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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Liam Maxwell and computer literacy
Eton and Microsoft's biggest asset?
by John Spencer
Following Glynn Moody’s recent article on the dearth of programming skills amongst our young (Raspberry Pi) I have been doing some research into the halcyon days of the mid-eighties. This was when every child was a master programmer who piloted...
July 5, 2011 12:44 AM Read Full Post
Teachers strike over dropping ICT
...don't be silly
by John Spencer
It’s hard to overstate that the profound changes happening in teaching at present. Blood is boiling over. There is a full national strike planned for this Thursday over pensions and from head teachers there is nothing short of fury at...
June 29, 2011 12:58 PM Read Full Post
Rupert Murdoch meets AR
Augmenting reallity in school with American Idol and Fox TV
by John Spencer
News Corp has entered the debate on the ‘digital age’ and education. Robert aims to become a major provider of digital educational materials to schools. In fact his ambition is to secure at least 10% of the market in the...
June 24, 2011 12:20 PM Read Full Post
E-books and EPUB: back to basics
E readers and the nucleus of the cell
by John Spencer
Many years ago I was completing my Ph.D in the aging of mitochondria and was reminded of how I got into this project. My supervisor (to be) said that of all the disparate features of senescence (proper old aging) one...
June 10, 2011 1:20 AM Read Full Post
The Monday morning problem
Switching 10,000 users to Open Source Moodle
by John Spencer
Technical advancement depends on new knowledge and novel applications for knowledge. So far, so blindingly obvious one might say, but hovering above the unfettered toolmaker-empiricist is the theorist. Theorists are the makers of paradigms, ‘ways of looking at things’, who...
June 6, 2011 3:15 PM Read Full Post
Bail out school ICT ... Euro-style
...but savagely cut capital spending
by John Spencer
A recent article by Simon Phipps in his blog finished with the phrase ‘… forced to evolve’. It has stuck in my head. In Darwinian evolution change occurs as a result of the impact of external conditions acting upon a...
May 26, 2011 10:59 AM Read Full Post
Chrome will bring about the ICT revolution in schools.
Google's netbook rent deal could be the clincher
by John Spencer
Google Chrome netbooks are being targeted directly at education and for good reason. Initial press reactions to the Chrome-book are enthusiastic ... with two caveats. These are: ‘it’s a bit expensive for an empty book isn’t it?’ and ‘great concept...
May 23, 2011 12:45 PM Read Full Post
I'm sorry, I haven't a clue
Education, open standards and the trap of political thinking
by John Spencer
It doesn't take much Twitter stalking to confirm that the commercial open source community is deeply hacked off with the coalition government’s new negative attitutude to FOSS, SMEs and open standards in general. So what, you might say. Isn't it...
May 10, 2011 9:20 AM Read Full Post
Open Source and the Second Law
...or how to save our Libraries
by John Spencer
Given the erudition of Computerworld’s readers, you will undoubtedly be familiar with the concept of entropy as enshrined in the Second Law of Thermodynamics.Quite simply spontaneous changes (ie changes that occur by the nature of things and not by supernatural...
April 19, 2011 1:18 PM Read Full Post
Why XP is like a Bunsen burner
Windows Ribbon UI ... what it means for schools
by John Spencer
You are forgiven for saying ‘what?’ I picked up on this latest wheeze from Redmond when browsing a rival publication after a webinar entitled ‘Open Source Software in Schools’ was unexpectedly cancelled leaving me at a loose end. In a...
April 11, 2011 11:29 AM Read Full Post
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