Amazon has recently announced the electronic book reader called Kindle. I read the announcement a day after I had met with a client who had one of the new ultramobile PCs, which actually costs less than the Kindle. What Web 2.0 projects are you running? Please take 5 minutes to complete our survey.
A few days ago I posted a message in Twitter to the effect that anyone who quotes a statistic like "The number of geniuses in China outnumbers the total population of our own country" does not understand the nature of genius. I believe that genius has much in common with creativity, about which the psychologist Abraham Maslow had particular views. He also had views about human needs.
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.
What Web 2.0 projects are you running? Please take 5 minutes to complete our survey.
I recently gave a talk at the Westminster e-Forum on behalf of Naace. Here is the text of that presentation, which had to last no longer than four minutes. The audience was composed of Members of Parliament, journalists, and high-ranking representatives of skills organisations, companies and educational bodies.
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 :-)
What Web 2.0 projects are you running? Please take 5 minutes to complete our survey.
Sorry about the appalling grammar of the title, which was heavily influenced by a blues song called "Use what you got". Anyway the point is, if you are keen to encourage colleagues to use educational technology 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.
What Web 2.0 projects are you running? Please take 5 minutes to complete our survey.
Excel
In this series I am looking at a number of poor business practices I have come across, and drawing lessons from them which may be applied to the "business" of evangelising about the educational benefits of educational technology or, as we call it in England and other parts of Europe, ICT (Information and Communications Technology). 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.
What Web 2.0 projects are you running? Please take 5 minutes to complete our survey.
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.
What Web 2.0 projects are you running? Please take 5 minutes to complete our survey.
