Next time you hear somebody complaining that SMS is undermining the morals of our youth (or whatever other Luddite excuse they come up with), just point them to this news story from Yahoo. Apparently, Spain’s new socialist government owes its existence to the ability of SMS and IM to spread the news of official deceit…

John Battelle draws my attention to W. Daniel Hillis’ 2000 essay “Aristotle”. In it, he postulates an automated online tutoring system (“Aristotle”) that would find available resources and, on the fly, construct a completely individualised course for the student on the topic they wished to learn. It’s an extraordinarily bold vision; one that contains enough…

Back in November 2000 I told educational publishers’ conference that the writing was on the screen for the paper textbook. From the conference programme: Ian Grove-Stephensen, Managing Director of the Chalkface Project, argues that any paper-based investment made today will fail to earn a return; but reveals how publishers can leverage their existing resources to…

A couple of years ago, I asked Berthold Weidmann, esteemed director of NETLinc, whether he thought school students in Lincolnshire would all be carrying laptops by 2007. This was a target being promoted by Microsoft’s Anytime Anywhere Learning initiative. His answer, unequivocally, “No.” “But” he continued, “it doesn’t matter because they all have mobile phones.”…

Saqib Akram, a very proactive teacher from Derby High School who uses our online GCSE Applied Business course, emailed us today with some feedback from his students The wording on all assignment questions eg. Module 1 portfolio A Cameron balloons. All pupils felt that the questions asked could be simplified as they found it difficult…