NEW BOOK: The #EdTechPlaybook available NOW! Former Teacher/SLT. FCCT. Now consultant, speaker & Head of Edu @ NetSupport. Also @global_edtech.
Articles by Mark Anderson
How I built a 3D Vesuvius flyover with AI (and no code)
So this is pretty cool. I thought I’d test some of the limits of Claude and made an interactive 3D flyover of Vesuvius. Using my usual STAIR approach, I described what I wanted in plain English, nudged it a few times, and that was that. I didn’t have to code a thing.
Kirk Cousins silences placeholder talk as the undefeated Raiders roll into Chiefs game
HENDERSON, Nev. (AP) — A bridge quarterback, a placeholder, a mentor. Kirk Cousins was described those ways as fans of the Raiders specifically and the NFL in general talked openly about when No. 1 overall draft pick Fernando Mendoza would take over. Nine touchdown passes and three victories later, Cousins has gone from looking like a temporary occupant to one who might hold down Las Vegas' QB position for some time while Mendoza continues to develop.
ICT Evangelist, rebuilt
I published my first blog post in February 2011, on a site called Posterous, about a revision app. Fifteen years, many hundreds of schools, trusts and school groups, many thousands of teachers and leaders plus a few awards plus a fair few hundred posts later, I’ve been working to give ictevangelist.com its biggest rebuild since that first post.
AI Policy Template for Schools 2026: Free Download + DPIA Screening Tool
Back when OpenAI launched ChatGPT at the tail end of 2022, it was introduced as a conversational interface fine-tuned from a model in the GPT-3.5 series. Teachers, being teachers, quickly took to it as a means to help, mostly at that point with things like lesson plans, adaptive resources and the day-to-day admin that teachers have to do. In many ways it was like the wild west, and it was adopted so quickly.
Pedagogy First, Technology Second: The Complete Free Guide
Last week I said I’d say more on the day. Today is the day. When I started this six weeks ago, I wasn’t sure how it would go.
24 Ways to Embed Metacognition & Self-Regulation in Your Classroom
Today, I’m sharing the final infographic in what has become for me a real passion project. This week, the last of six, it’s 24 ways to embed metacognition and self-regulation in your classroom. Metacognition and self-regulation get cited a lot as the best bang for your buck in education, the highest impact for the lowest cost, largely off the back of the EEF’s teaching and learning toolkit. And that’s fair enough, as far as it goes.
24 Ways to Embed Effective Questioning and Discussion in Your Classroom
This week’s share is one I’d been looking forward to, as questioning is one of those things we all do hundreds of times a day, often without thinking too hard about it, and yet the research on how we do it well is fascinating.
24 Ways to Embed Effective Explanations and Modelling in Your Classroom
We’re on to week 5 already, and this one is close to my heart. Explanations and modelling are something I’ve spent a lot of my time on with schools and trusts over the years, and it featured heavily in mine and Olly Lewis’ book The EdTech Playbook, so it was a genuine pleasure (and if I’m honest, a bit easier) to pull the research together for this one.
24 Ways to Embed Effective Feedback in Your Classroom
This week’s share was one I very nearly didn’t do, as I shared 5 cards thinking about feedback in last week’s formative assessment resource, but as I was working through the papers, reading up again on Kluger and DeNisi’s work reminded me that more than a third of feedback interventions we give actually make performance worse; therefore, I thought it worthwhile to share a few ideas on how we can make feedback better.
24 Ways to Embed Formative Assessment in Your Classroom
This is week two of the Pedagogy First series. If you saw last week’s one on retrieval, you know the idea: take a core area of teaching and learning, ground it in research, and make it as useful as possible in one place, or at least that’s what I’ve tried to do. This week, I looked at formative assessment. Formative assessment is a cornerstone of teaching and learning, but sometimes it just gets conflated into “checking.” Mini whiteboards, exit tickets, quiz apps.
