Learning to code can be quite intimidating, especially for children, but visual tools can keep them engaged and learning. It’s for this reason that MIT Media Lab created and released Scratch back in 2006. It doesn’t require any lines of code to be written, and can be used by children as young as 8. […]
I love technology. It is constantly evolving and offering all of us new opportunities for learning and teaching. I admit that it’s sometimes very difficult to switch off my tech lust button but where possible I try to take a more pragmatic approach, my limited purchasing power dictating. Gadgets, despite their often seductive beauty, are
Our school is very lucky, in that it has been very well resourced throughout the last few years. We have Interactive Whiteboards in every classroom, visualisers, a set of laptops and pride of place, our shiny new set of 12 iPads. We have received whole school training through NCTE, as well as in-house training delivered
Encouraging Use of IT Across the Whole School Read More »
Throughout this year I have spent many hours and days being told by teachers that their computer is slowing down and that the computer wouldn’t play CDs or DVDs and a hundred other things. As a full time teacher all of these IT problems eat away into my lunch breaks, early mornings and after school
The slowing computer and what to do? Read More »
Last week saw the publication of the OFSTED report “The most able students: are they doing as well as they should in our non-selective secondary schools?” . It concluded that bright students in the UK were being failed by those secondary schools who chose not to stream students early according to ability. The report showed
Great Expectations Read More »
This booklet was released at the recent Microsoft Educational Summit in the Aviva Stadium. The document explores the literature around how children learn today before going on to explore the changing workplace that they will enter in the coming years. Having established that the workplaces of today and tomorrow require a unique set of skills
Redesigning Education: Meeting the Challenges of the 21st Century Read More »
As more and more of my own reading material moves from traditional hardback and paperback texts to electronic format, one application that I make increasing use of is that of Calibre. Calibre (http://calibre-ebook.com/) is a free, cross-platform (Windows, Mac, Linux) application that allows you to view, convert, create and manage e-books. The software supports e-book
E-book Management, Conversion and Creation with Calibre Read More »
People are always recommending new online sites that are useful for classroom teaching and learning. However with so many available options I find myself gravitating towards resources that are easy to use as I don’t have the time to learn the ins and outs of every resource. After someone recently recommended Gooru, I decided to
Gooru: The Ultimate Educational Search Tool Read More »
Augmented Reality (AR) has increased in popularity in recent years and indeed months. The infographic shown here gives an explanation of what AR is, it shows a timeline for the evolution of AR technologies and finally it illustrates the future of AR. In brief this technology makes QR codes look like a black and white
Forget QR Codes… What’s your aura? Read More »
Last week, Google announced the decision to close Google Reader as part of its ‘second spring of cleaning’: We launched Google Reader in 2005 in an effort to make it easy for people to discover and keep tabs on their favorite websites. While the product has a loyal following, over the years usage has declined.
Goodbye Google Reader Read More »
