Pedagogical romanticism
Why trusting to the intuition (aka “professional judgement”) of individual teachers is wrong but wromantic Continue reading →
View ArticleThe rise and fall of criterion referencing
Why criterion referencing got itself a bad name and why this does not mean that it should be abandoned Continue reading →
View ArticleAristotle’s phronesis misunderstood
When educationalists use the theory of phronesis to argue that teachers should determine educational purpose, they misrepresent Aristotle. Continue reading →
View ArticleEducation as an intrinsic good
Why many academics think that education is an intrinsic good and why they are wrong. Continue reading →
View ArticleA troubled relationship
For those of us who gather round the office coffee machine, the relationship between government Ministers and education technology is matter of intense interest. Is it really love – or just an awkward...
View ArticleHow edtech will revolutionize research
Why the only realistic way of improving the quality of educational research (and of education itself) is by the intelligent application of education technology I gave this talk at Research Ed 2015 on 5...
View ArticleIs Greenfield an alarmist?
The ed-tech community should listen carefully to concerns being raised about the effect on our children's development of excessive time spent online. Continue reading →
View ArticleRescue ETAG—say no to FELTAG
The DfE should reject the FELTAG recommendations in order to ensure that all the same mistakes are not repeated by ETAG At the same time as the Further Education Learning Technology Action Group...
View ArticleWhat ETAG should say
The Education Technology Action Group, set up by the DfE and BIS and announced by Matt Hancock at BETT, has made a shaky start. This is what I think they should end up saying to Ministers. In my post...
View ArticlePrivate intuition: public expertise
As well as debunking numerous teaching myths, Tom Bennett’s book Teacher Proof reasserts the common view that teaching is a sort of private craft. I disagree. I was not able to attend ResearchEd2013...
View ArticleUnlocking pedagogical innovation
Just as Gutenberg’s printing press provided the means by which the intellectual culture of Europe was transformed, so ed-tech will provide the means to transform our understanding of pedagogy. This...
View ArticleIts the technology, stupid!
The consensus is that we should not mind the technology but that we should focus instead on the learning. The consensus is wrong. This is the transcript of a presentation I gave at the EdExec...
View ArticleWhy teachers don’t (necessarily) know best
It is not surprising that teachers get impatient when others tell them how to do their job: “we are the experts”, they complain, “not you”. What should surprise the rest of us is how wrong they are:...
View ArticleFive principles of pedagogy
People talk a lot about “pedagogy”—but what do they actually mean? In this post, I suggest five principles that might help clarify matters. I have been meaning to write this post for a while, as a...
View ArticleRound-table with Ian Livingstone at Computing magazine
Why I disagree with Ian Livingstone (and why we should continue the discussion) Last month I participated in a videoed round-table at Computing magazine’s offices in Soho, chaired by Peter Gothard. The...
View ArticleComputing in the National Curriculum
My response to the Department for Education’s consultation on the draft National Curriculum Following my previous posts on the review of the National Curriculum (Digital literacy and the new ICT...
View ArticlePublic sector productivity in education
A copy of my response to the public consultation by Policy Exchange on digital government The think tank Policy Exchange has been running an online consultation on digital government (closing at...
View ArticleThe iTunes model in education
Developing a marketplace for micro educational software and content In response to my post MOOCs and other ed-tech bubbles (which listed OER as one of three significant “bubbles”), Daniel Clark...
View ArticleGood lord! Where’s the digital literacy?
The most recent draft of the Computing Curriculum for England and Wales has majored on Computer Science at the expense of Digital Literacy. Before we can discover where the latter has gone, we will...
View ArticleIn the beginning was the conversation
The most fundamental of all pedagogical patterns is the conversation—and it is this paradigm that needs to inform the implementation of education technology. Grab a cup of coffee and get comfortable!...
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