it would be interesting to take a backwards glance to see what were the issues on this date last year.

This time last year I published two articles, one of which was about the launch of the then-new Training and Development Agency.

Miller (left) is a teenager living in the USA. It's always interesting to hear what young people think about educational technology, so I was delighted when Miller agreed to have a go at answering questions about it.

Miller works on the digiteen site

The questions in this article are all genuine, ie they have been submitted by real people, not just made up by me (although I can assure that I am a real person!).

Equally, Miller's answers are genuine too, which is to say she didn't receive any prompting or assistance from either her teacher, Vicki Davis, or me.

This week, Miller answers these questions:

 
1. Is it exciting to have a worldwide audience?
 
2. What would you like to see included in the primary (elementary) curriculum, and why?
 
3. What would you like to see included in the secondary (high) school curriculum, and why?
 
4. Do you think information technology should be taught as a subject in its own right?

• Ask Miller!
  
  
• Over to you?
  
  
• Changes to the ICT in Education website: your opinion needed
  
  
• TES Awards
  
  
• Shock tactics
  
  
• Formalising meetings
  
  
• Getting off to a good start
  
  
• Getting a meeting with colleagues at the start of term

After a few of these answers, I was able to boil them down to a formula which could be used in virtually any context.

There is a lot in this: how her class handled a setback created inadvertently by Google, how their teacher laid down the rules and gave tuition on internet safety right up front, how their other teachers are learning from Miller and her classmates, and a lot more.

In one of those all-too-common moments in which the future catches up to the past, Angela McFarlane, revealed recently that audio comments by teachers on their students’ work is proving very effective. So what, if anything, is significant about this? Plenty.

There have been plenty of stories about the cavalier way in which data is treated by people who really should know better, so it’s refreshing to have something new to chew over. However, whether it really is a victory for blogging, or for mainstream media, is a matter of conjecture.

In an excellent post about international collaboration – the post could almost be called ‘Collaboration 101’ – Julie Lindsay answers a number of questions and concerns very thoroughly.

I was pleased that she highlighted the importance of assessment, but feel that she is wrong in some of her comments about digital citizenship.

At the recent Naace conference, delegates were kept updated at the start and end of keynote sessions, with some information projected onto a giant screen and some of it announced. So what would be the advantage of having updates on paper?

By 'paper updates' I mean a daily bulletin or newsletter, perhaps only one side of paper. I think there are 8 advantages of producing them.

In this issue...

• Adventures in Podcasting -- venturing out no more
• Forthcoming issues
• 31 ways of making a contribution
• Prize draw: good news for educational games-creators enthusiasts
• How to make exercises more interesting
• Getting through to parents
• The social networking issue
• The games issue

What part can games play in education? I have been a long-time advocate of using games and simulations, and the realism and possibilities inherent in today's technology makes the use of games rather less optional than one might think.

A couple of weeks ago I attended the Games-Based Learning Conference in London, and I have written an article inspired by that event. However, before that I attended a talk by Ollie Bray at the Naace Conference, and that is the subject of this post.

If ever there was a solution in search of a problem, it's Twitter. Still, it's all good fun, and while it lasts (ie, before the new 'best thing' sweeps it aside without so much as a by-your-leave), more and more uses seem to be discovered for it.

One of the innovations at the Naace 2009 Conference was the placing of an electronic whiteboard in the coffee bar area. As far as I know, it wasn't used at all. Does that mean that unplanned discussions or meetings cannot be facilitated or planned for?

One of the real headaches of organising a conference is getting the entertainment right.

I am thinking about this because of having been at the Naace 2009 annual conference quite recently.There were two evenings to think about. What is the right form of entertainment for an educational ICT conference?

• Quote of the month
  
  
• BETT 2009
  
  
• Talking Books
  
  
• Sponsored article: Mobile revision
  
  
• Visualisers - their use in the primary classroom
  
  
• World Maths Day 2009
  
  
• Report on the Primary Capital Action 08 Conference
  
  
• Question time: questions to ask pupils during lesson observation
  
  
• Book Review: Virtual Shadows - Karen Lawrence Öqvist
  
  
• Book Review: Making Money With Your Blog
  
  
• Hardware review: The MPRO 110 Micro Projector

Naace, the ICT subject association in the UK, is 25 years old this year. This made me think: what can an organisation do to ensure that its history is not lost? Is it even important that its history is preserved?

Not all social networks are general ones like Facebook and MySpace. A number of them are specialist in nature.

Shelfari is one such social network, designed as a place where book lovers can meet, and review and discuss books.

Teenager Adrienne Blaser-discusses how she uses this book-oriented social network.

I recently saw this video for the first time at the Naace 2009 annual conference. A take-off of the opening sequence of The Devil Wears Prada, this video is essentially an advertisement for Microsoft. However, it potentially has some good teaching points in it.

Angela McFarlane gave a talk at the recent Naace conference which was quite interesting. The full title of her talk was:

"5 year olds never could program the video -- challenging the myth of the digital native".

That's a pretty good title for an opening keynote. Too many people, including teachers, relegate responsibility for learning how to do interesting or exciting stuff because they limit what they ask the kids to do on the basis of what they themselves can do -- a point which was brought out in the recent inspection report into ICT in English schools.

She made some good points, although I'm not completely convinced that she was correct in all she said. In particular, her assertion (or conclusion) that a third of children are not engaged with technology at all seems to me rather suspect.

You can see what I mean by looking at the demonstration shown on a video created by Ollie Bray.

The question remains: is this a solution looking for a problem? Probably. But I can see how this might be used in an interesting, and perhaps unintended, way.

It contains reviews of hardware, books, and conferences, advice on lesson observation, information about World Math Day and an article by two teenagers about how and why they created talking books.

Read on for more information about the contents and how to subscribe (it's free).

Teachmeets are a relatively new form of professional development for teachers, originally started by Ewan McIntosh. The idea is pretty simple: a bunch of teachers get together and share stuff. Unlike a lot of the training many of us have to attend, Teachmeets are voluntary, vibrant and relevant.

So why am I feeling nervous about the next one?

