Embracing ignorance and exploring the gap

Leaders and teachers do not need to have all the answers As a teacher/mentor/advisor, I found “The Ignorant Maestro” by Itay Talgam quite a liberating read. Even though I know quite a lot about some subjects, I often have to respond to students’ questions with “I don’t know” and then follow it up with “let’s […]

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The Influence of Venture Capital on the Future of Education

EdTech VC investors are in a position of power and are able to influence the education agenda I recently attended a fascinating Digital Education session on the current trends in EdTech investment, and particularly Venture Capital. Essentially, VCs are investing in the future of education and therefore having a direct impact on what the future […]

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Does analysis of EdTech focus on funding over revenue?

“Why does all analysis of EdTech always focus on funding over revenue?” I was recently asked this question. Firstly, I wouldn’t say “all” and I wouldn’t say “always” but I believe I understand where the question was coming from. I think the EdTech space is inherently different to the B2C market, for example, because it […]

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Why you’re getting shown creepy ads after chatting with your friends

The tech giants don’t need to listen to your conversations. They have so much other data to work with. When I stumbled across the Twitter thread above, it reminded me of all those anecdotes I have heard over the years about adverts being targeted at people after they have (seemingly) related conversations. Essentially, the big […]

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The problem with EdTech…

I am generally positive about the post-COVID readjustment of (higher) education to be more inclusive/flexible/accessible, enabled by tech. Future spend on EdTech is expected to grow significantly, as shown in the graph produced by HolonIQ below. I do, however, worry that there will be a LOT of spend on systems by executive teams that don’t […]

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Creating opportunities through connections and conversations

Guess what. Talking to people makes good things happen. I’ve written about this topic before but there are so many different angles to consider, one could probably write a book! Mental note: write a book. Networking might feel like a dirty word. What do you think of when you hear “networking”? Do you imagine a […]

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A comparison of DuckDuckGo and Google features (not privacy)

When I use DuckDuckGo… I really miss Google I’ve been using DuckDuckGo for a while now on my Android phone as my default browser and homescreen search instead of Google Chrome. Obviously the privacy features are great but it has been interesting to see how much of Google I miss! Quite a lot, it turns […]

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An office environment about as chill as a Kafka novel

Would you like to work in this office environment? Looks somewhat anxiety-inducing, no? Perhaps it has a different feel at eye level. Worse or better? Hard to tell! It’s one of Facebook’s offices, apparently. Don’t know from when. I haven’t dug much deeper than the thread of replies on a tweet or two (so don’t […]

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Making Users Happy: User Experience in the Digital Age (Webinar)

I enjoyed delivering this webinar for Bucks HSC in association with Buckinghamshire New University back in January 2021. I covered the following: Why User Experience (UX) is so important to the success of any technology project Understanding your users User Experience is not User Interface design The importance of keeping things simple Examples of good […]

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On Coding Interviews

“The idea that the very design of the interview process may effectively exclude an entire class of job candidates is troubling…” Source: https://www.zdnet.com/article/software-developers-coding-interviews-are-a-disaster-and-heres-why/ Well, indeed! “The nature of the technical interview process also means that many job candidates try to spend weeks or months training specifically for the interview, and not the actual job they […]

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