Chris Betcher

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are driving a ton of innovation in computing at the moment. AI is showing up in nearly every major technology, and seem to give our machines the impression that they are almost human, almost intelligent. But remember it's called Artificial Intelligence for a reason - it's artificial. While these technologies might seem mysterious and scary, they are like most things in technology - easy to understand if you have a basic idea of what's going on. This video aims to unpack the core idea behind Machine Learning - that if we can provide a machine with enough examples of something then it will eventually be able to recognise and draw conclusions for itself. Links to things mentioned in this video Quick, Draw! AutoDraw Teachable Machine Google's AI Experiments Have fun exploring! If you end up making your own experiments in the Teachable Machine, please leave a link in the comments below!

I was cleaning out a drawer in my home office this morning and found this collection of old USB memory sticks dating back quite a few years. Remember those days when you thought you were so cool because you had this little storage drive full of all your stuff in your pocket? I recall working in a school back in those days where we actually mandated that every student had to have a "USB"*, such was the apparent importance of these things. The intention was for students to keep their personal data safe and secure, but we used to constantly find them left behind in the USB ports of the classroom computers after a lesson. Or they would sometimes mysteriously just stop working. Or the kids would lose them. USBs may have been cool, portable and handy, but they were about the most insecure method for managing data I can think of. *(Side note: Calling them simply a "USB" seems stupid to me, because USB - or Universal Serial Bus - is a data interface standard, not a name fo...

It seems that yesterday's post where I listed some of my favourite extensions was quite well received, as I had a number of people contact me to say they found it useful. So I thought I'd add a Part 2 list with a few more. Remember, there are literally thousands of amazing extensions available in the Chrome Webstore, so do take the time to have a browse. In the meantime, here are a few more, again in no particular order... PixelBlock - Sending an email which includes a graphic is a technique that some companies use to track whether you open their email or not. Sometimes they do this sneaky thing where they hide an invisible single pixel in an email - you can't see it, but it helps them track you. PixelBlock does exactly what it says, and blocks that invisible pixel. Google Calendar - Gives you a nice glanceable preview of your Google Calendar, from any webpage, without needing to open your actual Google Calendar. But if you do want to open your actual Google Calendar, ...

One of the nice things about Chrome is how easily it can be enhanced with powerful and useful extensions. Extensions give the Chrome browser additional "superpowers" that it doesn't have by default, giving you the ability to add some really useful extra features to Chrome to suit the way you use your computer. Here are some of my favourite extensions, in no particular order... Extensity  - The one extension to rule them all, Extensity is an extension manager that gives you the ability to easily enable or disable your extensions. I find myself installing far more extensions than I really need to use at any one time, so I like to turn off any that I don't need to use right now. It's as easy as clicking on their name. Extensity also has a "master switch" to turn them all off, which is handy for those few times when you might need to troubleshoot some rogue extension that could be causing trouble. Text Blaze  - A amazingly useful text expander that can take ...

I read an article today in an educational newsletter about keeping your accounts safe with a strong password.  It suggested a range of sensible things like having at least 8 characters, using a mix of uppercase, lowercase, numbers and special characters, and not reusing old passwords.  All pretty good advice. I hear a lot of people expressing concern about the security of "the cloud".  They worry that their data could be compromised if kept on a server they don't own themselves, or a server that is located somewhere else, possibly even in another country.  They express concerns about data breaches from hackers, security breaches of data centres, or even data being accessed by foreign powers during a government uprising. Is any of this possible?  I suppose so. Anything is possible. Unlikely perhaps, but possible. If it's true that anything is possible, and we want our data to have zero risk, then we need to not keep data anywhere. The only sure way to have no ris...

Google Slides is one of my favourite G Suite tools. Its versatility and ease of use offers lots of amazing visual possibilities for students to present their learning in creative and interesting ways.  Here are 10 tips for becoming a Google Slides wizard... 10. Master your design with Master Slides Did you know that you can make a single change in one place that then changes on every slide?  Whether you want to add a graphic to every slide, reposition a textbox on every page, or change the font through your entire presentation, you can do it on the master and it will update on every slide. Click on Slide >Edit Master, then make your change to whatever type of slide you want changed. It’s like magic! 9. Voice Type your speaker notes Typing is so 2019! So instead of typing all your speaker notes why not just talk to your computer and have the words magically appear in the notes section below the slide?  No special microphone or training required, just select Tools >...

Over the past few years I’ve run a lot of professional learning workshops for teachers. It’s been a joy to be part of the learning journey for educators as they discover new ideas for making a difference to the kids they teach. I couldn’t count the number of workshop sessions I’ve run, or the number of ideas we’ve shared, but it’s quite a lot. And even when I’m training on the same topics over and over again, every workshop is still different because of the collection of people and personalities in the room. There is, however, one disturbing characteristic that too many of these workshops have in common, and that is the complete predictability of people who register to attend a workshop and then simply don't turn up. Even when workshops are offered as part of a conference that people have paid good money to attend, you can still predictably count on a no-show rate of around 5% to 10%. There are no doubt some valid reasons that people might pay to attend an event and then not show u...