An article in New scientist caught my eye recently. Entitled “The sneaky trick for solving problems without answering them”, Jacob Aron describes a mathematical approach to solving a problem without actually doing anything about it. All you have to do is see that it can be solved.

I have to say, I could have done with knowing about this when I was at school, where we had to answer questions like, Sam is five years older than Freda who is twice as old as Jan. How old is John? Or something like that. Anyway, the not-actually-doing-anything approach is known as “non-constructive proof”, and is best exemplified by a joke.

A person walks into a room and sees that it is on fire. She looks around and spots a fire extinguisher in the corner. Realising that the fire is able to be tackled, she goes out of the room and carries on with her day.

I have to say, it reminds me of the old joke about economists and their unrealistic assumptions. An economist, a physicist and a chemist are stranded on a desert island. They have plenty of tinned food but no tin opener. The physicist cuts down a few branches of a palm tree and constructs a makeshift catapult, which he uses to hurl the tins against some rocks. The ruse fails. Then the chemist tries to dissolve the metal by soaking the tins in salt water taken from the sea. To no avail. All this time, the economist has been sitting there with a smug look on his face. “You’re looking quite pleased with yourself” says the physicist. “what’s your solution then?”

“Let’s assume we have a tin opener” he replies.

I realised that I’d been using this approach for years. I’ve always loved working out how I could solve a particular problem using either a ready-made program, like MS Access, say, computer programing, or an amalgamation of the two, such as using VBA in a Word document. Once I’ve worked out how it could be done, I haven’t seen the need — or had the desire — to actually do it. This non-constructive business sounds like the same approach to me.

“Hard hats not just graduation caps”

Britain’s new Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, has announced that schools are to offer technical education from the age of 14. One of the problems of being as old as I am is that I remember the last time this sort of thing was done. And the time before that. And….

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all in favour of it. Not everyone is academically inclined, and neither is everyone technically inclined. I was marvelling today at a CD cabinet (see photo) that my father-in-law made. It’s perfect, and it was made without any written specifications.

Compare that with me. At the age of 15 I was banned from the woodwork room in school by the head of department, Mr Cleaver (how’s THAT for an example of nominative determinism?). Why? Because while one of the achievements of another (admittedly older) lad had been to make a guitar, my crowning achievement was to cut a piece of wood, shape into a wedge, and glue it to a block of wood on which I had drawn two eyes and a month.

No, my frustration is that we seem to go on and on reinventing the same wheel, abandoning it, and then inventing it again, ad nauseam. During my teaching career I’ve seen these initiatives come and go several times. This version sounds very like the Diploma, a mixture of theory and practical study that involved visits to organisations and working in or with local businesses. That was a great scheme. Of course, there are a few minor details to be sorted out, such as who is going to teach it, and when? Will music and languages go by the board, for example? Will the school day be doubled in length? Anyway, I shall reserve my cynicism for now, and wish this new scheme good luck.

This article about technical education first appeared in my free newsletter, Digital Education. Also in that edition: news about an AI petition, and Andy Burnham’s AI and technology-related reorganisations.

When I taught Economics I was always on the look-out for games and simulations that would help me get across certain difficult economic concepts. The ones I employed were Stockpiler and Running The Economy, which were, of course, intended to be used for such a purpose. But I also used Sim City and even Monopoly.

This book looks at the maths concepts — and, to some extent, the physics concepts — hidden in popular video games. It’s a great idea, and while I can’t say I understand all the mathematical explanations, I am sure a qualified maths teacher would have no such difficulty.

At the time of writing the book is nine years old, so perhaps the games used as examples have moved on or been discontinued, but it is the principle that counts.

In 2012 I wrote an article called The Stimulating Classroom, updated in 2016. Much of it still relevant, so I've republished it here, with a few minor amendments and an updated link.

It seems paradoxical, but the most boring classrooms tend to be the ones that are full of technology – and little else. The worst ones I’ve been into are those in which 30 or more computers are crammed into rows, allowing no room for note-taking, let alone collaboration -- despite plenty of evidence indicating that kids learn better by working with others, at least some of the time anyway.

But even the ones with wall-to-wall interactive display screens, visualisers, graphic tablets etc etc are often, to be frank, Tedium City. How come?

I think the reason, in a nutshell, is that in the sorts of classrooms I’ve just described, the emphasis is on technology rather than learning. What a shame. What a missed opportunity. Technology can enable great and transformative things to happen in the classroom and beyond, but I think it's easy to lose sight of that if we're not careful.

Primary (elementary) classrooms tend to have this more right, or right more often, than secondary (high) schools in my experience. Secondary schools are serious, with a timetable to stick to come what may, whereas primary schools have still not entirely lost that ethos of exploration they are so good at, despite numerous “initiatives” over the years to ensure that anything that moves, or even anything that doesn’t move, is measured. The best schools still have that despite the constant pressure by Governments to test the kids and micromanage the teachers.

So what sort of things should a classroom have? I’m basing this list partly on my own experience of having taught in secondary schools over many years, and my visits to what I considered to be the schools where the education technology classrooms were the most vibrant.

Different areas

Different sorts of activity require different kinds of spaces. Within the classroom there should be an area where students can use the school’s computers, and places they can sit and plug their own device in if they need to. There should be places where students can collaborate, using pencil and paper if necessary, at tables. There should also be, if space allows, some comfy chairs too. If the school wireless network, layout and rules allow, the classroom can be extended beyond its walls by allowing students to work outside.

In my experience, even if the room you have is incredibly small, you can still arrange furniture and equipment in such a way that you can accommodate different sorts of spaces. And if you can’t then I would suggest, at the risk of being designated a pariah, that you might consider getting rid of some of the equipment. Nobody needs one-to-one computing all the time, and for learning purposes it’s not usually the most effective strategy anyway unless you build in opportunities for collaborating with others.

