Sometimes, the elevator speech I hear was presumably crafted whilst going from the top floor to the bottom floor in a very tall building.
Read More
Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay
The Joint Consultative Committee
Every so often I read about a headteacher caving in to students ‘demanding’ their rights, or demanding something or other. The usual technique is to go from zero degrees to boiling in no seconds flat, bunking off lessons to ‘protest’. My response would be to (a) suspend the lot of them
Read More
Picture by Ideogram
How useful is AI for generating words?
As it happens, I first addressed this question in 2012, and the first part of this essay, down to the part about robots, is taken from the notes I made then. My opinion hasn’t changed, in spite of the enormous strides in AI in the last twelve years.
Read MoreA Single Comment on my School Report Turned my Life Around
A letter to one of my secondary school teachers.
Read More
books to be reviewed by Terry Freedman
Navigating nonfiction books
One of the first things I look for when reviewing a non-fiction book is whether or not it contains an index. If it does, the next thing I check is whether the index is actually useful.
Read MoreMy worst IT training days #4: Too much admin on a course (Updated)
How the admin involved in a course led to its being abandoned by one group of trainers.
Read More
Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay
Reflections on technology in the time of Covid19
Teaching and learning have moved online to a greater or lesser extent, with varying degrees of success. What has this meant, and what might it mean?
Read More
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
Teaching topics that rarely, if ever, come up in the exam
Do I want my students to learn this subject, or do I want them to become thinkers in this subject?
Read More
Barbed wire, by Terry Freedman
Teaching behind bars
Not all teaching of classes of adults is equal. At the time I had had plenty of experience of teaching adults, but it had never occurred to me that there was a possibility I could be physically harmed by the people I was teaching.
Read More
Shopping mall, by Terry Freedman
11 edtech-related marketing trends in 2021
It’s difficult to predict the future, so please regard this article as a reflection of what may happen and probably should happen in the area of marketing in the coming year.
Read More
Not sure, by Terry Freedman
Twitter: a re-evauation
I imagine I’ll be on Twitter for a while yet, but I do find myself spending less and less time on it, and engaging in conversations less and less.
Read More
Reflecting, by Elaine Freedman
Reflections on Technology in Schools in the time of Covid: Part 1
A major thing that the Covid-19 pandemic has done is to give us all a huge kick up the backside. We’ve had the technology to enable working from home for years, but there was not much incentive to implement it very widely. It’s a testament to the commitment and flexibility of companies and educational institutions that the educational system didn’t simply collapse.
Read More4 things I learned about using education technology from a blues harmonica
If you’re playing with a bunch of people and someone shouts out “Solo!”, you have a choice. You can either stop and mumble “Sorry, I’m not quite…., I don’t think…., perhaps we should…” — or you can throw caution to the winds, trust your instinct and enjoy the moment. There’s a lesson for teachers of Computing etc here.
Read MoreWords are important because they have connotations
You could imbibe the entire day’s news just by reading the first paragraph of each article in the newspaper. But what you would miss out on is any nuance or deep explanation. Unfortunately, when research in ed tech is reported in news outlets, the nuances and caveats, and useful information like sample size, are lost as well.
Read More
Humble brag, by Terry Freedman
Is it possible to boast without appearing to boast, in a blog post?
How to boast without boasting?
Read More
Terry reflecting, by E Freedman
Reflections from a teacher training course 2
I believe in simple instructions. Here are the instructions I gave to a new cohort of teacher trainees, plus a short commentary on what went right — and what didn’t.
Read More
Reflections
Reflections from a teacher training course 1
My reflections on a first session I taught on a teacher training course are still apposite today.
Read More
Concerned, by Terry Freedman
Should teaching be a Masters profession?
I for one am heartily sick of people thinking that anyone can teach just because it involves, as they see it, standing in front of a class of kids and spouting forth.
Read More
Think outside the box, by Terry Freedman
Fiction and computational thinking (Updated)
How might you use fiction as a vehicle for teaching computational thinking? Here are some ideas.
Read More
MA Dissertation, by Terry Freedman
Dr Freedman, I presume?
Is the pursuit of a PhD always the right option?
Read More