Christina Preston was one of two people given the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2013 Conference of Naace, the subject association for ICT. I interviewed her to find out about her and her work.
Naace ICT Impact Awards - A Profile of Penny Patterson
Penny Patterson is on Twitter, but prefers to listen rather than talk, unless she has something of value to add to the conversation. She is active in ICT circles, though doesn’t have her own blog. And if you visit a conference she’s speaking at, you’re likely to chat to her while she serves the tea. She prefers, to use her own words, to be “one of the backroom team”.
Indirect evidence of this was seen in this year’s Naace ICT Impact Awards. When Penny was selected as one of the two people to be given a Lifetime Achievement Award, the look on her face was one of surprise, bordering on shock, and tinged with bewilderment. Typically, she told me that “other people deserve this award far more than I do.”
The Naace ICT Impact Awards
Terry Freedman considers why the Naace ICT Impact Awards are such a valuable feature of the educational ICT landscape in the UK.
Some years ago I was driving in America, and I passed a school with a massive sign which read: “Chuck Evans*: Teacher of the semester!”
S is for … Superhero costumes
When I was young I used to love reading Superman, Batman and Spider-Man comics. Oh, ok, I admit it: I still do! Anyway, I always thought their costumes looked really good: colourful, good for showing everyone your biceps and, well, different.
The trouble is, of course, is that in reality these costumes would be awful
An Interview with Charles Clarke
Charles Clarke was Secretary of State for Education and Skills in 2002. I interviewed him at the Education World Forum, 2013.The following is not a verbatim account, but has been checked by Mr Clarke before being published.
Lessons from Reviewing the new Computing Curriculum
This is not so much a review or even a summary of the recent Westminster Forum Conference called ‘Reviewing the new Computing Curriculum’ as a series of observations arising from it and related articles. The reason for that approach is that I’d like to make this article useful and interesting to as wide a range of people as possible, not only those concerned with the ICT or Computing Programme of Study in the National Curriculum in England and Wales.Are acceptable use policies acceptable or of any use?
Should schools have Acceptable Use Policies? The following article was originally published in April 2008. Apart from the references to the ‘recent’ Byron Review and to Becta, it still seems very apposite to me. If I were writing the article today, I’d bring in Responsible Use Policies, but otherwise I believe it still stands. What do you think?
One of the things recommended by the recent Byron Review into keeping children safe in a digital world was for schools to have acceptable use policies
Discussions about the curriculum
I suppose this isn't quite fair, but I couldn't resist it anyway! Is this how discussions about the curriculum must seem to people outside education?
Read MoreIt doesn’t have to be pink
I turned my collar up against the wind. A useless gesture, because the wind contemptuously insinuated itself under my skin regardless, but it made me look hard. And hardness was needed in this job. I walked around the playground, glaring at kids who even just looked like they might be thinking of doing something wrong. Crowds of them parted as I approached. One looked shifty.
“You got a problem, son?” I gritted.