In a recent post on his blog, Neil Adam discusses the idea of everyday items being connected to, or at least known about by, the internet. He also considers the fact that the whereabouts of things like clothing can already be tracked over the internet courtesy of technology such as RFID tags.
Review of Impact of New Technologies in English Maintained Schools
Published by the British Educational Suppliers Association (BESA), this is a report on research undertaken to find out how schools use, and anticipate using, new technology. It covers funding, hardware used by teachers, hardware used by pupils, software used by teachers, communicating with parents through social networking and other means, and home access.
Read MoreReport on the Mobile Learning conference
By Susan Banister 
Susan Banister @susanbanister
Learning through mobile technology is not a new concept. But as yet it has not been taken up by huge numbers of schools. Mobile technology means more than smartphones. It includes iPads, iPods, netbooks, e-readers, Nintendo DS's, GPS devices. The Curriculum ICT team at Bradford in the UK teamed up with its City Learning Centres and embraced mobile learning head on with their bMobLe project (short for Bradford mobile learning).
The 100 worst blogs
I keep coming across blogs with titles like “Top 50 Blogs in [genre or category]. Perhaps it would be much more of a service for someone to produce a list of the worst blogs in a particular category.
Computers in Classrooms Now Published!
The latest issue of Computers in Classrooms has just been published. Here’s what it includes:
- Round-ups from several conferences, including a report of the recent BMobLe conference by Susan Banister
- Useful news, including information about a group purchasing scheme called The Hive, by bee-it
- Latest research from BESA
- News, views, a review and plenty of other stuff to think about
- two mega-brilliant prize draws
Subscribe now for free!
Update on 2011-09-23 11:38 by Terry Freedman, Educational ICT Consultant
Ooops! Neil Adam has kindly just pointed out to me that in the link in the sentence Information and Communication Technology in UK State Schools Volume 1, published by BESA doesn't work because it has a comma in it. Grrrr!!! Sorry about that. The link should, of course, be www.besa.org.uk. Thanks, Neil.
New edition of Computers in Classrooms almost ready!
I’m in the final stages of proofreading the next issue of Computers in Classrooms, the free e-newsletter for people with a professional interest in education technology. Articles include conference reports, including a guest article by Susan Banister, websites to check out, news, stuff to think about and a book review. Oh yes, and two prize draws: for PIMS and for Xobni Pro.
If you don’t want to miss out, sign up now, and join thousands of others!
11 predictions concerning technology in education
Here is a list of predictions I made in 2001 about the classroom of the future. I’m pleasantly surprised about how accurate it has turned out to be – but I think it will be even more challenging to predict the next ten years because there are so many options opening up. What are your predictions for the next ten years? And is it worth bothering to make such predictions anyway?
3 generic questions for editing with education technology
We probably all like to think that our first stab at something is going to be perfect. We tend to resent “helpful” suggestions, at least at first. Oscar Wilde, when asked if he could make a few changes to a play he’d written, quipped “Who am I to tamper with a masterpiece?”. However, editing usually makes things better rather than worse. The challenge is convincing youngsters (and others!) that suggesting some edits is not a reflection on their abilities or knowledge.
An opportunity for rich discussions: Collabor8 4 Change
Having recently written about discussions – why to contribute, and what not to do when you do contribute – I thought I’d write a quick update on a real live event taking place on 17th November 2011. This is a bit of an advert, but the event I’m writing about is free and should be good for professional development, so I hope you’ll forgive me.
Read More25 ways to make yourself unpopular: #25 Contribute to education technology discussions
Contributing to discussions is good in my book, but there are some ways of going about it which could be counter-productive. Here are some pointers about what not to do if you can help it.My writing work, and 5 other uses for video interviews
Here’s a short video we made a few years ago (I’ve lost weight and had a shave since then) just to test out the then newly-acquired Flip video. Like a lot of writers I was talking about my two favourite subjects: me, and my books. But joking aside, there is a serious side to all this.
5 ways of using pupils to evaluate education technology resources
Here’s an idea you might like to try, if you haven’t already: use your pupils to evaluate resources. After all, they’re the ones who are going to be using them! There are five main ways of doing so, not all of which are mutually exclusive. Here they are.
If ICT co-ordinators were politicians…
I was watching a debate in the House of Lords the other day, and I was very struck (I hesitate to use the word 'impressed') by how easily a particular government representative managed to fend off a whole variety of questions without saying anything of any value whatsoever.
Read MoreIs the computer lab defunct?
Having attended a conference at the Westminster Education Forum today on the future of technology in education, I am moved to raise this issue again: have computer labs had their day?
The idea that they have was mentioned two or three times. Whilst I can see the attraction of arguments in favour of mobile technology as opposed to fixed technology, I don’t think the two are necessarily mutually exclusive. Rather than rehearse my arguments again, I’ll refer you to an article I wrote back in March 2011 called Come back, computer lab, all is forgiven. Hope you enjoy it.
Job-seeking as a metaphor for ICT assessment
When I saw several hundred people lining up for some sort of job registration recently, I immediately thought of the challenges of assessing pupils’ educational technology capability. A bit of a stretch? Not necessarily.
25 ways to make yourself unpopular: #24 Do not contribute to education technology discussions
There is little I find more annoying than being lectured to by people who have all the answers, but do not engage in (rational) discussion on the subject.
For example, a deputy headteacher once informed me that his school was going to spend thousands of pounds on instruction technology known as “integrated learning systems”, and that they were going to get the least able students to work on them all day.
I told him that some recent research said that the benefits of such systems was short-lived if all you did was use them and nothing else, and that such intensive use of them was counter-productive anyway. This had no impact at all, because
Two great quotes about education technology
I heard one very quotable thing today, and read another very quotable thing. The first was to do with copyright, the second to do with embracing technology in education. See what you think:
Read MoreWould you have sex with a robot?
Can you envisage a time when human beings will have relationships with robots? You could argue that to some extent we already have a relationship with electronic things (in my case, a love-hate relationship!), but can you imagine a time when we might marry robots, or have sex with them?
25 ways to make yourself unpopular: #23 Be pernickety
All too often these days there is so much to be done, and so little time to do it, that we have to adopt a “good enough” attitude. That’s fine most of the time, but not always.
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