Generative AI is the new Kalashnikov

April 03, 2024 by Mitch Whitehead

In the discussion around generative AI a lot of the debate has focused around this same binary - truth and falsehood. Many are worried that the ability of generative AI tools to produce images, audio, video, and text may be used, or is already being used, to produce lies. Fake images, fake video, fake audio. That these powerful AI systems are a means of obscuring the truth or outright lying. We need, then, to clarify just what a lie might be, and why there is something more worrying hiding in plain sight.

Through a Glass, Darkly: Teaching, Technology and Video Calls Part 2

June 10, 2020 by Mitch Whitehead

Whilst a basic laptop would be more than enough to use all of the tools that I spoke about in my previous post, your setup can be improved upon by some attention to hardware and the setup of your environment. There are lots of great videos on YouTube that go into detail of how to improve the quality of your video calls but a few key elements that I try and consider would be the audio quality, lighting, and screen and devices.

Through a Glass, Darkly: Teaching, Technology and Video Calls Part 1

June 09, 2020 by Mitch Whitehead

With a great many teachers now working from home, many of us are coming to learn that not all video calls are created equally. There can be a huge range in quality, reliability, and effectiveness of video lessons and there are a lot of factors to take into consideration when setting up your online teaching process. We have to consider the software or platform we are using, the hardware we are utilising to make the video call, as well as how we conduct the lesson through the conferencing software.

Cumulative Gains at BETT

January 27, 2019 by Mitch Whitehead

I was fortunate enough to be invited to speak at BETT - the global Education Technology show in London. I was asked to speak on behalf of Google, as one of the educators speaking at Google’s Teaching Theatre. I’ve long been a vocal advocate of Google Apps for Education and have seen its transformational effect in my own teaching practice and in that of my friends and colleagues – at my own institution as well as on-line.

I gave a talk that focused on what might seem like a pretty dull aspect of education technology – being efficient. Being efficient is not exciting. Being efficient isn’t attention grabbing but, I hope I argued, everything that is exciting and attention grabbing becomes possible when you become more efficient.

Google Certification

January 27, 2019 by Mitch Whitehead

I’ve been working an awful lot lately on the educational technology front. In particular I’ve been working within my institution to manage some of our transition to the use of Google Apps for Education. I’m an enormous fan, advocate and enthusiast of these apps and have been working with them for the best part of a school year now so I was very pleased when I heard that Google were overhauling their entire Certified Educator system.