24 Ways to Embed Retrieval Practice in Your Classroom: The Pedagogy First Series
Some of you will have seen my 24 Ways posters before: Windows shortcuts, AI tools, formative assessment. This series goes deeper. Pedagogy First is six resources grounded in the cognitive science of teaching and learning, each one built around what the research actually says rather than what’s currently trending. I’ve spent the better part of my career saying the same thing: pedagogy first, technology second. Not because technology doesn’t matter. It does, significantly.
Implementing AI in Education: Moving from Unmanaged Risk to Impact
If someone asked you, right now, what AI is doing for education, what would you say? I’d put money on at least one of these: saving teacher time, reducing workload, improving outcomes. These things get repeated so often wherever I look, it’s like they have become the manuscript for every conversation around EdTech. It’s laudable, but the problem is that many schools I visit or hear about are still some distance from that.
Conference bragging rights on the line as Wisconsin faces Denver for the NCAA hockey title
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Bruno Mars Day was celebrated outside T-Mobile Arena on Friday, the recording artist honored for the musical impact he has had on Las Vegas. kAmp?@E96C 46=63C2E:@? H:== @44FC :?D:56 E96 3F:=5:?8 $2EFC52J H96? (:D4@?D:? >66ED s6?G6C 7@C 4@==686 9@4<6JVD ?2E:@?2= 492>A:@?D9:A]k^Am kAmq@E9 E62>D ?@E @?=J H:== 36 A=2J:?8 7@C E96 C6DA64E:G6 D49@@=D[ 3FE ?@E23=6 4@?76C6?46 3C288:?8 C:89ED H:== 36 @? E96 =:?6[ 2?5 E96 q:8 %6? 4@>6D :?E@ E9:D uC@K6?
I’ve been developing the Periodic Table of Canva in Education for quite a while now, but with the brilliant work we do at NetSupport, BETT, the launch and work around the Digital Strategy Guide, headteacher conferences, supporting my school and trust clients, you name it – it’s taken some time! Here it is, though, after lots of careful thinking, refining, checking, and double-checking: my latest Canva for teachers resource exploring 82 features across eight categories.
The 2026 AI Almanac for Educators is Here
Want to know your MCP from your RAG to your LLM, ML, NLP and CLT? If not, you need the 2026 AI Almanac for Educators. AI and EdTech are at the forefront of thinking in most schools now. It shapes how we teach, lead, safeguard and operate, yet the language can sometimes make it daunting. That’s why I’ve updated my AI Almanac for 2026 – to cut through the jargon so you can have informed conversations.
Day 24 of the 2025 Appvent Calendar
So here we are, day 24, the final day of the 2025 #24DaysOfAI Appvent Calendar. Where did that time go?! And as the door swings open, I wanted to focus as I’ve done every year on the calendar, it’s not a tool, app or technology I want to focus on, it’s you. Quelle surprise, but for me, it’s such an important share, particularly in this AI-infused world we find ourselves in now. It’s why on the post today, I’ve shared a picture of myself in the post image.
Day 23 of the 2025 Appvent Calendar
Today’s a bit different. On this, the penultimate day of the 2025 24DaysOfAI Appvent Calendar, I wanted to, instead of highlighting a tool, share five brilliant people you should be following as we move into 2026. These are educators and innovators who consistently deliver value, challenge thinking, and most importantly, keep students at the heart of everything they do in the world of technology and AI.
Day 22 of the 2025 Appvent Calendar
As we move into the final stretch of this year’s Appvent Calendar, I wanted to do something slightly different. Today’s tool has been chosen by Dougie, my son, and his reasoning for picking it is refreshingly simple and deeply telling. It helps make lessons more engaging. Writing lyrics helps others, just like himself learn. It lets people make music even if they cannot play an instrument. And, importantly, it is great fun.
Day 21 of the 2025 Appvent Calendar
Most educators juggle a dozen different tools daily. One for creating presentations, another for editing images, a third for removing backgrounds, something else for generating worksheets. Add in the copyright minefield of finding classroom-appropriate images and you’ve lost hours before you’ve even started teaching. Then there’s the accessibility challenge – that perfect resource you’ve created is useless if half your class can’t access it in their home language.
