As you may know, I was hacked last week and lost access to the @SimBadd64 account. Can I ask you to please block that account and follow me here instead? Reposts appreciated.

“ I also don’t think that students should make their own decisions about how fast or slow to proceed through a body of content, or what kind of activities they should use to study the content, because most of the research shows that they make quite poor decisions.” Excellent!

Apparently there is lots of revision work happening on YouTube between 8 and 10pm. And lots of study leave. And loads of really rubbish teachers out there that YouTube saved people's grades from. 🤪

I'm looking forward to the follow up: Social Media companies will be fined heavily if they supply content to 16-17 year olds after the curfew.

If only there was a trusted adult... an expert in the GCSE content perhaps... that they could turn to for advice about what content to revise... 🤔

For 15 years, "trads" in England have been arguing against personalised learning. It seems, despite the obviousness of the counterargument and the quieting of the debate, it wasn't won. Personalised learning doesn't and won't work, and not for technological reasons, but pedagogical and psychological ones. Important blog from Daisy.

It must be a ban on social media companies supplying access to underage users in the same way shops are fined for supplying alcohol and other age restricted items. The burden must be on the suppliers to keep underage users out.

There is a lot of excitement at the moment about using AI to personalise learning resources, but I am not convinced. Yes, it is true many students are interested in Taylor Swift & Lionel Messi more than electricity, algebra or verbs. That does not mean we can teach electricity, algebra and verbs through the medium of Swift & Messi. substack.nomoremarking.com/p…

Did anyone have "AI assisted handwriting app" on their EdTech bingo card? Anyone?

Do you remember this paper? Thin. Folded. Full of little holes. Impossible to throw away. It started life in the school office printer and somehow ended up in every classroom as emergency scrap paper. Bonus points if you remember tearing the side strips off in one long satisfying rip.

Peter Hitchens gloriously pushing back against the idea that 5-year-olds shouldn't be made to learn poetry by heart.

Bell Task: Rewrite this headline so it doesn't cause the reader to have a mental breakdown trying to comprehend it. 🤪

This is positive bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cze9…

My bet is they'll suddenly start to claim these mistakes would be less likely with a digital exam... marked by AI... and taught by AI tutors... 🤔

Year after year exam boards make millions of pounds out of schools and do a terrible job but we just have to make the best of it. It’s not good enough. How about a non-profit making approach that actually delivers?

This fills me with dread for the AI "tutors" that will be unleashed on our disadvantaged students.

My opinion is that YouTube is a good example of a technology that has harmed education. The "good" use case is for when you need to show a film of something you can't directly do yourself, or by definition cannot be done without access to video. In science, that might be a slow motion film of crystal growth or a clip of a rocket launch, or blowing up a lump of caesium in a bath tub. In English, it might be a great actor reading a sonnet. In geography, it might be the waves acting on a cliff. You get the point, and it makes sense. Unfortunately, what it *became* is teachers offloading their explanation. You open YouTube, type in the topic, and presto you get a video. At best, you get BBC Bitesize. At worst, and ordinarily, you get some American cartoon with nice graphics and a good jingle in the background. Even the best option isn't great. These videos are almost always completely unsuitable. They move too fast, include vocabulary your students don't know, aren't tied to your curriculum, and rarely adhere to the basic principles of how to construct an explanation. I see this a LOT in my journeys around different schools. And I always test my theories. I ask students basic questions about the videos and the content, and invariably they just don't understand it (or worse, actively pick up misconceptions). One of the sadder things here is that the construction of an explanation is the beating heart of the lesson, and it should be a thing of joy and excitement for a teacher to sit and really figure out how they are going to communicate their subject. After watching a lesson with a video, I'll almost always ask the teacher "do you really not think you could have done a better job yourself?" It's a punchy thing to say, but I've never had anyone reply "no" yet. Can YouTube be used well? Sure. Is it? No. Can we all do better? Hells yeah.

The first time 1 of my students cites their AI "Tutor" for a misquote, a method that is different from the way we've taught them, or content from another exam board, the DfE will be sick of my voice. This is sickeningly stupid from the Govt & harmful to the already disadvantaged

So why not just act and ban it? But don't just act at device level, make the social networks accountable for the content they distribute. Proper age ratings on publicly distributed content as well as criminal accountability for distributing unlawful content.

With 3 full years of resources now online, many of our schools are building bespoke packages for KS3 year groups. A fabulous way to take advantage of the vast back catalogue at your fingertips. Reach out if you'd like to know more.

"Once Year 11 had left, we used to watch Wimbledon in our gained time..." Rae reflects on the 'old days' when teachers used to 'chill out' during their gained time periods once Year 11 had left but Lucy says now 'every minute needs to be accounted for', What's your experience? 👇 #teaching #education #debate #teacherlife #teachertok #teachersoftiktok