Read on for more details.

Should we take these claims seriously?

This is quite an interesting video, for two reasons. It is bound to raise awareness of the effects on people in other parts of the world of our wanting to use mobile phones. It is also likely to have absolutely no impact at all on our behaviour.

However, I do think it can play a useful part in an ICT course or a Social Studies course (or both). Here are some ideas for how to follow up on showing the video, which lasts just a couple of minutes.

This is quite an interesting video, for two reasons. It is bound to raise awareness of the effects on people in other parts of the world of our wanting to use mobile phones. It is also likely to have absolutely no impact at all on our behaviour.

However, I do think it can play a useful part in an ICT course or a Social Studies course (or both). Here are some ideas for how to follow up on showing the video, which lasts just a couple of minutes.

In England, one of the Every Child Matters objectives is "make a positive contribution". Another is "Be healthy." These are connected, and could be immensely important to some students.

In a world where public recognition for one's intellect and incisiveness is not easy to achieve, some songsters may actually need to blog. This is why blocking blogging in schools, or over-filtering, could be harmful in a sense to some people.

We're about to break for half-term here in many parts of England, but before you disappear into the sunset, here are a few items of interest. Well, I hope they will be of interest. They all have something in common, that being the sharing of experience and expertise.

So, with no further ado, here is some news...

"Excuse me, Sir, but how do I get to Central London?"

"Hmm. Well, if I were you, I wouldn't start from here."

That to me is a perfect analogy for many of the arguments about kids' use of social networking, and whether it should be allowed, banned, taught or ignored.

The way I look at it, kids are using it, a lot of adults are using it, and a growing number of companies are using it. So schools have a choice: even if you don't think education should be creative or fun, surely you'd agree that it ought at least to be useful?!

Let's deal with the world as it is, and how it's going to be, not how we'd like it to be. I'm looking here at a number of recently published documents, starting with the interim Digital Britain report published in January 2009.

It's not in the nature of this website to get political with a capital 'p', but there is no doubt in my mind that David Cameron, leader of the Conservative Party in the UK, has done exactly the right thing in asking Carol Vorderman to head up a mathematics task force for improving numeracy.

My question is: why didn't Becta ask her to get involved with the Next Generation Learning initiative? What an opportunity missed, especially as Vorderman did exactly that, or something pretty similar, ten years ago. She and Johnny Ball, who has a great way with young people, would have made a formidable team.

Yes, say the newspaper letter writers, but what does Carol Vorderman know about education? Good question, marred only by the fact that it's totally irrelevant...

I've been recommended a nice-looking service, but before fully signing up
I'd like to try it out first, and that's where you come in.

Project learning? Isn't that where the teacher turns up, tells the kids to do some research about the Vikings, and then disappears into his crossword for six weeks?

Theo Keuchel and Leon Cych

So what's gone wrong, and is there a silver lining in this cloud?

Soon after the BETT show I had occasion to give a presentation in Rotterdam, on the subject of the potential of ICT in education. Again, I did some research and discovered, perhaps not surprisingly, that what young people do and can do in terms of technology is pretty much the same in The Netherlands as it is in the UK as it is in Europe as a whole as it is in the USA.

I very much enjoyed this talk by Mitch Resnick, of MIT, at RM's section of the BETT show this year. Although on one level it might have been perceived as little more than an extended advertisement for Scratch, a visual and intuitive programming interface, the talk contained many perceptive observations.

In fact, I couldn't help thinking that it's a shame that Mitch does not appear to have the ear of people in high places in the UK. If he did, we may have been spared the zero to five year olds curriculum. That's another matter, except to point out that said curriculum contains 500 targets or "developmental milestones", and requires children between 0 and 5 years old to be assessed on nearly 70 measures.

In this article I summarise what for me were the most salient points made in the talk, which, as the title indicates, was about the importance of creativity in education and learning.

Following up from BETT, or any other conference for that matter, can be quite time-consuming, especially when there are other events and meetings booked in your diary.

One of those events was a trip to Rotterdam, where I gave two presentations to a conference concerned with glass fibre and telephony and other applications. I'll jot a few notes about my observations soon.

Here's what I intend doing over the next week or so, assuming I can make good progress on my work for clients, and where you might come in.

I used to enjoy excellent technical support, which certainly beat staying up half the night, or getting up really early in the morning, to fix stuff.

It's not just a symptom of fanaticism or geekiness: if your website suddenly stops working, or your phone stops synching, you have to sort it out. 

I was contacted by Russell Prue last month. Russell Prue is, as he calls himself, an ICT evangelist, and has been around on the UK scene for a very long time. He asked me if I'd like to be interviewed on his radio programme.

Being an ardent self-publicist, and always willing to spread the good news about educational ICT, I readily agreed...

I've just received a link to download the latest program from 2Simple. Called 2DIY (for non-Brits, DIY = do-it-yourself, a shorthand term for home making things like bookshelves for the home), it enables users to create their own games and exercises.

I've had a quick exploration, and it is looking very good. Read on for a quick thumbnail sketch, and why I think you should look into it.

• Blogging In The Primary School 
   
• Teach Kids How To Make Movies   
  
  
• How To Have A Stress-Free Start To The New Term, In 7 Easy Steps   
  
  
• The Formula For Speaking Success: A Really Useful Macro In Eight Steps   
  
  
• How To Create A Grade-Prediction System In Excel, And Save Yourself Loads Of Time   
  
  
• Review Of The Edge Of Madness   
  
  
• Review Of Leading A Digital School   
  
  
• Preview Of The Neurobiology Of Learning And Memory   
  
  
• Review Of Learning And Teaching With Virtual Learning Environments   
  
  
• Review Of Timeleft

We often hear of companies’ websites becoming inaccessible because of denial of service (DoS) attacks.

What would happen if an entire country were to be subjected to a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack?

What I've tried to do here is summarise a range of viewpoints in the form of brief statements and questions, and suggest ways in which the material might be used in a school context.

I have also tried to keep myself out of it, in the sense that I've reported, as faithfully as I can, a range of views expressed at a conference I attended, without attempting to put my own spin on them.

