Pushing EdTech evidence past the era of oral tradition
New tools for schools to help them make informed technology choices
Category Archives: leadership
The Implementation effect
I’ve been working with colleagues at United Learning to understand why the educational technology they are using having an impact on learners’ attitudes to/ skills in maths and writing, respectively. The interviews I’ve carried out with staff and pupils have strengthened a view I’ve long held – that . I’m not saying that the EdTech… Read More »
How and when to scale systems within your MAT
This post is a re-blog of a report of a presentation I gave at an event organised by Arbor Education. I thought its content might be interesting for people who hadn’t come across it elsewhere. I also thought that having done the hard yards of preparing and then giving a presentation to a group of… Read More »
The role of technology in supporting flexible working in schools
Term by term, the UK schools sector is edging closer to a significant teacher supply cliff-edge. A large segment of the teacher population is approaching retirement, historically low numbers of new entrants are opting for a teaching career, and every year many great teachers give up teaching or leave the UK to practise elsewhere. The… Read More »
Inching towards efficacy?
The pursuit of evidence that demonstrates the effectiveness of technology for learning has been going on for as long as I can remember using technology as a teacher*. I’ve written in detail in the past about what we do and do not know about this if you’d like some background, but a number of recent… Read More »
What WannaCry [should have] taught schools
We all watched with interest, I’m sure, this weekend’s meltdown over the state of NHS IT and its vulnerability to ransomware. Many a school leader will have woken up in the middle of Sunday night wondering if the morning would bring an unwelcome and hugely disruptive exam-season crisis… Why is this happening? Over the… Read More »
In conversation with Jose Picardo & Samy Etienne
I was recently lucky enough to spend a day at Surbiton High School observing several lessons and talking to staff and students about their perceptions of the impact technology is having on marking and feedback. I shot a lot of video for an internal case study, and at the end of the day had an… Read More »
Impact? What impact?
I wrote this article for the TES. They asked for 1300 polished and considered words. I added some jokes too, for free. They let a subeditor loose on it and, well, you can read the bloodied stump on their site if you want to see the damage that can be wrought by someone in possession… Read More »
What do schools need from their technology leaders?
I am often asked by schools to help in the appointment of someone to lead their technology strategy and often the most difficult part is drawing up a job description that is both ambitious and, well, fill-able. The first challenge is what to call it. Director/ Head/ Leader of… eLearning? Digital Strategy? Technology? I prefer… Read More »
It’s a MOOC Jim, but not as we know it
First things first – abject apologies for the hackneyed Star Trek-inspired title. My explanation has two parts: 1) this post is about SPOCs (tenuous, I know) and 2) I’ve been getting into The Big Bang Theory recently, having missed it first time around. Those guys love a Star Trek reference. In my last post I considered whether… Read More »
Is there a role for MOOCs in secondary education?
Massive Open Online Courses are pretty mainstream now (hey, even I’ve done one!) and give access on an unprecedented scale to hundreds of University level courses offered by institutions from around the world. Done well, a MOOC can be a very successful way of learning. Trust me, I’ve tried and failed to learn various things… Read More »
Democratising Da Vinci (or why technology in schools is a no-brainer for the world)
This might not seem of immediate relevance, but stick with me on this one, all will become clear hopefully. There are plenty of historical examples of people who have stood out in their time for their genius. I could cite hundreds, but as Leonardo Da Vinci seems to be current shorthand for this, I’ll use… Read More »
Why technology will never replace teachers
This blog’s title is a truism which is fairly uncontroversial, but one worth stating & thinking through if your job involves educational technology. It’s a little depressing that debate is often this polarised (with some seeing technology as a threat, not an enhancement). It’s rare that technology evangelists believe that ‘their’ methods are always, irrefutably… Read More »
Westminster Education Forum: New Technologies for Schools. 9th September 2013 (part 1)
This morning I have been attending the above event at London Bridge. Its pitch is 'the inside track' on government thinking and direction, reflected by the selection of speakers (including those from DfE and the House of Lords). Here's what I learned. Tom Goldman, Deputy Director, Standards Division, DfE, 'Technology in England's Schools' Tom… Read More »
A vision for how schools’ MIS should function
I’m using this post to try and flesh out my own thinking about the role of MIS in schools; apologies for the dull-ness, you are welcome to slip quietly out of the back now while I look the other way. Firstly, in case you don’t know, MIS is derived from ‘Management Information System’, the commonly… Read More »