Posts By: Stephen Wiles

Cl’apped out? The demise of apps

Apps

There’s no denying that apps have transformed the way we work, learn, live and communicate. I use them, students use them and I strongly suspect that you use them. However, I’ve always been very wary of apps and consciously avoided tablets, like the iPad, that run nothing other than apps. While apps can be helpful, informative and even… Read more »

Hidden from View: the Scope in Periscope

Just as YouTube is celebrating 10 years of existence another video app, Periscope, comes along and steals the limelight. While YouTube is now firmly bedded-in as the most used video sharing platform, Periscope has the potential to offer something that YouTube doesn’t do well; live video streaming. The Periscope app, only currently available on iTunes, burst… Read more »

Socrative: To cahoot or not to Kahoot – that is the question!

I know which I prefer. In fact I’ve always been unapologetic about my preference. If I ever stumble across a colleague using what I considered the inferior resource I immediately want to shake them vigorously and ask “why are you using that!?”. However, a recent Twitter exchange, which involved the CEO of Kahoot, made me question my choice…. Read more »

Apple Watch: a Time ‘Keeper’…?

Apple Watch

If you don’t already know, the next ‘big’ apple product is the Apple Watch. Yes, a watch. Do you remember them? They were those handy devices which attached to your wrist enabling you to check the time (it may have even beeped on the hour). They started to disappear when everyone started using smartphones like the Apple iPhone. So the… Read more »

Digital Dark Age: Now or Never?

Digital Dark Age: Floppy Disks

Until recently I owned hundreds, if not thousands, of computer storage devices. Not just CD’s, hard drives and USB sticks but 3½” & 5¼” floppy disks, DAT tapes, cassette tapes and even a few ROM cartridges from a long forgotten computer console I owned in the early 1980s. A significant life event made me question whether this plastic… Read more »

The Paperless Educator Challenge: The end…?

Paperless

The Paperless Educator Challenge is over! Almost… In September 2014 I made a very simple sounding pledge: not to print or write anything on paper until December 2014. At the very start of the academic year, fresh-faced from a summer of no teaching, this seemed like a taxing challenge but one that I could, if I put… Read more »