Spannerman's Edublog
John Spencer
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Dr John Spencer began his teaching career in 1981 armed with a Sinclair ZX81, thereby demonstrating two things at once: Firstly he was in at the very start of ICT in the classroom and secondly he is a sucker for duff technology. Thereafter he taught joining a start-up open source company as their Head of Education in 2002. Now John is bringing his iconoclastic disposition and tendency to throw a spanner in the works to blogging.
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The fall and fall of the proprietary school database
Schools are abandoning closed database-driven products in favour of home-grown spreadsheets
by John Spencer
I have just completed a small IT project for primary schools in my area. It was to track pupil progress through the Early Years. The progress of young children from birth to 60 months is tracked by their teachers in...
October 10, 2012 3:28 PM Read Full Post
Back to the School of the Future
So what is left for technology?
by John Spencer
It’s about time I revisited the “school of the future”, a phrase which supported countless symposia and conferences in the pre-crash age of the early 21st Century. It of course was part of the Building Very Expensive Schools of the...
October 5, 2012 2:30 PM Read Full Post
Bring back Becta
Come back Becta, all is forgiven
by John Spencer
Who? For those of you with long memories, Becta was the education ICT quango which had the dubious honour of being the first to be abolished by the new government. During my days as an Open Source apologist I often...
September 27, 2012 4:41 PM Read Full Post
Innovate in schools or die of boredom
Raspberry Pi, 3-D printers and the dawn of a new era of geekdom
by John Spencer
I have discovered that I have a shorter attention span and lower boredom threshold than even my students. I blame the Internet for this as, via the Web, I can sate my curiosity and learn as much as I want...
September 24, 2012 12:54 PM Read Full Post
DNA and all that
Calling all young computer scientists
by John Spencer
I think I may have found a job for the Raspberry Pi.This week I have had to modify part of the molecular biology lecture notes for my young biologists. We have known for a while that only 2 percent of...
September 10, 2012 11:25 AM Read Full Post
ICT exams are the problem
A last word on an important issue
by John Spencer
I almost promise this will be the last time I write about GCE and GCSE exams, in particular those exams that are to do with computers. A ‘bit bored’ with the whole thing does not really go far enough to...
August 30, 2012 1:30 PM Read Full Post
ICT and Computing GCSE
'ICT and Computing' is a classic edubollocks Goldilocks solution to a problem that does not exist.
by John Spencer
Messrs Gove and Cameron seem to me to be comedy stars from the silent screen who are struggling with the ‘talkies’. Good lines are consequently few and far between with the notable exception of “That’s another fine mess you’ve gotten...
July 17, 2012 4:05 PM Read Full Post
Olympic Academy end of term address
Given by the Principal Michael (Hercules) Gove
by John Spencer
Dear Parents, as term draws to a ragged end it’s time for reflection on the highs and lows of the year and on our education reforms and to look forward to the excellent examination achievements of our students later this...
July 10, 2012 12:18 PM Read Full Post
The IQ divide...
School students lead the way
by John Spencer
We seem to be in a transition phase in school IT ( I’m dropping ICT like everyone else judging by the numbers enrolling), on the one hand we have surprisingly sophisticated practice and on the other ludicrously backward processes. Naturally...
June 27, 2012 9:39 AM Read Full Post
Return of the O-level: Ditch those computers and learn Latin
IT education - bung it with the hairdressers and child care
by John Spencer
It’s great being old enough to remember how things were last time around. It’s also never been a better time to manifest multiple-personality disorders especially in that zaniest of professions, education. In a back to the future moment today we...
June 21, 2012 11:11 AM Read Full Post
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