Educational technology, teaching strategies, pedagogy, and classroom innovation.
Teaching beyond the curriculum In the courses that I teach, there is a strong bias towards building technical skills. Specifically, skills related to Data Engineering, Cloud Technologies, and Artificial Intelligence. (disclosure: I’m currently seconded as an AI Project Lead – so my in-classroom work has been reduced to night classes) These are in-demand skills, and…
Prompt “Engineering” – is it a lie? Every time someone talks to me about using AI, they talk about how to use Prompt Engineering to get answers. The thing is: the last thing you want if you are trying to learn is answers. When you are trying to learn and have that learning stick, you…
Using technology for better learning Tools for school can be a little confusing: What laptop should I get? Do I need anything for that laptop? Do I even need a laptop? In this post, I’m going to share my favourite tech tools for school – a list I have built over years of teaching. Some…
Since the advent of formalized education, there have been those suggesting it is outdated and about to radically change. While changes do occur, can occur, and should occur – it’s also a bit reactionary to jump at each new trend and suggest it will replace all that has gone before. Radio in Education, Cable TV…
Creating a Hybrid Teaching/Training Room Creating a true hybrid teaching room has a cost associated with it, but often comes with many benefits. These rooms, when designed, can have easy to use “1-button” solutions that allow an Instructor to teach to the in-class audience and also support remote learners that attend via a Teams or…
My role as an Instructor for a Post-Graduate, Fast-Track program involves some challenges and some huge benefits. The challenges are always time, and time, and time – there is a lot to learn in a short period of time. This means that the level of self-efficacy amongst the students has to be extraordinarily high. Fortunately,…
For my entire career in teaching technology, I have used Virtual Machines to help students create learning environments tailored to the technologies they are studying. A Virtual Machine allows me to run one (or several) computers systems using the shared resources of my “host” or “main” computer system. This is especially useful because rather than…
The pace at which ChatGPT has captured the imagination of the public is astounding. As a relatively new service, it seems impossible to avoid hearing about it across all forms of media – traditional to social. While it will certainly affect all aspects of life – especially with big investments by companies such as Microsoft…
Will AI tools such as ChatGPT force us to rethink how we teach? I think so.
Technology as an enabling tool in education is far from a new idea. The ability to leverage technology to assist in the learning process is a vast topic – and one that is at the heart of the majority of my writing, my teaching, and my YouTube Channel. Placing structure before toolsets is important. The…