Here are the reasons that I don't have one myself.

We're taking a break from publishing articles here until after New Year. You may notice bits of website maintenance going on, but that's about all. The time will be spent resting and preparing for some upcoming presentations.

If that leaves you with withdrawal symptoms, here's a list of articles you might like to check out....

If someone follows you in Twitter, the polite thing to do is reciprocate, right? Well, maybe so, but I think it needs a little more thought than that. Here is a list of the steps I take when someone follows me.

Incidentally, the same techniques, with a bit of adjustment, work for any social network situation where people can become your "friend".

I often read blogs or articles which allude to the exciting nature of the possibilities of using video and podcasting in the curriculum, as opposed to spreadsheets. I think this raises a number of issues:

Firstly, why even bother to teach spreadsheets given the apparently more exciting possibilities offered by video and so on?

Secondly, is it true to say that spreadsheets are, in their very nature, boring?

Thirdly, even if they are, does it matter?

Christmas greetings

Editorial

MAGIX Movie Competition winner!

Other quick Christmas ideas (book reviews, including a special reader offer)

Christmas entertainment

Computers in Classrooms is free. To subscribe, look here.

"Now is the time for all ETAN members to contact Congress with their support for President-Elect Obama’s vision for our nation’s schools and request that Congress include funding for classroom technology and school broadband access in the economic recovery package. Congress is at the initial stage of drafting this legislation. It is crucial that they hear from YOU and YOUR COLLEAGUES NOW!"

Well, from my experience in the UK, I would say that government funding is not necessarily unequivocally good....

These are the eagerly-anticipated interim report from the Rose review of the primary curriculum in England and Wales, and the government's ideas on what a world-class education comprises and the associated school report card.

The good thing about the interim report is that it emphasises the importance of ICT in the primary curriculum. I'm not so sure about the 21st century school document.

• The best of the web... series
• The Inovations Report published yesterday
• The education legislation in the Queen's speech
• An article called "Who are the stakeholders?"

Thanks go to Derek Wenmoth for blogging about this, thereby giving us the heads-up.

Here's a very brief commentary on the summary.

Read on if you're interested, or click here for a screenshot of the revamped menu.

Having recently announced the publication of the latest issue of Computers in Classrooms, here is the list of the contents.

Here's a quick run-down of what's in store, if you're able to either attend or tune in this evening.

Click on the heading for details of how to sign up for free, and where to download it from.

That's the title of a presentation that Miles Berry and I will be giving at the BETT show in January 2009, under the auspices of the British Computer Society. The presentation will be all about kids' (hidden) creativity, and its implications for teachers and teaching.

Please read on for details.

On Sunday, it was reported that the UK's tax website had to be closed temporarily because:

"a memory stick containing confidential pass codes to the system was found in a pub car park."

That was repeated again today, along with another article stating that according to official figures, one official is disciplined over data loss every day. And if that's the "official" figure, there is no doubt in my mind that the actual figure is higher. I wonder what it is when you take into account private companies "losing" data, or Local Authorities "losing" data?

I've even attended a seminar on the subject of missing data and laptops, where a number of experts gave talks on the problem (and I will be reporting on that in due course). But it seems to me that the problem could actually be solved very quickly by changing the way we think about data.

One of the aspects of many ICT courses is the effects of IT on society. Perhaps this opinion piece (which, as you will see, is backed up by facts and figures) might be used as the starting point for a debate and other work on the subject.

I was asked recently to present the keynote for the latest iteration of the Flat Classrooms project. Unfortunately, once I'd written the script, I decided it was going to be too long, so I rewrote it and recorded a much shorter video.

However, rather than go to all that effort for nothing, I thought I'd post the original script here. In it, I talk about how the increasing flatness of the world, brought about by changes in technology and costs, have affected me personally over the years -- and, by extrapolation, others wishing to run a business. This is, of course, a standard journalistic technique: when an event or a set of changes is too large to grasp easily, it makes sense to focus on one or two close-ups to help make the point. That's what I've tried to do here.

I hope you think I've succeeded, and that your students will benefit from reading and reflecting on this.

On 27 October 2008 I attended my first ever "Be Very Afraid" event. Established by Stephen Heppell a few years ago, the idea of this occasion is, as I understand it, to give us teachers and educationalists a kick up the rear end -- in the nicest possible way, of course!

The premise, in a nutshell, is that kids can do, and are doing, fantastic things, and we ought to know about them. Well, that has always been my guiding principle, so the idea of the event appeals very much. So, did the reality live up to the promise?

I made several videos with children and young people at the event. Here they are; judge for yourself.

I've been looking around Dell's Idea Storm website. It's an online space in which people can submit ideas, comment on other people's ideas and vote on the ideas.

Could something similar work for education?

Podcasting for Teachers marries technicalities, resources and pedagogy.

10% off for USA readers!
It's very strange, I think, that over the past few years podcasting has developed a kind of double life. On the one hand, many have heard of it, quite a few make podcasts and even more listen to podcasts, on all manner of subjects. On the other hand, even now I get asked, by teachers, "What exactly is podcasting?".

In other words, podcasting has still not entered the mainstream. It is still largely regarded, where it is considered at all, as a bit of a geeky activity at worst, or an optional extra as best.

So what does this book on the subject have to offer?

I asked people, via Twitter, how they used applications like Twitter and Skype for their own professional development. This was for an article in the Times Education Supplement.

The article has been published now, but unfortunately the quotes I included were omitted. Therefore, what I've done is to collate them all into a file that can be used for staff training or simply your own edification. The file includes the quotes, Twitter names, and blog details if known.

But rather than dwell on that, I wanted to talk about a great experience I had. I attended a presentation by Danah Boyd, and then had the privilege of listening to her later in the day when she was on a panel. Her talk, about living in a networked world, really got me thinking, as did her comments on the panel, which came at the end of a session about virtual worlds.

Crisis? What crisis?

Everything is going wrong, and everyone wants their problem fixed right now. How can you cope? Here are 5 proven techniques for handling a situation in which several crises seem to be happening at once.