Day 20 of the 2025 Appvent Calendar
As is the case each year, whilst I call this the ‘Appvent’ calendar, I don’t always follow the rules and share an app. As would be the case, the disruptor that he is, today’s guest contributor, Al Kingsley, has kept the tradition of doing things a bit differently, and so expect some great shares in today’s post as Al reveals his entry for today’s Appvent calendar.
Keepin’ Love Alive: Give the gift of connection this Christmas
Still looking for the perfect Christmas gift? This year, consider giving something that won’t need batteries, receipts, or assembly instructions: give a few ROCs. kAm#~r :D D9@CE 7@C #:EF2=D @7 r@??64E:@?] r@FA=6D C6D62C496C sC] y@9? v@EE>2?
Day 19 of the 2025 Appvent Calendar
Welcome to Day 19 of the #24DaysOfAI Appvent Calendar! I simply cannot believe we’re on the 19th December already, with only 5 more entries left to go on the calendar, where has this month gone?! Today’s recommendation comes from Joe Arday, a passionate advocate for diversity in EdTech, who suggested we explore the popular Google NotebookLM tool. Most AI tools know a bit about everything and hallucinate the rest.
Day 18 of the 2025 Appvent Calendar
Day 18 of the #24DaysOfAI Appvent Calendar comes from guest contributor Kieran Buckley, who brings a brilliantly practical classroom lens to today’s tool. This one tackles a familiar teaching moment many of us recognise instantly and offers a simple, effective way to improve clarity, explanation and pupil understanding without adding workload. We’ve all been there.
Day 17 of the 2025 Appvent Calendar
Helping students learn is a core part of a teacher’s daily life. Many students, though, struggle to capture information accurately in class, organise it in a meaningful way or build the assurance needed to communicate their ideas clearly. Today’s Appvent entry explores a platform designed to strengthen these core learning skills through a structured, evidence-informed approach.
Day 16 of the 2025 Appvent Calendar
Today’s Appvent entry comes from Jérôme Nogues, a respected educator and EdTech consultant who brings both classroom credibility and pedagogical clarity to his work with AI. Jérôme is the founder of the Poésíæ and Poésíært international language learning competitions, a Global EdTech Awards judge, and a regular contributor to professional dialogue through his YouTube channel and conference work. He shares generously, challenges assumptions thoughtfully and always keeps learning front and centre.
Day 15 of the 2025 Appvent Calendar
A lot of tools in the AI space are broad-stroke tools, ones that can have use across a broad range of subjects. From the likes of Gemini or Copilot, NotebookLM or Brisk. As tools and edupreneurs start to consider AI and how to focus on pedagogy first thinking when it comes to developing solutions, so more mature, considered tools appear. Today’s appvent reveal, as we sail past the halfway mark on the calendar, focuses purely on the subject of Maths.
Day 14 of the 2025 Appvent Calendar
As Artificial Intelligence becomes more present in the lives of young people, one of the greatest challenges schools face is helping pupils understand it well. Not just what it does, but how it works, how it affects their lives and how they can engage with it thoughtfully and responsibly. That challenge sits at the heart of today’s Appvent entry. The BBC Bitesize Guide to AI is a major new campaign designed to support young people to thrive in an AI world.
Day 13 of the 2025 Appvent Calendar
As AI becomes increasingly present in schools, one of the biggest challenges for leaders and teachers is not access to tools, but confidence. Confidence in understanding what AI is, how it works, where the risks sit and how to talk about it with pupils, parents and colleagues. That is why today’s Appvent entry focuses not on a single product, but on a body of work that supports informed, responsible decision making.
