Computing Blog Index

These are blog posts from Computing and ICT in a Nutshell. The first (i.e. bottom) seventeen were written for the TES' Subject Genius series, but that has now closed and the section has been removed from their site.

Generalise! - should we take a more generalised approach to the teaching of number bases?
The Past Is Another Country - why do all of my complimentary e-mails come from abroad?
Efficiency Is Our BIDMAS - when you do need to consider efficiency? Always!
Less Is More - do you think that there's more content in Computing than there actually is?
In Praise of Slowness - why you should try using a really slow computer.
Why Are You Teaching That? - why you sometimes need to venture beyond the spec.
Are flowcharts and pseudocode helpful? - do they really represent what you're trying to do, and in a language-independent way?
How to create a Free Computing Course - why you don't need to buy your scheme of work.
Link, Don't Copy - why it's better to link to web content rather than copy it.
My First Three Weeks with a Mac - could I see what all of the fuss was about?
How Technology is Changing Our Brains - and its impact on learning.
Computing in a Post-Fact World - who are the authorities for the subject and who should we trust?
Modern Life Is Rubbish - why we shouldn't just blindly accept all new technology
Scapegoating the Curriculum - why curriculum changes are incorrectly blamed for an apparent lack of interest/uptake.
What is Progress? - what does progress mean, and are you really measuring it properly?
Why Computing Unplugged? - do you always need to use computers to teach Computing?
Are You a Computer Scientist? - how you might be telling everyone that you're not a subject specialist.
Challenge and Repetition Are Better Than Fun - why "fun" lessons could be detrimental to learning.
What is Object-Oriented Programming? - learn about object-oriented programming using intelligible examples.
Creating a Function - Odd or Even - an explanation of the steps involved in creating or naming a function.
No Projects Please, We're Computer Scientists - see why I don't like projects and don't use them in my lessons.
The Joy of Scaling - read about shifting, scaling and skewing random (and other) numbers.
Representation Links the Whole of Computing - learn how representation of data links all topics together and can help you to plan your KS3 scheme of work.
Programming: Using Arrays for Selection - create a more concise and readable program by using arrays rather than if/then/else.
The Twelve Days of Christmas - how you could approach getting your class to program the Twelve Days of Christmas
Top Ten Programming Techniques - which techniques and concepts should you learn first?
What is Computing? - what I think Computing is and why it's useful to have a view of the subject as a whole.
E-Safety - does technology impede learning - thoughts on news items about how students' learning is affected by their use of technology.
Remainders Today - read about what modular arithmetic is and how it can help in your programming work.