The stupidity of crowds

Would you let a crowd decide how to operate on your cancerous lesion/child’s appendix, etc? Never, yet I constantly hear references in the tech community to ‘the wisdom of crowds’. When I was a young jackaroo I spent too much time (in my view) herding and counting sheep. Sheep can seem rather stupid and unpredictable, […]

4 years ago Education More
 

Twitter storm

Dismay is an understatement at the faux outrage generated by the BBC story about Tring School requiring parents’ buy for ChromeBooks. I saw the story from a Twitter post from Tom Bennett, someone I really admire in the education ecosystem. Tom’s line is that that Tring’s plan was, ’clearly discriminatory’, and with over 30,000 followers […]

4 years ago Education More
 

What links a Pension Ponzi Scheme & our EU vote?

For years I have battled with educators and others who see no role for the for-profit sector in education. When I point out that without it they’d be teaching in a local park or leading their class by writing with a stick, they almost get the idea, but what clinches it is when I challenge […]

4 years ago Education More
 

Does edtech really work?

I hear and read constantly that edtech doesn’t work. I agree, but for different reasons. First, let’s set the scene. My knowledge is about edtech in the UK; specifically England. In this market the government has spent (rather than invested) billions of pounds, most of which has been completely wasted. My metric for failure is […]

4 years ago Education More
 

Are private schools businesses?

Three years ago I said the business model of most independent schools was either broken or unsustainable. My thesis was that most private schools were inefficiently run because of several factors including: asset heavy structures inflexible delivery modes – low pupil teacher ratios also equals labour inefficiency approach to IP – instantly created and consumed […]

4 years ago 1 Education More
 

Academisation

Education is a political football – as whoever is in office tries to push through reforms based on their ideological perspectives, irrespective of what’s gone before or the impact on schools. In edtech this has led (in the UK and elsewhere) to waves of edtech ‘revolutions’ most of which have failed dismally and at great […]

4 years ago Education More
 

ed-invent closed

One of the most interesting projects that I have developed over the last few years was ed-invent. Initially a JV with Cambridge Assessment I decided to closed it down in late 2015. The idea behind ed-invent was to try and change the discourse about and role of educators in edtech. My fundamental frustration was that […]

5 years ago Education More
 

BETT and some edtech news

It’s 2016 and after more than 10 years of attending BETT I’m still looking forward to what I will see this time. BETT is about edtech but the bit I’m interested in can be found in the Futures section, located fortuitously next to the Press Office. This year I expect to see several companies who […]

5 years ago Education More
 

BETT 2015

BETT 2015 was the biggest and baddest edtech show on the planet; forget FETC and ISTE (just for educators), GSV/ASU (for edtech startups & deals) and SXSWedu (parties and ….parties) – BETT is the bomb. I was all set for 13th visit to churn out another story bemoaning usurious food prices, travel hassles, the lack […]

6 years ago 1 Education More

All mouth and no trousers? My Boris Challenge

I’ve just read a story in the Evening Standard by Oscar Williams-Grut (what a great name for a journalist). His story sang the praise of MMC London Fund, described as ‘a partnership between the Mayor’s Office and fund manager MMC Ventures’. According to Williams-Grut, in 13 months the fund has invested £5.1m (or 36%) of […]

6 years ago Education More