Why I’m not excited about the latest coding announcement
Politicians are funny people. They seem to be completely obsessed with short term thinking while saying things like we need to look at the bigger picture. For example, every so often when a multinational company complains that they can’t find workers, some politicians decide that the answer to this problem is to introduce coding into the […]
Google Sites getting a makeover at last!
Google Sites must be the forgotten child of Google Apps. While almost all of Google’s services have been given a lovely makeover with nice new functionality, Google Sites has been left in its functional but reasonably outdated state for quite some time. Things like adding galleries or decent blogs or anything remotely modern looking have […]
Thoughts on the Digital Strategy
The Digital Strategy for Schools 2015-2020 is the latest attempt by the government to come up with a strategy for the use of technology in education. Its timing is more interesting than the last few because it is accompanied by money. This article aims to summarise what’s on offer and how it’s all going to […]
Tablet Review October 2014
Almost everyone is interested in buying sets of tablets for their schools these days. 2014 has been the year where they are starting the gain a lot of attention with primary schools. Like the world of Interactive Whiteboards a few years ago, there are a lot of choices out there so I’ve decided to take a […]
What's all the fuss with Scratch?
Scratch is a visual programming language suitable for children from the age of 8. It’s very simple to use and it can lead to some very interesting projects. Last year, I did a project with some 5th and 6th class pupils where they created a cartoon. The learning involved was amazing: planning, storyboarding, storytelling, art, […]
Twitter and Primary Education (1)
Go to any search engine and type in “Twitter and education” and you’ll get hundreds of web sites, which show how great Twitter is for educational purposes. I’ve scoured through many of these web sites looking at ways that I could introduce Twitter to the children in my school. While all the suggestions for using […]
Why Blogging is Best – a digiteach article
I was asked to write a follow-up article about my workshop at this year’s CESI (Computers in Education Society of Ireland) conference. It’s entitled “Why Blogging is Best” and below is the text from it. The slides are available as a slidecast from the CESI site. The CESI conference is one of my favourite events […]