Ideas, Practices & Personal Insights

How mobile learning devices can be effectively used to increase student retention and learning acumen

No one can argue that Apple's mobile devices (iPhone, iPod, and iPad) have revolutionized educational technology in the past four years. Web-based applications, compared to mobile apps, look and feel 'old' already--maybe even passé. Most of the advice about mobile apps that we have encountered is focused on the delivery of content and how amazing that is in and of itself. The apps purport to improve upon the teacher's job ...

End of the line for SIF?

The recently released Interoperability Review from Education, Skills and Children’s Services appears to pour a considerable quantity of cold water on the idea of adopting the US based Schools Interoperability Framework (SIF). The report declares that there is a compelling case for a national interoperability capability, but goes on to suggest that SIF probably isn’t it. The report outlines several issues with SIF and suggests that unless ...

Printed Prospectuses vs Digital Prospectuses

The debate may be new to the school marketing world but not so in the world of business to business or consumer magazines. Think of any big UK brand and you will find that they are now producing a digital magazine. Think British Airways, BT, Tesco’s, Waitrose, M&S, Virgin, Cadbury’s, Boden to name a few. And then of course the traditional magazines themselves are creating a ...

Detention without notice - a good idea?

I was watching David Cameron doing a public Q+A session on TV a week or so ago. In response to a question from a teacher he began to explain where the Conservatives stand on education and, in particular, how they will ‘Restore Order and Discipline in the Classroom’.

Death of the School Text Book?

Tom Stoppard has recently spoken of his fear for the future of the printed page. In this age of digital media, does the old fashioned medium of dead trees have a future?

Project: Global Inform – Peace Education & Technology

Currently there is a gap between what students at the secondary and post-secondary levels are learning about human rights violations, and what is being done to stop them. Many humanities’ classes and curricula have genocide and human rights as a unit, but assess their students using traditional assessments.

The history of school technology: Part 2

The overhead projector revolutionised the teaching world. It could turn the most mind-numbing lesson into an even more mind-numbing lesson through the power of electricity. Teachers could swap acetates and stories of bulbs fusing at the most inappropriate times, with students stunned into silence by the power of technology. One hour lessons were turned into 20 minutes of learning because the teacher couldn’t get the projector to work or put ...

The history of school technology: Part 1

As I sit here in my office, the head of a large all boys comprehensive, it’s easy to look back at the days free from National Curriculum, massive testing, APP’s, league tables and Ofsted and think how stress free those days were and how free I was to prepare my lessons in any way I saw fit. Oh yes, walking into school knowing that my imaginative English lessons ...