This article is available only to subscribers to the Practical ICT eJournal. Click the link to find out more about this high-value, low-cost, subscription, and to download a sampler, and an index to the 40+ articles published over the last school year.

It's interesting to see how the term "IT consultants" has different meanings depending on the context in which they operate, and their company's size.

I hope you like the new look Practical ICT. This edition has some great content:

• Editorial
• News
• A Review of Shelfari
• Intellectual property and the future of copyright
• Assessing Pupils’ Progress in ICT
• A tale of two cafés
• The mid-mid-term review
• Special educational needs: assessing and personalising
• Looking ahead: research, plus 7 futuristic applications
• Using consultants effectively: 5 key things to do
• Keep tabs on me
• Publishing information

If you manage a large team, how do you ensure that your decisions are good ones?

This article is available only to subscribers to the Practical ICT eJournal. Click the link to find out more about this high-value, low-cost, subscription, and to download a sampler, and an index to the 40+ articles published over the last school year.

If you're in charge of teaching information and communications technology, what can you do in order to inject even more life into the subject? Here are 12X ideas to get you started.

This article is available only to subscribers to the Practical ICT eJournal. Click the link to find out more about this high-value, low-cost, subscription, and to download a sampler, and an index to the 40+ articles published over the last school year.

I think there are several reasons for this, but first, let me clarify what I am referring to. Clearly, in this context I am regarding consultancies like mine as small companies, which is what they are. I am also including authors under that umbrella as well. I know that authors, especially casual ones, may not see themselves in that light, and more's the pity. If they did, if they acted as professionally in that sphere as they undoubtedly do in their day jobs, all of us who write, though not entirely for a living, would benefit.

This article is available only to subscribers to the Practical ICT eJournal. Click the link to find out more about this high-value, low-cost, subscription, and to download a sampler, and an index to the 40+ articles published over the last school year.

Consequently, it was difficult for me to recall what had happened, or upon which day it happened, or the sequence of events on a particular day. This despite having access to a plethora of means by which I could record my activities more or less as I was going along....

• Sharing good practice
• News about assessment information
• Governmental YouTube channels
• Suicide and the internet
• An online conference in the UK

This article is available only to subscribers to the Practical ICT eJournal. Click the link to find out more about this high-value, low-cost, subscription, and to download a sampler, and an index to the 40+ articles published over the last school year.

This article looks at a fairly simple approach to benchmarking which does not take long to implement, but which can be extremely useful.

This article is available only to subscribers to the Practical ICT eJournal. Click the link to find out more about this high-value, low-cost, subscription, and to download a sampler, and an index to the 40+ articles published over the last school year.

Can information technology ever really reduce workload? Of course not.

I don't claim any originality for this thought, but I was thinking today of my own workload, and how we do students a disservice by not addressing the disadvantages of technology on a personal level.

And why don't we? Because the curriculum does not explicitly require us to.

In this article I consider 7 ways to maximise the success of the team itself.

This article is available only to subscribers to the Practical ICT eJournal. Click the link to find out more about this high-value, low-cost, subscription, and to download a sampler, and an index to the 40+ articles published over the last school year.

This article is available only to subscribers to the Practical ICT eJournal. Click the link to find out more about this high-value, low-cost, subscription, and to download a sampler, and an index to the 40+ articles published over the last school year.

In this series I'm looking at ways in which digital photography might be used to enhance, or stimulate students' interest in, different areas of the curriculum.

In this article, English, Economics, culture, geography and tourism are highlighted.

In this article I look at 14 suggestions.

This article is available only to subscribers to the Practical ICT eJournal. Click the link to find out more about this high-value, low-cost, subscription, and to download a sampler, and an index to the 40+ articles published over the last school year.

Today I'm looking a some photos that might have sparked off an historical investigation if I'd had more time.

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This article is available only to subscribers. There are two subscription options.

Computers in Classrooms is a free newsletter, for teachers who teach or use educational technology.  Click the link to find out more.

The Practical ICT eJournal is a paid subscription for leaders and managers of educational ICT, and which gives you access to all published articles on the site. Click the link to find out more about this high-value, low-cost, subscription, and to download a sampler, and an index to the 40+ articles published over the last school year.

The K12 Online Conference was a nice idea when it was first launched in 2006. It was, and still is, a great resource for teachers exploring the potential of educational technology, especially Web 2.0 applications. Now, its organisers are also organising a Not K12 Online Conference. Except that it's not an unconference but an anti-conference. Maybe. Confused? You're not the only one.

I've listened to a podcast about this twice, and this is -- how can I put it diplomatically? -- not the best idea I've ever heard.

Towards the end of the podcast Bud Hunt says:

"If you think this is the worst idea you've ever heard of or the best idea let us know, leave a comment, we wanna be transparent, we wanna have those critical friends".

So, as a self-appointed critical friend I'm taking up Bud's invitation. I don't like the idea at all, and here are my reasons why.

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I think it needs some work. When I get a bit of time, perhaps I will create several versions, showing different settings. I hope to use this as a sort of warning indicator -- so that you can read the rants and ignore any post that looks like it might be all sweetness and light.

Anyway, rather than dwell on all of the things that have got me "wound up" (which I will deal with gradually in my own time, after a bit more research/investigation) I just want to focus on the following:

Politicians ("Warm" setting)

And yet, if you're to ensure consistency of standards, and high ones at that, it is essential that they do attend. Or is it? Here are seven techniques that have been found effective.

This article is available only to subscribers to the Practical ICT eJournal. Click the link to find out more about this high-value, low-cost, subscription, and to download a sampler, and an index to the 40+ articles published over the last school year.

This article is available only to subscribers to the Practical ICT eJournal. Click the link to find out more about this high-value, low-cost, subscription, and to download a sampler, and an index to the 40+ articles published over the last school year.

Here's the second instalment of a new two-parter on the same theme, with 22 suggestions. There are 12 new suggestions today; the first 10 were published here.

This article is available only to subscribers to the Practical ICT eJournal. Click the link to find out more about this high-value, low-cost, subscription.

