I was thinking about using some click-baity title with “Google” and “you can’t just click it” in it but this is far too serious an issue for that. So, a teacher has been barred from teaching for life. These were the allegations against them: Accessed pornography websites on one or more occasions whilst connected to… Read More On proportionality and privacy
You will not have been able to miss the news over the past week or so that tablets are on their way out. The most quotable quote was “Even Apple is acknowledging that the “iPads in education” fad is coming to an end.” which manages to diss the two tech bête noirs of the edu-twitterati,… Read More Lies, damned lies, and the debunking of edtech fads
In the year of my birth there were 6,970 deaths due to road accidents. Since that time the number of road miles travelled in the UK has risen by a factor of 4.4 and the number of vehicles has increased by a factor of 3.7. And the number of deaths? That has fallen to a low… Read More Eight hundred and fifty six thousand seven hundred and thirty seven
There’s masses of information about the OECD PISA studies out there. Whatever your opinions on the matter you can find evidence to support them. My view on PISA has always been “So what?”. The number of changes between each PISA cycle prevent the data being used in a simple way. There is perhaps some merit… Read More PISA – the case for ‘So what?’
I’ve always liked the word ‘provenance’. Not just the way it sounds, but what it means. Perhaps it’s the auditor in me. In my (old) dictionary it also has one of the shortest entries. Provenance n. (place of) origin. In my dictionary it is the next word after ‘Prove’. When I used to talk to… Read More Provenance is not a region in France
Miss McInerney has asked for principles, or “touchpaper problems“. Well, here is my two-pence worth. It is a well known phenomenon that as we cool substances their density increases. Liquid is denser than gas, solids are denser than liquids. We know this. Water is a good example. Liquid water we drink is denser than steam… Read More The limits and applicability of knowledge
Any one who has studied how we learn for any length of time will probably agree on a few things: We know a lot about how the brain learns There is far more we don’t know about the how the brain learns than we do know (known unknowns are greater than the known knowns) A… Read More Learning: It’s complicated and we know next to nothing about it
Its been a couple of weeks (and many answering blogposts) since Dr Ben Goldacre launched his paper on research in education, specifically discussing some of the benefits of using Randomised Control Trials (RCTs) and generally suggesting that evidence is a good thing. Nothing in this post should be construed as suggesting that any part of… Read More Tramadol nights
Distant Ramblings on the Horizon 