My worst IT training days #6: The day my website was shut down (updated)

September 4, 2021

I wonder if there is anything more discombobulating than announcing, with great fanfare, a brilliant resource to a class full of teacher trainees, only to be greeted by a dreadful error message instead?

Problems in the edtech classroom #5: Where's my website?!

May 27, 2020

In 2006 my website went down right in the middle of a lesson. Here’s what I wrote about it at the time.

My worst IT training days #6: The day my website was shut down

September 5, 2019

Logging in -- Photo from www.pexels.com CC0

My best and worst IT lessons #8: Logging in

February 8, 2016

logging in should take seconds -- not a whole lesson!

My best and worst IT lessons: why?

January 25, 2016

Why did I start the series called "My best and worst IT lessons"? Shelly Terrell interviewed me and asked:

What inspired you to share your best and worse lessons?

How can reflecting on our best and worse lessons enhance our teaching?

Questions, questions, questions Picture from www.pixabay.com CC0

My best and worst IT lessons #7: What's the interest rate?

January 18, 2016

Whether or not you can easily look up the answers to questions is far less important than asking the right questions in the first place.

Suspicious enthusiasm? Picture from www.pixabay.com CC0

My best and worst IT lessons #6: Adorable spreadsheets

January 14, 2016

Why a lesson on spreadsheets became the highlight of the kids' day, and a nightmare to haunt me forever.

Modelling and reality. Picture from www.pixabay.com CC0

My best and worst IT lessons #5: Modelling

January 13, 2016

How objective are computers really? It's importtant to try to work out what is actually going on when it comes to modelling or running simulations.

My best and worst IT lessons #4: Murder Mystery

January 12, 2016

Flat file databases don't have to be boring: they can be an opporttunity for pupils to test their detective skills!

Learning together. Photo from www.pexels.com CC0

My best and worst IT lessons #3: Internet training

January 11, 2016

"An incomprehensible error message scared the living daylights out of the teachers on the training course, all of whom thought it was their fault."

What I learnt about running a succesful course for teachers.

It's all about setting up the right conditions. Photo from Pixabay.com CC0

My best and worst IT lessons #2: The history lesson

January 8, 2016

What were the elements that made a history lesson (in a computer lab) about JFK so good?

Working together as equals can produce excellent results. Image from Pixabay.com CC0

My best and worst IT lessons #1: VBA conundrum

January 7, 2016

In this new series I look at some of my best and worst lessons in ICT and Computing, and analyse what caused them to work -- or not.

Recent book reviews

Review: How I review books on edtech

My views on what constitutes a book on edtech are fairly catholic. Indeed, it would me more accurate to denote the books I review as books for teachers of ICT, Computing, digital literacy etc etc,, rather than books on edtech. The latter tend to have titles like “How to teach Computing”, or “How to use Excel in the classroom”.

Review: Nuts and Bolts: How Tiny Inventions Make Our World Work

It's rather disconcerting when one considers that buildings like The Shard are essentially held together by nuts, bolts and washers.

Review: Love Triangle: The Life-changing Magic of Trigonometry

Like, I suspect, many people, I have never knowingly come across an isosceles triangle in my life, and wouldn’t know what to do with it if I did. However...

Review: Making Sense Of Chaos – A Better Economics for a Better World

Before you rush off on the grounds that this book has nothing to do with Computing, let me reassure you that it does.

Bjork & Bjork’s Desirable Difficulties in Action

The original work on which this volume is based has perhaps been honoured more in the breach than in the observance.

Review: Coderspeak – The language of computer programmers

This book won’t necessarily help a student pass a computing exam, but it will almost certainly make them a more aware, and thus better, programmer.

Review: Quiet Power, by Susan Cain

Introverts thrive by being allowed to be quiet, having time for reflection and not being required to 'perform' all the time.

Quick look: Desirable difficulties in action

The idea of desirable difficulties has always appealed to me. In my teaching I’m partticularly in favour of applying Vygotsky’s concept of the zone of proximal development.

Review: The Collaboration Book – 41 Ideas for Working Better

Most people would agree that collaboration is a good thing – so how can we collaborate more effectively in school settings?

Review: Listen: On Music, Sound and Us

This book might not directly address obvious aspects of the music curriculum, but it can certainly give teachers access to a rich seam of facts and anecdotes with which to embellish their lessons.