I visited a beach in Suffolk recently, and came across someone painting the landscape. It was a great occasion to have my camera with me!

So who was it? Read on to find out, and to consider some possible curriculum links.

Here's a new two-parter on the same theme, with 21 suggestions. There are ten new suggestions today; the next eleven will follow in two days' time.

Known as "the sandpit", it was an opportunity to look at developments in Web 2.0 technology being undertaken by the Learning Science Research Institute.

I was quite taken with one application in particular, Video Pathways.

Here is a description and explanation of what it does, and how it might be used in schools.

I have also set up a survey to obtain feedback.

Read more about all this...

In this article we look at 29 suggestions which have been found to be very useful indeed.

I started the publication for leaders and managers of educational ICT, and so far (touch wood) the feedback has been very positive from the people who have subscribed. They say it's saved them time, and given some some useful ideas.

I also feel quite pleased about the fact that, as we charge people for subscribing, we pay people who contribute. I worked with the UK's Society of Authors to ensure that the contract between us and the contributor was OK, and the result was a contract that the Society of Authors described as very author-friendly.

Anyway, here is a brief run-down of the articles that appear in this issue, and a link to the index I mentioned, which covers over 60 articles.

Looked at from a distance, or even close up, much of Britain's countryside is still as beautiful as it is green. But look even closer, and it soon becomes apparent that what the rambler needs is not just a waterproof, a thermos, and a box of sandwiches, but a broom, a bin liner and a pair of disposable gloves.....

Doesn't this mean that schools need to rethink their antispam policies?

The success of the individual is partly dependent on the environment. What can the ICT leader do to maximise the success of each member of the team?

This article looks at 10 actions that can help to ensure the success of each individual of the team, and therefore greatly enhance the prospects of success for the whole team.

After all, any team is only as good as its weakest member, ultimately.

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What it is, how to get involved and whether it's worth bothering with.

"An error of judgement", exclaims one of the teaching unions.

So what are the issues here?

Here is a quick summary of what I did, and a preview of what's coming up.

At this time of year, my body, having spent decades (it feels like centuries sometimes!) being regulated by education timetables, tells me it's time to take a break.

Well, I haven't done so, as such, although I have been being kind to myself by not even attempting to update this website every day.

I regard this as a long-term investment (especially bearing in mind Keynes' dictum that in the long run we're all dead).

But I have not been idle. Apart from quite a bit of writing, I've been working for a Local Authority exploring resources that might be used for teaching the Diploma from the start of September.

Here are my thoughts and findings so far.

All joking aside, should we always be encouraging students to produce perfect work? And if not, how many errors are acceptable?

Here are some tips which, hopefully, you will find useful should you ever find yourself engaged in a school rebuild or similar project.

In fact, these 10 tips, which are based on my own experience, will work for smaller-scale projects too.

This article is available only to subscribers to the Practical ICT eJournal. Click the link to find out more about this high-value, low-cost, subscription.

But having watched a few presentations recently via the web, I have to say that I think the fault lies not so much with the speakers, but with the uncritical audiences that indulge them.

Obviously, in a purely mechanical sense it's an arbitrary distinction, from a blogger's point of view, because people who blog have to write.

But, and here's what interests me, people who call themselves writers do not have to blog. Yet some do. Why?

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Here’s the situation which, as either a citizen, a teacher or a blogger you will understand only too well. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between commercial and, for want of a better word, factual, content in the news.

This may sound rather odd. After all, news is news, right? Well actually, not necessarily. ...

Why is it that disks, data and laptops appear to go missing with alarming frequency? Is it that there is a general lack of understanding about the nature of digital data, and how it is fundamentally different from the old paper-based approach?

You may find it useful to discuss the points made in this article with your students.

There was a live chat widget, and some video ("Terry's Two Minute Tips"). Read on to find out more.

The questions are: how does one maintain one's integrity, and how does one prove that one has done so?

How did it shape up? 30 Jun 2008 23:08:49 +0100 GMT http://www.terry-freedman.org.uk/compic/compic_june_2008.doc 29B406E1-EF45-41F1-8BA2-6CD274CA88EE Here's the latest issue of Computers in Classrooms -- in Word rather than
PDF format because the latter didn't have hyperlinks. Hopefully I will
sort that out for next time!

The main article is about video on demand, plus details of Blippr and book
discounts, and other stuff.

Here is the full list of articles:

• ICT in Education goes mobile
• Editorial
• Tweetmeet.eu by Doug Belshaw
• Leadership survey
• Competition
• Blippr
• Book discounts
• Flip Video
• Video on demand

Enjoy!

This newsletter is for subscribers only. Not a subscriber? It's free, and you can sign up here.

Here's a classic case of buying a solution in the hope of finding a problem for it! I have often toyed with the idea of purchasing a video camera and taking it with me on my travels, but the effort and cost have always seemed to me to exceed the likely benefits.

However, the Flip Video, which arrived on the shelves in Britain only very recently, changes all that. True, there have been other, similar, devices here for some time. But none of them, in my opinion, matches the sleek good looks of the Flip.

Elaine and I have been putting it through its paces, and would like to share the results, and our thoughts, with you.

  
• The Byron Review Action Plan for child e-safety.
   
• Education for a technologically-advanced nation.
   
• Data protection issues: findings of two of the official investigations into loss of confidential data.

This article is available only to subscribers to the Practical ICT eJournal. Click the link to find out more about this high-value, low-cost, subscription.

In an interesting article in The Guardian's "The Link", Stephen Heppell discusses what he calls the "new digital divide", by which he means access to technology being locked down.

The examples he cites are good ones, but the phenomenon is not new. As he says, an avoidable digital divide is unforgivable. But what can be done?

• Leading edge to leading school: taking your learning platform forward
• The leadership dilemma: what sort of leader should you be?
• Advanced motoring as a metaphor for advanced teaching and management
• Learning from advertising
• Learning from architects
• Learning from bad role models
• Learning from cafés
• Over to you

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In this post I explain how I have done it, using Excel.

An interesting idea, or simply a non-starter?

 
• Online reporting.
 
