When I first launched the ICT in Education website (since renamed to the ICT and Computing in Education website), it was hard going. Despite using Microsoft Front Page, and experimenting at various times with various HTML editors (Arachnophilia in particular comes to mind), it was hard work, in two respects.

Firstly, it was time-consuming to add new content. It is so much easier with a blog or a proper content management system.

Secondly, it was a nightmare tring to fit new content in without hiding older content or making the page look a mess. As I couldn’t bear to hide older stuff, the page looked like a mess. And that was depite reading, and to the best of my ability following, books on good web design.

But still, as you may be able to glean from tjhe screenshot below, it was a vibrant mess!

And if I say so myself, despite this being around twenty six years ago, I was ahead of the curve, given that the site contained, for example:

• Links to free utilities.

• Walk-throughs on various topics.

• Link to a free newsletter.

• An interactive quiz.

• A free ebook based on the freemium model (although I didn’t know about that term at the time).

• Articles on various relevant topics.

  I think on reflection that front page was too busy: there is far too much choice offered to visitors before they’ve had a chance to even get their bearings. Nevertheless, I still miss it!
  

   

Have you noticed that more and more companies seem to have outsourced their customer service to an AI bot? They make it so difficult to get to talk to a human being that it’s almost as if they want customers’ money but would prefer to have as little interaction with them as possible.

So if you’re working in a school where before parents can chat to the headteacher, or a senior admin person or senior leader, they have to battle with an AI chatbot that, rather than displaying artificial intelligence is demonstrating advanced stupidity instead, I don’t think it will do your school’s reputation much good.

   

To quote from the blurb:

The information age owes its existence to a little-known but crucial development, the theoretical study of logic and the foundations of mathematics. The Great Formal Machinery Works draws on original sources and rare archival materials to trace the history of the theories of deduction and computation that laid the logical foundations for the digital revolution.

The only name I recognised, apart from Aristotle, was Boole. I tried to read that chapter, but I’m afraid that as someone who stopped formally studying maths after I’d done my ‘O’ Levels, it was not very comprensible to me.

Therefore, I cannot really comment on the quality of the contents because I am hardly qualified to do so. I will say, however, that if you’re of a mathematical bent this could be just the book to delve into. It seems to be extremely comprehensive, and very logically set out.

   

An AI expert recently advised people to just subscribe to the premium version of one of the AI apps, rather than waste time hopping between several free ones all the time. Well, I can see the sense in that, but given that all the AI apps hallucinate, I like to ask my question in at least two different ones in the hope that they will hallucinate in different ways from each other!

And that both agree on some things.

Imagine a Venn diagram, with the bit in the middle being the almost-certainly-correct answer! In fact, you don’t even have to imagine it, because here is one I made specially for you.

   

I came across a “resource” recently that consists of hundreds of “ready-to-wear” AI prompts. The person who is flogging it described the several prompts he used to achieve some goal or other. So I am cynical on two counts here.

Firstly, why should you need lots of prompts to achieve something? If AI is truly intelligent, you should be able to tell it what you want to achieve, and then let the AI program figure it out. I’ve tried this, and sometimes the app asks me to answer a few questions so that it can make sure it gives me what I want. That’s OK: it works perfectly. You can always follow up with a more specific request based on what the app comes up with.

Secondly, ready-made prompts circumvent the thinking process, don’t they? Before asking AI for the answer, it’s a good idea to think through what the question is.

Or am I missing something?