Khan Academy – A Response to Educational Technology Guy

The post below is a response to a blog entry from Educational Technology Guy, titled “Khan Academy – not good pedagogy and not #edreform”

I had originally intended to respond to the article in the comments on the above site, but my response turned into a passionate 1500+ word essay, so it appears here instead. Please do read David’s post first to get the full context.

I must make clear from the outset, this is not a personal attack on either  the site owner and I agree with much of what he has to say, in fact David’s site at http://educationaltechnologyguy.blogspot.in/ looks like a great resource for teachers and students alike and you should all go and take a look around it.

It’s also not an attack on the educational system or those that work within it.

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RIP Steve Jobs (1955 – 2011)

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Fun with Microscopes

I recently picked up a rather excellent little USB microscope, the Veho VMS-004.

For the bargain price of £29 (short term bargain at Tesco Direct) you get a 2 megapixel microscope, capable of 20x and 400x magnification.

The large sensor size allows some great images to be captured, but the biggest challenge, expecially at the higher magnification, is holding it and the subject matter still enough to take images.

The ‘scope does come with a stand, which is reasonable for the money, but it soon became clear that something more stable was going to be required for close-up work at 400x magnification.

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