• Work-related learning.
 
• The Shine celebration week.
 
• Gender.
 
• School improvement.

This article is available only to subscribers to the Practical ICT eJournal. Click the link to find out more about this high-value, low-cost, subscription.

But does it?

 
• Secondary ICT
 
• Play spaces: a game-like consultation
 
• Consumer education in a technology context
 
• Online interactive project templates

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The publishers, Palgrave, have kindly offered to give subscribers to "Computers in Classrooms" a 20% discount off these books. At the moment, this offer applies all over the world except for the USA and Canada -- but we're hoping that that will be changed soon.

You'll see from the prices given in the Amazon UK boxes above that it's possible to buy two of those books at much lower prices. Apparently, those are ones sold by individual people rather than by Amazon itself, a bit like eBay. I went through the process of placing an order, and discovered that after postage was taken into account, there's very little difference in the total price if you buy two or three of the books including Technology's Promise, which is hardback.

Of course, if you live in a country that doesn't have an Amazon, you may find that the international postage costs charged by the Amazon resellers wipes out the price differential completely.  Personally, I'd buy direct from Palgrave and be done with it, wherever you live. I do have a vested interest in saying that (and so do you, potentially) which is that if companies like Palgrave offer such generous discounts and people don't take advantage of the offer, they may stop making them! The offer lasts until 30th October 2008.

I'm in the process of reading these books, so full reviews will be available as soon as possible. However, I have drawn on Technology's Promise and Me, MySpace and I in this article. They're both very interesting and very readable.

If you subscribe to Computers in Classrooms, click the link in the title to find out how to obtain the 20% discount. Otherwise, why not subscribe? It's free, and a great read, which means it's excellent value for money!

Here's what I think of it.

But, as usually the case with this sort of thing, it did raise doubts in my mind about the value of rubrics for this type of activity. They are useful, but they are also limited, and not nearly as objective as one might think.

Reflections on BETT  

My views on the recent BETT show, including my take on the new features of the show, such as the debates, and some of the new products available. This includes preliminary reviews of some 2Simple software and Softease's Honeycomb. 

Meeting Michael Marland   

Michael Marland is a well-respected educationalist and author in the UK, and I had the privilege of meeting him a few months ago.      

Next Generation Learning   

Becta recently launched a new website to grab the interest of parents and others to support the use of ICT in schools. I interviewed the TV presenter and broadcaster Johnny Ball about this new development. This is a transcript of the interview.   

School Leadership   

It's been established that the quality of school leadership is a key influence on the quality of the ICT provision in a school. I attended a conference on school leadership which had presentations from many interest groups, including the private schools sector and students. In this article I summarise what was said and attempt to apply the discussions to the leadership of ICT in schools today.   

Computers In The Classroom. With Or Without Them, Russians Do Not Seem To  Be Enthusiastic About Learning Foreign Languages   

Russian reader Elena Nikolaenko discusses the use of computers to teach foreign languages in Russian schools.   

The Russian Version

The same article, in its original Russian!

Book Review: Blogwild!   

Can a business book on blogging be of any use to teachers. Read this review to find out.   

Book Review: ICT: Inside The Black Box   

This book goes through assessment for learning techniques that may be used in ICT. Is it any good?

If you already subscribe to Computers in Classrooms, and you cannot open this zipped file, you can download the cover of the April 08 edition from here, and the newsletter itself from here. If you don't subscribe, then what are you waiting for?! It's free, and you can download past issues from here. If you like what you see, then sign up here.

There is only one thing worse than a workaholic boss, and that's a workaholic team member.

But whichever side of the big desk you are on, there are ways of dealing with the situation, thanks to the wonders of certain email options.

Inspections:

What changes are really being proposed (as opposed to the ones that appeared in the headlines), and what are the implications for the ICT leader in school?

This article is available only to subscribers to the Practical ICT eJournal. Click the link to find out more about this high-value, low-cost, subscription.

So, how does it  stack up  as a mobile device?

Now it turns out that research seems to suggest that texting can actually aid literacy.

So where does the truth lie?

Read on for details.

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This article is available only to subscribers to the Practical ICT eJournal. Click the link to find out more about this high-value, low-cost, subscription.

… according to Nikolaenko Elena.

This article is available only to subscribers to the Practical ICT eJournal. Click the link to find out more about this high-value, low-cost, subscription.

Like most people, there's a lot of technology I take for granted. But every so often I stop and think about how things were in the past, whether since I've been around, or in previous eras. When it comes to technology like the internet and mobile phones, as far as youngsters are concerned they have always been here. So how can we get kids to appreciate the effects of technology on society, a requirement in many general IT courses, when as far as they're concerned there is nothing special about the existence of the technology? Something happened to me yesterday which made me think about all this.

This article is available only to subscribers to the Practical ICT eJournal. Click the link to find out more about this high-value, low-cost, subscription.

So that got me thinking...

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If you have looked into assessment for learning then you will almost inevitably know about the seminal work, “Inside the Black Box”, by Black and Wiliam back in 1998.

This book, ICT: Inside the Black Box, takes the techniques discussed in that book, and apply them to ICT.

A recent UK Government publication contains useful information for those involved in ICT in education in Britain.

This publication is available only to subscribers to the Practical ICT eJournal.

OK, so the title is a bit of a misnomer because my briefcase is not bionic (I just happen to like the alliteration), and the well-dressed consultant referred to is me. Here's a list of stuff I never travel without on business.

In recent weeks I've been exploring some questions, mainly to clarify my own thinking in these areas. Regard these posts as my thinking out loud. Feel free to chip in with your own reflections.

My original list of questions was:

1. Is it always better to use a computer than pen and paper, in terms of productivity, creative output or better learning?

2. Do computers always enhance pupils' self-esteem?

3. Does government funding lead to better spending on educational technology in schools? Is it better or worse if caveats are attached to the spending?

4. Is it always better to use templates to guide pupils' work?

5. Do free resources supplied by governments enhance or diminish the quality of teaching (and therefore, subsequently, learning)?