Day 12 of the 2025 Appvent Calendar
Good questions sit at the heart of effective teaching because they help us check understanding, surface misconceptions and build retrieval into routines. Yet designing them well and doing so consistently is demanding. That workload challenge is exactly why I wanted to include QuestionWell in this year’s Appvent Calendar. AI Tool of the Day: QuestionWell QuestionWell focuses on one thing and does it well.
Day 11 of the 2025 Appvent Calendar
Day 11 of the #24DaysOfAI Appvent Calendar features a contribution from someone I respect hugely. Well worth connecting with on LinkedIn, Julie Carson, Director of Education at Woodland Academy Trust and this year’s ICT Evangelist Digital Leader award winner, has a gift for cutting through noise and focusing on what genuinely helps teachers think well. Her entry today does exactly that.
Day 10 of the 2025 Appvent Calendar
Research-informed teaching and learning should be de-rigeur nowadays. It’s been great seeing the shift towards this in British Education over the last three decades of my career; it simply wasn’t a thing when I trained to be a teacher. For me, working from a point of knowing ‘what works’ is essential for thoughtful teaching and leadership, yet it remains one of the most demanding things you can do.
Day 9 of the 2025 Appvent Calendar
One of the most joyful aspects of working with young learners is watching their imagination take shape in unexpected ways. Whether sketching characters, inventing creatures or building stories from the world around them, children show us daily how naturally they think in three dimensions. As immersive tools develop, there are growing opportunities to extend that creativity into digital spaces in ways that feel meaningful rather than gimmicky.
Day 8 of the 2025 Appvent Calendar
Introduction Engaging with research is an essential part of our profession. Whether shaping curriculum, refining pedagogy or making strategic decisions, teachers and leaders rely on evidence to guide thoughtful practice. Yet many academic papers can feel dense, technical and time-consuming to interpret, especially during a busy school week.
Day 7 of the 2025 Appvent Calendar
Day 7 of the #24DaysOfAI Appvent Calendar brings another thoughtful contribution from Teresa Menton. Teresa has chosen a tool that sits firmly within the day-to-day reality of classroom life and one that continues to gain momentum among teachers looking for practical, time-saving support with core tasks.
Day 6 of the 2025 Appvent Calendar
Thank goodness it’s Saturday and what a week it’s been here on the 24DaysOfAI Appvent calendar! On Monday, we introduced the calendar with Consensus. Then on Tuesday we had Intelligent Evidence. Wednesday saw Emma Darcy introduce Gemini from Google with me taking over Thursday’s mantle with Seesaw.
Day 5 of the 2025 Appvent Calendar
Welcome to Day 5 of the 2025 #24DaysOfAI Appvent Calendar! It is fair to say that today’s tool is one that I have mentioned in almost all of my 85 keynotes, inset days and workshops across 2025 and shared even more widely in conversations on social media and with educators in online places and spaces. I simply love it, and had today’s choice not been taken by the guest author today, I would have included it myself.
Day 3 of the 2025 Appvent Calendar
In education, when it comes to your ecosystem, the productivity suite and core tools that frame most of your use, you normally sit in one of two camps. For the most part, you can often undertake similar activities when it comes to things like word processing, presentations, working with numbers etc. But in recent times, one of those two seem to have pulled away a bit; not just in terms of the opportunities provided from their AI tools, but in how they link so closely to education.
Day 2 of the 2025 Appvent Calendar
Inspection preparation is a familiar pressure for school and trust leaders. The expectations of the new Ofsted framework require clarity, alignment and well-structured evidence, yet you rarely have the time you need to bring everything together in a coherent way. What should be a professional conversation often becomes a last-minute scramble to gather documents, cross-check information and second-guess what might be asked on the day.
Day 1 of the 2025 Appvent Calendar
The first day of this year’s Appvent Calendar sets the tone for the month ahead. With so much attention on rapid advances in AI, it feels right to begin with a tool that brings us back to what matters most in education: clear thinking, sound evidence, and informed professional judgement. Before we dive into that, though, a moment about this year’s calendar.