Books

Not e-books, but books. Not because I’m a Luddite (I’m not), but for four reasons:

First, the very practical one that if you have a few manuals and other books around, it is easy to pick them up and look things up while your partner is working at the screen.

Second, the nature of the books don’t have to be restricted to manuals. There are science fiction novels and short stories related to technology, books about the development of cyber warfare, books about the rise of Google and the fall of Boo. All sorts of technology-related books to stimulate thinking and broaden the mind. I dare you to start a class library.

Third, there’s a hidden message that old technology is still important and useful. Ebooks are great, no doubt about it, but there’s no reason to ditch paper ones, especially as you can’t display ebooks on a bookshelf as far as I know.

Fourth, I think it designates the classroom as a place of learning, not a hub of technology. I think that’s important.

Magazines and other periodicals

I always had newspapers, magazines and even comics in my classroom. I used to buy a lot of computer mags, and I’d bring them in when I was finished with them. If you want a student to write a software review, show them a variety of types of review in different magazines; they’ll soon get the idea. Even the Sunday newspaper supplements sometimes have interesting articles, such as on cyberbullying.

And the comics? Well, comics like 2000 AD or the Marvel comics, though somewhat outlandish in many respects, have interesting ideas and a great appearance from a design point of view. One of the requirements Computing curriculum worthy of the name should be the ability to present information in a variety of formats according to its purpose and intended audience. Comics or, if you prefer the grown-up term, graphic novels, can be pretty effective. There are plenty of comic-creation resources available: see the article referenced in A cornucopia of comic-making applications (updated).

Tablets on demand

I like the idea of students and teachers being able to use technology where and when they need it. So that means there should be good enough connectivity to make that feasible, and that banks of laptops or tablets are available quickly and easily. Having to book the laptop trolley a day in advance doesn't cut it.

A stand-alone computer

I always liked to have a computer that wasn’t connected to the rest of the network. Yes, I know it’s a bit retro, but it meant that students could check out DVDs without having to go through a whole rigmarole to gain access to the DVD drive. It also meant that they could use programs that were not available on the network, or in the cloud but not available from the network. This sounds all very old-fashioned, but if you have some useful DVDs or CDs from days of old, why abandon them just because technology has moved on?

I also used a stand-alone computer to play music while we worked – Vivaldi, which tended to keep the kids both calm and productive at the same time!

These are just a few ideas, and I don’t even think I’ve scratched the surface. In my opinion, the classroom should be a powerhouse of learning and exploration. If that’s the starting point, then in my experience learning will follow much more than if the starting point is technology.

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This article contains two versioons of my review. The first is the one that was published in Teach Secondary magazine. The second is the one I actually submitted.

The Shortest History of Al

(Toby Walsh, Old Street £9.99)

How is it that ChatGPT, Claude and other Al models appear to perform so well at certain complex tasks that some people become convinced that they're sentient — only for them to then promptly fail at simple tasks that even a child could handle?

And what's with their tendency to fabricate 'facts' if they don't 'know' the answer to a query? This very readable account of Al's recent history covers these questions and more, taking us on a journey from the first stirrings of Al technology over 70 years ago to the powerful models of the present day, filling in readers with information about the major players involved along the way, including Turing, Boole and others.

For teachers of computing, it's a valuable guide to how Al-derived approaches to problem solving have evolved over time.

This review first appeared in Teach Secondary magazine.

In case you’re interested, here is my original review, before the editor amended it.

How do ChatGPT, Claude and other AI programs perform so well on complex tasks that some people have even come to believe they are sentient? And yet why do they tend to fail to cope with simple tasks that even a child could handle? And why do they tend to make stuff up if they don’t “know” the answer?

These questions and more are covered in this very readable account which takes us from the first inklings of artificial intelligence over seventy years ago to the powerful programs of the present day. As well as providing information about the people involved, such as Turing, Boole and others, Walsh explains how the approach to thinking about AI and problem-solving changed over time.

Teachers of Computing will find this to be a valuable source of information about how framing the problem to be solved is bound to affect the success of the program concerned.

Every so often I like to take a look, or another look, at a book published a while ago, and today I’ve been looking at Teacher Geek, by Rachel Jones. It is aimed at primary teachers, but it’s full of great ideas that could be adapted for secondary — or even, in some cases, transferred wholesale.

When I flicked open the book to start with I came across this:

“Passion is a hallmark of being a geek teacher, and part of that passion is about seeing those you teach do well and achieve.”

That very much chimed with me. These days I teach writing-related courses for the most part, and I get a huge thrill every time one of my students obtains a book deal, has a play perfromed, or had an article published in a magazine or newsletter. I do my best to encourage them to “go for it”.

The author goes on to write:

“It is now one of my core beliefs that the work of every child should seen and shared. Not just with parents but with a wider audience. A geek teacher should relish the opportunities that sharing student work can bring.
”

The book contains lots of great (analogue) ideas, one of my favourites being the assembly in which the kids had organised a singing flash mob!

I have a couple of quibbles. First, the subtitle: life’s too short for worksheets. Well, some of my worksheets are almost collectible items! I take great pride in my worksheets.

More seriously, while some of the websites cited as resources still work, several no longer do. Hrdly surprising, given that the book was published in 2015. It pains me to say this, because I’ve met Rachel and she was a lovely person who was as passionate about educating the young in real life as she is in the book, but I’m not sure the price of the book is value for money any more. Crown Publishing, in my opinion, should do the decent thing and ask Rachel if she would like to update it (unless she has and I’ve missed that, in which case my apologies) or reduce the price.