Archive for the 'technology application' Category

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Alex Ferguson uses an iPod too

I had the privilege of facilitating on one of Becta’s Parental Engagement briefings this week for Primary schools. Despite being a long way from home, I’d volunteered to help with the Manchester briefing since I was in the area doing some work with schools. Held in the Manchester United conference facilities, I turned up early [...]

How refreshing, trusting students not to cheat

You might have picked up on yesterday’s Radio 4 Today programme a short piece on how the Danish government are running a pilot in which students taking final year exams in secondary schools will not only be allowed to use laptops, but have full access to the internet. There is only one simple rule, you [...]

Social learning is there actually a choice?

In his latest post, Ewan takes the cudgel to Local Authorities that have banned social networking citing a call by Carol Rozwell, a Gartner vice president, at their recent symposium for corporates to loosen up on social networks in the workplace. In it he feels embarrassed that most education authorities continue to be “ignorant of [...]

The decade where nothing worked

In an episode of “Henry’s Cat” mending his cuckoo clock takes him back in time. On his way back to the end of the 20th century he catalogues strange inventions that took place in the early decades of that century. Watching the second episode of BBC Four’s Electric Dreams last night somewhat reminded me of [...]

Am I destined to carry on upgrading forever?

This was one question Simon Armitage asked himself at one point in last night’s, Upgrade Me, the first in a series programmes in BBC Four’s “Electronic Revolution” season. If you missed it you can catch it on BBC’s iPlayer for the next seven days in the UK, or it is repeated on a number of [...]

The resurgence of the innovator and other lessons from the past

I’ve been picking my way through Richard Millwood’s excellent paper on the history of educational computing in the UK entitled, “A short history offline” which, rather ironically went online a couple of days ago. Richard now looks after the National Archive of Educational Computing, a project started in the days of Ultralab. The archive is [...]

We haven’t invented the biro yet

What do you think was most important 20th century invention applicable to education? I think the common ballpoint pen would be up there. You know the device that teachers banned me from using in school. They said it would ruin my hand-writing and was messy and blotchy. For that reason I never used a ballpoint [...]

1967 and the Home Computer Terminal

The BBC have just released Tomorrow’s World into their online archive, and glancing through it this morning I came across this report on the Home Computer terminal broadcast on 20th September 1967. For £30 a week, Rex Malik has the first “Home Computer” terminal installed in his home. Like all things from the past, [...]

Virtual Worlds Face-to-Face

For those used to such things it might seem strange to organise a face-to-face event about Virtual Worlds, but Naace’s seminar held yesterday in London did just that. The point was to introduce those that has not necessarily plunged themselves into Second Life, or any of the other virtual worlds, with a traditional introduction in [...]

Not quite sleepless in Seattle

Monday was a pretty sleepless night, being woken throughout the early hours by a no response phone call can destroy your sense of humour, if not your confidence in technology. It started at 1am, and actually continued for 16 hours, and maybe longer, as only after that time I decided to take drastic action and [...]


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