Internet Privacy

February 2, 2021 · 3 min read

Lockdown and homeschool have vastly accelerated the move to online learning for my family as well as many others.

While I am very much a technophile - I have long had some concerns about the more dystopian aspects of our technology.

When I first started using the internet is was very new and (it now seems) somewhat naive, there was a belief that the internet would transcend boundaries, “route around” censorship, and bring us all closer.

It did indeed do all those things - but it now seems to have been a Faustian pact where the terms of the promise were fulfilled but not in the way initially expected.

Covid Remote Learning Tools

February 1, 2021 · 5 min read

Some Problems

In the current circumstances it seems like we cannot avoid failing our children in some ways: we are merely trying to choose which harm is least. In the emergency to get online education up and running many matters have had less scrutiny than would be normal.

I think it’s worth flagging up some compromises that have been made (even if only for the sake of clarifying my own thoughts).

On Covid Remote Learning

January 27, 2021 · 4 min read

Lockdown has thrown me deep into a very small part of the education system.

I’ve always had an interest in my son’s education and always had some concerns about the overly political nature of the UK National Curriculum as set by politicians and not so much by educational experts.

I’m just a Dad, a technologist, I went to school, I know some teachers but I make no claim to educational expertise.

Based on my experiences of Open Source Software and related projects and of seeing a rush to embrace technology in schools these are some thoughts on what I think should happen.