Looking back on 2024 it felt like this was a year in which the role of technology in children’s lives was being questioned like never before. In several countries there was a push back against smart phones in school (or rather than an outright ban teachers were collecting them in and returning to students at… Continue reading What should we do about children’s access to digital devices?
Category: technology
Using ChatGPT for Language Learning
There has been a great deal of discussion on AI in recent weeks, with some raising (yet again) the idea that technology is going to transform the way we live and work. Part of the narrative about AI concerns its impact on education and there have been visions of using AI for providing personalised feedback… Continue reading Using ChatGPT for Language Learning
What I learned playing chess online
In a book I have been writing about technology I used the example of online chess as way of signalling the power and sophistication of computing. If you follow the debates over the past 30 or 40 years we have gone from wondering if a computer could ever play a decent game of chess to a… Continue reading What I learned playing chess online
Reporting Atrocity 1
The other day BBC Radio carried a programme on academics who had tweeted or retweeted posts that cast doubt on atrocities carried out by Russian soldiers during the Ukraine war. (There is at the time of writing access to both the programme, 'File on Four: Ukraine: The disinformation war', and transcript of the broadcast at https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0017thr)… Continue reading Reporting Atrocity 1
What we can learn about technology from school closures?
Technology, Pedagogy and Education, a journal I am close to, has put out a call for papers on the Covid-19 and the role of technology in teaching [1]. The deadline for abstracts is soon, 17 April, so hurry if you are interested. I'm not writing a paper for it but the lockdown has pushed those of us… Continue reading What we can learn about technology from school closures?
Why do some people wear a Fitbit?
I was thinking back to a conference that took place some time ago on the theme of data capture, in particular to the presentations on wearable physical activity devices or trackers [1]. These were still fairly new at the time and I quickly picked up that the people in the audience, most of whom were… Continue reading Why do some people wear a Fitbit?
Hunting sound
I was researching technology and international exchange the other day and came across two stories in the history of technology which were new for me. The first concerned World Tape Pals [1]. This was an organisation set up in 1950 to encourage the sharing of news and perspectives from people around the world. A kind… Continue reading Hunting sound
Does Virtual Reality work for education?
Back to more familiar territory: technology. The other week our research centre put on a morning event about virtual reality. Much of it was new for me but the questions it posed about what to do with new technology were familiar ones. So what is VR? One definition I liked came from Lavalle [1] for… Continue reading Does Virtual Reality work for education?
Graffiti and comment forums: An essentially social act gone wrong?
When I find myself disappointed by the tone of online comment forums my mind goes back to toilet graffiti. I am no expert, but there was, I think, a spike in interest in researching toilet (or what Americans might call ‘restroom’) graffiti in the 1970s and 1980s. It is not difficult to see why. Graffiti… Continue reading Graffiti and comment forums: An essentially social act gone wrong?
Football, schools and a changing world
Every year our research students put on a conference and the theme for this year was education in a changing world. For me one of the most obvious but far reaching features of this changing world is our interconnectedness. What happens faraway can have a resonance in ways that were not envisaged in the past.… Continue reading Football, schools and a changing world
Michael Hammond 
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