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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 rise and fall of software for schools
Big Brother, education ICT and hope
by John Spencer
In reply to my last post on the arrival of tablets in schools Crispin Weston of Saltis and EdTechNow picked up on my ‘sanguine’ attitude to how I thought new technology would be used in schools. Basically he noted that...
June 12, 2012 11:16 AM Read Full Post
Schools start taking the tablets
Backlash against centralisation promises tablet led innovation in education ICT
by John Spencer
At last some signs of movement in the schools’ ICT market. This is really needed after a dismal hiatus when solutions to our computing future consisted of destroying ICT’s credibility in schools and investing in a very vague notion that...
June 6, 2012 2:25 PM Read Full Post
Saga and school ICT
Google to the rescue by sponsoring one fiftieth of an IT teacher per secondary?
by John Spencer
I think it’s my age but I’m about to lose it over the ‘coding for kids’ saga. An apposite word is saga, It conjurs up two images for me the first is the convoluted semi-mythical story telling of the Norse...
May 30, 2012 2:31 PM Read Full Post
Should profit determine what computing our children learn at school?
Creating next generation coders and innovators needs long-term strategies
by John Spencer
Recent discussion about GCSE ICT and the new Computing syllabuses for 2014 has raised in my mind some interesting questions. Specifically I am interested in the triple interface affecting what is learned by each generation. These interfaces are created by:...
May 21, 2012 1:34 PM Read Full Post
GCSE ICT v Computing. Back to Basic?
Raspbery Pi for a few
by John Spencer
The future of computer education in mainstream UK school is taking shape. The accepted reference point for a qualification at the end of secondary education is still the GCSE so I thought it would be interesting to look at what...
May 17, 2012 12:08 PM Read Full Post
Mobiles in Class II: the Ofsted view
Time to take on the Luddites
by John Spencer
I posted an article last week describing how we make use of student's smartphones in class. It attracted modest interest but no comment. I was disappointed if I’m honest as the use of personal technology in education is (in my...
May 10, 2012 12:06 PM Read Full Post
Mobile phones come of age in school
Classroom etiquette and the smartphone user
by John Spencer
At last I have managed to use smartphones to good effect in a class. By this I mean leveraging the students' ownership of technology 'in the wild', that is to say as opposed to being under my directed control. It's...
May 3, 2012 12:47 PM Read Full Post
Free Schools: an amazing opportunity for ICT
Please sir, can we see some innovation?
by John Spencer
Free Schools are in the spotlight at the moment. Anyone can setup a school outside the control of the Local Authority and get it fully-funded by the state so long as they adhere to a set of baseline rules. Obviously...
April 27, 2012 11:53 AM Read Full Post
Flossie 2012: Girls in ICT
CSI for Linux anyone?
by John Spencer
Michael Gove's official deprecation of school ICT has given me a problem in as much as I blog about school ICT and its soon-to-be absence (at least at GCSE) kind of puts a dampener on the topic. I have, as...
April 23, 2012 9:28 AM Read Full Post
The Monday morning problem
What do you do on Mondays?
by John Spencer
In science we call it 'the Monday morning problem'. Essentially this is shorthand for what would happen if a paradigm was shown to be false... on Friday! It means that had you built your career articulating, developing and promoting such...
April 19, 2012 4:59 PM Read Full Post
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