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Beyond “screen time”: pedagogy and “screen value”
An hour analysing historical sources on a laptop and an hour scrolling TikTok both involve looking at a luminous electronic rectangle. Beyond that, the resemblance starts to thin out. Yet “screen time” bundles these experiences together, as though counting minutes tells us what is happening inside a learner’s head. Learning is inconsiderate enough to be… Read more
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Handwriting matters. But that doesn’t mean paper is always better than screens
As Queensland students start Term 4, discussions about handwriting versus screen use continue. While studies indicate handwriting enhances brain connectivity, recent research involved touchscreen writing, not traditional pen and paper. The focus should shift from screens versus paper to the quality of tasks performed, emphasizing personalized approaches to learning. Read more
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‘The Standards you walk past are the Standards you accept.’
AITSL’s Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APSTs) are being formally reviewed for the first time since their adoption more than fifteen years ago. The APST descriptors underpin many aspects of Australian K-12 teacher practice. The review is an opportunity to shape the future of the Australian teaching profession that you shouldn’t ignore. If educators don’t… Read more
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The Climb, the Scoreboard, and Assessment Integrity (Part 4 – ‘Clarion Clear’ Expectations and ‘Base Camps’)
Students need our help. They are kids. That statement may sound obvious, but it sometimes seems strangely absent from our AI conversations. We can tend to speak about students as though they are miniature adults making fully informed ‘grown up’ decisions about authorship, cognitive offloading, intellectual honesty, privacy, bias, data, assessment policy, and disciplinary thinking.… Read more
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The ‘Generative AI Learning Penalty’: Homework Outsourcing, Productive Struggle, and the Coming Exam Shock
Every now and then, a research paper lands hard. Not necessarily because it says something entirely new. Perhaps more often, it matters because it gives shape to something classroom teachers have already been sensing – but been unable to clearly articulate – in the messy middle of their practice. That’s my take on why David… Read more
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The Climb, the Scoreboard, and Assessment Integrity (Part 3 – Making the Climb Visible)
In Part 1 of this series, I argued that AI misuse in assessment is not only an integrity problem. It is also a teaching and learning problem. A motivation problem. A confidence problem. A habit problem. A metacognition problem. A task-design problem. A culture problem. And, perhaps most importantly, it is a problem created by… Read more
© 2025 Vince Wall
