Finally set on returning to the UK classroom: either primary KS2 or Secondary English. Don't put me off, but do get in touch if you'd like to add some tittering to your staffroom. Please RT.

I have a mid-term break towards the end of October and would be happy to visit a school or too in the UK. Let me know if you're interested.

Finally set on returning to the UK classroom: either primary KS2 or Secondary English. Don't put me off, but do get in touch if you'd like to add some tittering to your staffroom. Please RT.

Lovely. And you can pop into that nice restaurant at the bottom of the hill.

That said, I'm rarely anywhere these days. Becoming a little post-social media in my dotage.

Oxford Word of the Year 2024 - Oxford University Press The Oxford Word of the Year 2024 is 'brain rot'. Discover more about the winner, our shortlist, and 20 years of words that reflect the world.

The Oxford WOTY team's own coverage of 'brain rot' is here if you want to have a dig behind the headlines.
corp.oup.com/word-of-the-...

All gone!

a black and white photo of a tick on a black background ALT: a black and white photo of a tick on a black background

I have stage 1 Lyme's Disease! Hooray for the humble tick!

The queue for the microwave is shorter online

How long before we set online homework using AI, pupils use AI to do the work for them, the results get put into a report using AI which is emailed to parents, automatically summarised and replied to using a single click on predictive text?

It is certainly creating new uncertainties. Most unwelcome after all the lockdown shenanigans.

Like a good Turner. Art can be almost blinding.

What is the difference between talking in a staffroom and talking on social media? Do you feel the same sense of audience and tribe when you talk in the staffroom?

I've been told that it takes about a month to break them in. I'll let you know how I get on.

I stalled at least twice before being immersed. It was the humour and the political agnosticism that won me over. It felt like I was playing a skeptical political questionnaire and being berated for my variable views. And I fell in love with the intelligence behind it.

I'm really pleased to be here. I really haven't used social media consistently for some time and will probably disappear again for months at a time. But EduBluesky seems human scale right now. Small. Manageable. We'll see.

They are great for the classroom - for skipping from one thing to another. But they are terrible for jogging!

I'm beginning to think that a few hundred followers is more healthy than a few thousand and that millions is downright unhealthy.

I love bright cyans, greens... colours that seem like light. Let your retina be your pilot!

It's nice to start over with more intention. That's my aim. I had a lot of fun with EduTwitter from around 2011 to 2016... and then it became ever more deranging. I want my feed to feel more like a staffroom and less like a Roman Colloseum.

Gloriously joyful colours!

I picked up my first pair of varifocals yesterday. It's like living in a fishbowl. Takes a lot of getting used to, but it's nice to be able to read books and then look at people across the living room. All in one fell swoop.

New albums alert for 30th August: Nick Cave's new album 'Wild Gods' and Galliano's first album for 28 years!

Preparatory week next week, so this is a last weekend before I go back. Therefore, this weekend I shall be drinking Pinot Grigiot and playing video games.

Has anyone on here played the video game #DiscoElysium? Do let me know what you thought of it and especially whether you have found any other game that measures up to its literary quality. It's the first game that I genuinely feel is literature: more literary than The Last of Us.

"A wall of targets of various sizes seen from over the shoulder of a robot archer," as imagined by Midjourney

How do we define quality student work in an age of AI? José Antonio Bowen and C. Edward Watson have a provocative answer to this question in their new book, Teaching with AI. In my new blog post, I recap their answer and add a few thoughts of my own. derekbruff.org/?p=4270

It is inspiring me to devise AI-proof assessments for my English students and to use AI in a transparent way both in course design and in having my students use AI responsibly to improve their learning. I'll let you know how it goes!

If you are grappling with AI in your teaching, I thoroughly recommend this book: practical, neither evangelical nor doom-laden... it will help you to navigate these new waters.

Please keep me right if you see me veering off into Nocturn Alley!

I should knock up a personal charter for my own conduct on here: say nothing that I wouldn't say face-to-face, that I am not certain is actually true, that is likely to cause more harm than good. But continue to tickle people.