The Periodic Table of AI Tools In Education To Try Today
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been refining, checking, and double-checking my latest Periodic Table of AI Tools in Education. It isn’t exhaustive. It isn’t perfect. It isn’t meant to be. What I’ve tried to do is bring together genuinely useful AI tools that I know are already making a difference. For colleagues wanting to explore further, I’m sharing the list exactly as it appears in the table, including website links, grouped by category below.
BBC Bitesize Guide to AI
The BBC has launched a brilliant new campaign, the BBC Bitesize Guide to AI, to enable young people to thrive in an AI world. Thirteen informative, engaging and inspiring short films cover essential AI tool knowledge and showcase how AI is changing industry sectors and enhancing careers. I was so proud to be involved as the lead education and AI consultant.
Embedding AI in Education Report – Check it out and download today - ICTEvangelist
I am absolutely thrilled to share today the publication of ‘Embedding AI in Education: A Strategic Review of Practice at Woodland Academy Trust‘, a report that Julie Carson (Director of Education at Woodland Academy Trust) and I have co‑authored after a year‑long consultancy and training partnership. Our aim was simple: to explore how generative AI could responsibly support teachers, reduce workload and improve learning across all schools in the Trust. We focused not on hype, but on evidence.
Keepin’ Love Alive: Inspired by Nebraska Huskers' perseverance
Although I grew up in Michigan as a Wolverine’s fan, I have been inspired over the years by the Cornhuskers. National Championship or not, they’ve got a lot of skills that can inspire us all to live a better life. And this last week’s game against Michigan State was another great example. Nebraska’s game didn’t start off well. The Cornhuskers found themselves trailing early and momentum seemed firmly in the hands of the Spartans.
Pete Carroll among coaches working into 70s, opting for team building over retirement
HENDERSON, Nev. — Pete Carroll could be just about anywhere, doing nearly anything that comes to mind, after accomplishing so much as a championship-winning coach in college and the NFL, the multimillion-dollar contracts he received as reward for such efforts. But after a year away from the NFL, the 74-year-old Carroll chose to return to take on the challenge of turning around a Las Vegas Raiders franchise that has gone more than two decades since coming close to the Super Bowl.
Mark Anderson: Easy to understand, hard to do
The behaviors that help couples keep love alive are surprisingly simple. In fact, they can be summarized into just seven habits. With the help of a good book or weekend seminar, most people can understand them quickly. And yet, despite how easy these habits are to learn, the divorce rate remains stubbornly high. That’s because understanding what to do and actually doing it are two very different things.
Mark Anderson: Knowing when to take a timeout
Last Saturday, Nebraska football called a timeout with just one second left in the first half of their game against Michigan. What happened next? They launched a Hail Mary pass that connected for a miraculous touchdown as time expired. The decision to use a timeout changed the entire momentum going into halftime.
Keepin’ Love Alive: Time for a micro-date
When it comes to love, people often think that it takes great gestures to keep it strong. Candlelit dinners, weekend getaways, big trips and romantic getaways ... or at least a date night without the kids. But for many couples, especially those juggling work, kids and the never-ending to-do list, these grand gestures don’t happen as often as they’d like. The good news is, to keep love alive, they don’t need to.
Mark Anderson: Learning from Sept 11
Sept. 11, 2001, remains one of the most painful chapters in American history. Yet, amid the heartbreak and loss, something powerful emerged. Strangers became neighbors, communities came together, and a nation stood hand-in-hand in grief, resilience and hope. In the face of unimaginable tragedy, people didn’t turn away from each other, they turned toward one another.
Keepin’ Love Alive: Even the happiest of couples face storms
When Hurricane Katrina hit in August 2005 it left behind one of the most devastating natural disasters in U.S. history. The images of entire neighborhoods submerged, homes shattered, and families displaced are memories we all have of that devastating day. However, as we mark the 20th anniversary of this event what stands out is not the disaster, but the miracle that came after the storm: the rebuilding, the hope and the resilience.
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