If you're told you'll be teaching Computing from now on, but don't feel competent to do so, what practical steps can you take in order to get up and running?
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Planning for the Computing curriculum
At first sight, it seems bizarre that despite the fact that many teachers urgently need professional development, and time, in order to be ready to teach Computing, headteachers are not always allowing them to attend courses during school time. A business planning approach by ICT leaders in school could help.
Read MoreComing soon in Digital Education
I'm in the process of planning a few themed issues of my newsletter, Digital Education. Read on for the low-down.
Read MoreQualitative data is important too
I'm a great believer in using different kinds of data to measure how well pupils are doing, not all of which are quantifiable in the usual sense.
Read More5 Must-have conference apps
If you go to at least one conference a year, you should consider using these five apps.
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I know how he feels. Photo from Stencil. Licence: CC0
Technology: take nothing for granted
As I always tell people I'm training, never assume anything, never take anything for granted. Here are a few examples that illustrate why not.
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What's in the next issue of Digital Education?
The forthcoming issue of the Digital Education ezine features 9 interesting articles. This article gives you the lowdown on three of the topics covered, and how to sign up to it.
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A screenshot of a print-out of a screenshot
A Visual Basic School Calculator
Back in 1994 I wrote a program for a school-oriented calculator to help me manage my departmental budget. Here are some retrospective reflections on my first Visual Basic program.
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Technology-Authorised Madness
A blast from the past -- with the emphasis on 'blast'. What I thought of self-service checkouts when they first appeared.
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This is an image I created using pulpomizer.com. Thanks to Julian Wood for drawing my attention to this application in one of his talks.
A cornucopia of comic-making applications
If you like to use comics and cartoons in your teaching, and encourage students to do so too, you'll like this collection of comic-making utilities.
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Robot, by Terry. OK, so I'm useless at drawing. Get over it!
Robots, artificial intelligence and all that
Call me a dreamer, but I think AI and robots are developments to be welcomed in education, not to worry about.
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15 Ways To Make an Educational Technology Project Successful
How can you make an educational technology project, for example a school research initiative, successful? In a sense, the fact that it's to do with ICT in education is irrelevant. There are some generic 'rules' which ought to be abided by.
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Presentation: 10 stimulating ideas for the Computing curriculum
Here is some information about the EduTech conference in general, and my session in particular.
Read MoreInspecting Computing in schools: 6 research questions
The schools inspectorate in England (Ofsted) aspires to become a research hub. How might or should this affect Computing?
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Forthcoming education conferences in London, England
Here are a few interesting-looking conferences coming up in London, England, up to January 2018.
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In the next issue of Digital Education
Algorithms, book reviews and review copies of my book. All in the latest issue of Digital Education.
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Women and girls and technology: a matter of biology?
Are girls and women biologically predetermined to not be natural programmers? No, I don't think so either. This article contains some interesting points based on recent discussions, and links to (hopefully) useful articles.
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8 Reasons to use project-based learning in computing
I’ve long been an advocate of project-based learning, or PBL. Done properly, it can be much richer in terms of learning opportunities, and more fun. I believe it is entirely applicable to the teaching of the new Computing Programme of Study, for the following 8 reasons.
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Why recipes are a poor way of teaching algorithms -- and why they're not
Recipes as algorithms is one of the themes I'll be exploring in the next issue of Digital Education, which will be out soon.
Other themes include 'Is educational research worth the paper it's written on?' and much, much more.
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Drones in the Computing curriculum
If you're considering using drones in your Computing curriculum, where do you start? This article has a few ideas.
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