6. Do the standards laid down by various national curricula or schemes of work really level the playing field, or do they merely mask inequalities of provision caused by other factors?

7. Does it matter if schools do not embed educational technology in the curriculum?

Today I'm looking at the last one.

We decided to go away for a week and have a complete(ish) break for 10 days. I am now attempting to get through around 900 emails, so if one of them is yours, please be patient!

Being an ardent multitasker, even as I write this I am uploading pics I took whist away. They are taking ages to load because they are so big, so if you would like to see them you may wish to check the photo website out several times. That's here.

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

Home Access Consultation

  -- the consultation ends today.

Action points arising from Byron

  -- several things to consider, plus an 11-point action plan  to start implementing now

14-19 Qualifications Consultation

  -- just a quick "heads up" about it.

This publication is available only to subscribers to the Practical ICT eJournal.

1. Is it always better to use a computer than pen and paper, in terms of productivity, creative output or better learning?

2. Do computers always enhance pupils' self-esteem?

3. Does government funding lead to better spending on educational technology in schools? Is it better or worse if caveats are attached to the spending?

4. Is it always better to use templates to guide pupils' work?

5. Do free resources supplied by governments enhance or diminish the quality of teaching (and therefore, subsequently, learning)?

6. Do the standards laid down by various national curricula or schemes of work really level the playing field, or do they merely mask inequalities of provision caused by other factors?

7. Does it matter if schools do not embed educational technology in the curriculum?

Today I'm looking at the fourth one.

Read on for the full details of the publications referred to and where you can find them.

My original list of questions was:

1. Is it always better to use a computer than pen and paper, in terms of productivity, creative output or better learning?

2. Do computers always enhance pupils' self-esteem?

3. Does government funding lead to better spending on educational technology in schools? Is it better or worse if caveats are attached to the spending?

4. Is it always better to use templates to guide pupils' work?

5. Do free resources supplied by governments enhance or diminish the quality of teaching (and therefore, subsequently, learning)?

6. Do the standards laid down by various national curricula or schemes of work really level the playing field, or do they merely mask inequalities of provision caused by other factors?

7. Does it matter if schools do not embed educational technology in the curriculum?

Today I'm looking at the third one.

1. Is it always better to use a computer than pen and paper, in terms of productivity, creative output or better learning?

2. Do computers always enhance pupils' self-esteem?

3. Does government funding lead to better spending on educational technology in schools? Is it better or worse if caveats are attached to the spending?

4. Is it always better to use templates to guide pupils' work?

5. Do free resources supplied by governments enhance or diminish the quality of teaching (and therefore, subsequently, learning)?

6. Do the standards laid down by various national curricula or schemes of work really level the playing field, or do they merely mask inequalities of provision caused by other factors?

7. Does it matter if schools do not embed educational technology in the curriculum?

Today I'm looking at the second one.

• Diplomas
  
  
• Aiming High

I love this quote from their website:

Are you ready to see if you are as bright as a 10 year old? 

You can send off for a pack of materials, which I have done, but this has also made me think of the plight of bright children who are being bored into submission in their ICT lessons, or at least not being stretched. So what kind of things can the educational technology teacher do to raise the stakes on a more long-term basis?

Be that as it may, in this evening's programme there were some comments made about getting on at work which, although exaggerated and intended to be humorous, were actually pretty accurate. So, in this article, I summarise the points made and show how they relate to the manager of educational ICT.

This article is available only to subscribers to the Practical ICT eJournal. Click the link to find out more about this high-value, low-cost, subscription. 

• Local e-government and social inclusion

• Raising expectations: expecting the system to deliver

• The National Enterprise Academy

• and a new Ofsted report

Is it always better to use a computer than pen and paper, in terms of productivity, creative output or better learning?

I've returned from the Naace conference, which ran from Tuesday to Thursday night last week. Like last year, it was held at Torquay, a seaside town in Devon, England.

It was a rather jam-packed affair, with a great deal of choice as to which sessions to go to. That is always a chance thing, and there is little more annoying than selecting a session to go to and then discovering, too late, that it is not what you hoped for. Fortunately, that happened to me only once.

Here is an overview of the sessions I attended, and my thoughts thereon, with more to follow over the coming days.

This article is available only to subscribers to the Practical ICT eJournal. Click the link to find out more about this high-value, low-cost, subscription.

One of the ways in which teachers, and schools, can improve the way they teach and use educational technology is by seeing what other teachers and schools are doing. Obviously, nobody wishes to emulate the good, mediocre or poor -- they are interested only in the best. For this reason, the idea of sharing best practice is held to be a "good thing".

But the very idea is fraught with difficulties, once you start to examine it.

“Help! I don’t even know how to begin!”

The plaintive cry of someone confronted with the latest interactive video game? The heart-felt whimpering of someone who has just been given a critical assignment by their boss (just as he’s leaving for the golf course)? Not exactly. What you’ve just read is a description of how yours truly felt when looking at the programme for last year’s National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) in the USA.

Unfortunately, the answer is “anything”. Here is a checklist of things to do in the short-term (eg from about a week beforehand) in advance of using the computer room.

Some spice was added to the proceedings by the use of a "voting" system provided by Quizdom to determine whether members of the audience changed their own minds as a result of the debate.

Read on to find out more, and to obtain the link for the podcast.

In a post entitled "The Ten Pillars of Successful Technology Integration in K-12 Schools", internet veteran Bernie Poole suggests some good ideas, although the list could be improved.

Use his list as a starting point by all means, but don't stop there, and don't accept it all without question.

Columns and Light by Grant Mitchell

So, how does BETT differ from other conferences or events, and how can you get the most out of it?.

• All change in England and Wales: the new secondary curriculum  
  
  
• Just how much knowledge should a teacher have?  
  
  
• Social networking from a teen’s perspective  ( updated stats)
  
  
• Save kids’ TV  
  
  
• The personal optimized learning environment  
  
  
• Features of outstanding ICT lessons  
  
  
• Boring the kids into submission  
  
  
• An educational computing conference with a difference  
  
  
• Some thoughts about NECC.

