Stuart Spence Blog

Computer scientist and educator. Creator of ChessCraft. Senior computer scientist at Environment Canada.

Tue 24 March 2015

Mike Shortt Reports: Methodology

Posted by Stuart Spence in Blog   

This post gives more details on the surveys and methodology, if you're interested. I decided it was too boring for a general audience so I cut it out of my original post. But you are an eager beaver! So here you go. And feel free to send me a message …

Read more...



Sat 07 March 2015

Why Do For-Profit Companies Give Software to Schools?

Posted by Stuart Spence in Blog   

image tooltip text

Have you ever noticed that for-profit companies often advertise free or cheap software licenses to students, teachers, and schools?

Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google, and countless others all offer deals on their software and services to schools. Why do they do that?

This post is written for educators, not tech experts …

Read more...







Tue 27 January 2015

Things McGill Education Students Don't Know

Posted by Stuart Spence in Blog   

image tooltip text

Frustration

Is this a real exam, or a fiction fabricated by someone frustrated with the bachelor of education program? You decide.

More seriously, here are some details if you're interested. The parody exam spawned from my frustration that McGill university in Montreal (which is supposedly one of Canada's top schools …

Read more...


Thu 22 January 2015

The Silly QEP

Posted by Stuart Spence in Blog   

Briefly: The Quebec Education Plan (QEP) is a bloated 517 page document filled with ambiguous crap and buzzwords. Education professors in Quebec seem to be coerced by some mystical force to include the QEP in their university courses. But each new time I'm forced to analyze, my criticisms of it …

Read more...