When it comes to travelling backwards and forwards in time, there are a few cyber security issues to be worked out!
Read MoreWhat everyone ought to know about school IT technicians
Please support your school IT technician. This video says it all.
Read MoreWelcome back, VBA!
To borrow from Mark Twain, reports of the death of Visual Basic for Applications as a viable programming language to teach in schools are exaggerated.
Read MoreHow to create a grade-prediction system in Excel, and save yourself loads of time
Spotting the unexpected results of mock exams of scores or even hundreds of students need no longer be a nightmare.
Read MoreLevels in Computing? I thought they'd gone!
Updated! When it comes to assessing ICT and Computing, it's worth pointing out that "solutions" which look both comprehensive and easy to implement are not necessary either, when you start to get down to considering them in depth.
Read MoreAn interview concerning the scrapping of ICT
Kay Sawbridge, Faculty Leader of Computing and ICT in a secondary school, has been very active in campaigning against the Government's decision to scrap ICT qualifications. It's a bad decision that could leave thousands of students "disenfranchised" in terms of what they choose to study, and will almost certainly adversely affect a disproportionate number of girls.
In this article, taken from the next issue of the Digital Education newsletter, I interview Kay.
Read More7 Ways to make IT real: 6 Use what you have
Make use of what you already have.
What you have, in fact, is your pupils and other members of staff. Even if you are in a small school, or a large school but with no team, you may still be able to give your pupils the experience of addressing real problems through computing and ICT.
Read MoreWe need to talk about ed tech
When it comes to ed tech systems, nothing beats a good conversation.
Read MoreThe challenges of implementing the Computing curriculum in England
What challenges have you faced in implementing the Computing Programme of Study? What alternatives to ICT at GCSE and A Level have you considered? Please take a moment or two to fill out this survey. Results are open for all to see.
Read MoreAbout this website, and about me
I've updated my "About" page. I'd love to know what you think.
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Fiction and computational thinking
Fiction and computational thinking go together in my opinion. Fiction presents exciting possibilities for teachers and students of computing.
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SOLE destroying: an advantage of analogue over digital
I was going to ask "What do African school children -- you know, the ones who walk for miles and miles to get to school -- know that Sugata Mitra doesn't?
Read MoreTeens, technology and friendships
A new report from Pew Internet.
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If the decision to scrap ICT qualifications has left you feeling frazzled, read on.
Approved ICT and Computing qualifications
UPDATED yet again! The decision to "scrap" the GCSE and 'A' level qualifications in Information and Communication Technology have dismayed a lot of people. In a spirit of pragmatism rather than defeatism, I've compiled a list of eligible alternative qualifications, which you can download from here.
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Open badges in a nutshell. (c) @bryanMMathers. Used with permission through a CC-BY-ND licence.
Personalising Computing assessment with badges
The attractive thing about badges is that a school can invent their own categories and achievement levels.
Read MoreThe Digital Education newsletter sign-up buttons: a salutary story
The sign-up buttons for the Digital Education newsletter have been in place for ages. So why was there a sudden drop in subscriptions?
Read More10 good resources and 2 competitions for ICT and Computing teachers
Discussion lists, blog posts, teachers' guides and competitions are all featured in today's article.
Read MoreFinishing touches →
People really do judge by appearances. (If you don’t believe me, try turning up to your next job interview wearing wellingtons and a pair of shorts.)
Read MoreHow I got into coding and why I think everyone should do it!
"As soon as I found out about how to write code, I was hooked. I realised that this was what I should have been doing all along." Anna Shipman, who works for the Government Digital Service, talks about her love of coding.
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The usual headlines...
Education technology research, and how it's reported
Journalists often seem to get it wrong when it comes to reporting educational research, and they seem to love it when they can go with a headline like “Schools wasting money on useless technology”. I made that up, but the reporting of the recent OECD research, the Decoding Learning research from Nesta in 2012 and other work is quite often presented in those sort of terms.
Everything is not all that it seems but, importantly, what can we do about it?
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