So what can we learn from Jack Welch, the legendary CEO of General Electric? Although schools and GE are very different types of institution, you may be surprised to discover that school leaders could benefit from adopting some of Welch's strategies.

This article is available only to subscribers to the Practical ICT eJournal. Click the link to find out more about this low-cost subscription.

Anyway the point is, if you are keen to encourage colleagues to use ICT in their lessons, you don't necessarily have to obtain new stuff. What you already have in school may be sufficient.

In this article, I look at how Excel (or any other spreadsheet) might be used to help explore the idea of iteration.

In this series of podcasts, Elaine (my wife) and I discuss my motivation for writing the book, and try to dig a little deeper into its underlying philosophy.

In this third episode in the series, we explore the third chapter, called "Where are we going?". Basically, the lesson will be more interesting and effective if the students (and the teacher) have a clear idea of what it's all leading up to.

The music in the podcast is Darryl Allen's Funktown Groove, from the Podsafe Music Network.

If you'd like to buy the book, it's available from here for £4.99 (around $10) + postage.

Download the podcast from here.

I run a small consultancy business. By "small", I mean that there is only myself going out and doing the work. That means that sometimes I need to partner up with others, join a consortium, or get myself on a larger company's database.

I recently applied to be placed on the books of a large company, and I learnt a lot about what not to do.

If you are trying to get educational ICT embedded in the curriculum, what you need to do is forge partnerships, because teamwork, in the usual sense of the term, is irrelevant here. (I explain why in another article).

Here is how not to do it.

This article is available only to subscribers to the Practical ICT eJournal. Click the link to find out more about this low-cost subscription.]]> 28 Nov 2007 16:58:09 +0000 GMT http://www.terry-freedman.org.uk/premium/articles/article_1199.php 587225F5-9227-4D1F-8B91-C35E37240C6D

If part of your role is to get others to use educational technology in the curriculum, then what you need to do is forge partnerships and not, as is commonly surmised, focus on teamwork.

The differences between the two need to be understood if you are to stand a reasonable chance of being successful in effecting large-scale change.

This article is available only to subscribers to the Practical ICT eJournal. Click the link to find out more about this low-cost subscription.]]> 27 Nov 2007 10:04:18 +0000 GMT http://terry-freedman.org.uk/artman/publish/article_1198.php 64B2F2D7-F934-4ABD-941B-CDA6D743296B Digital cameras have been with us now for a decade. But three things have changed in that time.

Firstly, you get a bigger bang for your buck, in terms of image size and quality.

Secondly, cameras on mobile phones have become good enough to mean that people are now starting to dispense with the camera as their means of taking pictures.

And thirdly, cameras have now become inexpensive enough to start to make class sets viable.

So what does all this mean for using ed tech in the curriculum?]]> 26 Nov 2007 16:52:53 +0000 GMT http://www.ictineducation.org/podcast_files/borem_ch02_setting_the_agenda.mp3 48716D5B-17B9-4DF9-9F5B-58E267244CAB In my book "Go On, Bore 'Em: How to make ICT lessons excruciatingly dull", I looked at the ten most common sources of the problem.

In this series of podcasts, Elaine (my wife) and I discuss my motivation for writing the book, and try to dig a little deeper into its underlying philosophy.

In this second episode in the series, we explore the second chapter, called "Students set the agenda". Basically, if you don't set the agenda for the lesson, the students will.

The music in the podcast is Darryl Allen's Funktown Groove, from the Podsafe Music Network.

If you'd like to buy the book, it's available from here for £4.99 (around $10) + postage.

Download the podcast from here.

In this series I should like to explore what the educational ICT leader can learn from Maslow and others when it comes to performing the educational technology leader's role, especially that of encouraging other teachers to incorporate the use of educational technology into their curricula.

Photo: This is a public photo, from http://flickr.com/photos/laurenbove/.

The sub-text of the brief I was given was, no doubt, that schools should be doing more to encourage young people to take up careers in the IT industry (possibly via a university computer programming course of some description).

I have issues about that. For example, is it schools' job to do what the IT industry itself seems to find difficult to do, ie make IT-related jobs seem exciting and non-"nerdy" (especially to girls)?  As often is the case, schools were taken to task by some of the speakers for the fact that ICT lessons are boring -- as proven by the fact that one of the speaker's daughter says so.

Actually, many ICT lessons are boring, but I like to feel that my own evidence for saying that (inspections, school visits, and general reading and discussion) is rather more robust. As I said in a comment from the floor at the end of one of the sessions, the phenomenon is well-established enough for me to feel moved to write a book about it (see the article about that).

More importantly, any subject can be taught in a boring way. The challenge is to identify good practice and then find ways of disseminating it.

But there is another issue. According to the Leitch Report,

"Today, over 70 per cent of our 2020 workforce have already completed their compulsory education."

That being the case, isn't it a bit late to be focusing on schools?

Anyway, read on to find out what I actually said, which had to take no longer than 4 minutes. I did it too :-)

In this article, I look at how Excel (or any other spreadsheet) might be used to help explore the idea of iteration.

Is it legitimate to draw such comparisons? I think so, for the following reason. As an ICT evangelist, your role involves convincing others to buy what you have to offer. That may in the form of using services or equipment you provide, or giving you further funding, or in some other form entirely, but ultimately yours is a selling role.

In this article I consider the importance of flexibility, and of not having rules just for their own sake.

This article is available only to subscribers to Leading and Managing Educational Technology. Click the link to find out more about this low-cost subscription.]]> 19 Nov 2007 01:19:55 +0000 GMT http://terry-freedman.org.uk/artman/publish/article_1190.php DC49AE45-F99F-4EDD-BF56-C3AA460F5B8F
In my book "Go On, Bore 'Em: How to make ICT lessons excruciatingly dull", I looked at the ten most common sources of the problem.

In this series of podcasts, Elaine (my wife) and I discuss my motivation for writing the book, and try to dig a little deeper into its underlying philosophy.

1. Introduction: my background and other pertinent information
   
   
2. Issues from a leadership perspective
   
   
3. My first hand evidence
   
   
4. The recipe for success
   
   
5. Resources