Niall Barr
@niallbarr.bsky.social
Learning technology, interoperability and generative programming. Away from work, watches birds, does wonky woodwork and plays several musical instruments badly.
A6: Recognise that expertise is needed as well as enthusiasm, treat appointments to these roles at least as seriously as a senior lecturer post, and eliminate any hint of cronyism. Look for people who challenge the status-quo rather than maintaining obsolescence. #LTHEchat
November 5, 2025 at 8:56 PM
A6: Recognise that expertise is needed as well as enthusiasm, treat appointments to these roles at least as seriously as a senior lecturer post, and eliminate any hint of cronyism. Look for people who challenge the status-quo rather than maintaining obsolescence. #LTHEchat
A5: A culture of investigation and experimentation is important, but it is also important to keep security and sustainability in mind when doing that. The balance between these often goes wrong. Also, beware of people who never challenge leaders, otherwise they end up surrounded by yesmen #LTHEchat
November 5, 2025 at 8:47 PM
A5: A culture of investigation and experimentation is important, but it is also important to keep security and sustainability in mind when doing that. The balance between these often goes wrong. Also, beware of people who never challenge leaders, otherwise they end up surrounded by yesmen #LTHEchat
Q4: Connections with many people I met through 1EdTech/IMSGlobal and JISC CETIS mainly. Also being really interested in the technology - having work as a hobby is a great help in the digital world. #LTHEchat
November 5, 2025 at 8:37 PM
Q4: Connections with many people I met through 1EdTech/IMSGlobal and JISC CETIS mainly. Also being really interested in the technology - having work as a hobby is a great help in the digital world. #LTHEchat
A3: Digital accessibility is a key part of it - the leaders need to promote it, and ensure the accessibility champions have the influence, power and tools to ensure best practices are followed. #LTHEchat
November 5, 2025 at 8:25 PM
A3: Digital accessibility is a key part of it - the leaders need to promote it, and ensure the accessibility champions have the influence, power and tools to ensure best practices are followed. #LTHEchat
A2: I think I annoyed too many people by being the person who had the expertise they really needed.... I was only ever a leader in national and international contexts, never locally. #LTHEchat
November 5, 2025 at 8:14 PM
A2: I think I annoyed too many people by being the person who had the expertise they really needed.... I was only ever a leader in national and international contexts, never locally. #LTHEchat
A1: Digital leadership needs to connect many strands - they need to manage and negotiate the differing requirements of teachers, students, server and security teams. The also need to have the specialist expertise in educational software and standards that is lacking is these other teams. #LTHEchat
November 5, 2025 at 8:07 PM
A1: Digital leadership needs to connect many strands - they need to manage and negotiate the differing requirements of teachers, students, server and security teams. The also need to have the specialist expertise in educational software and standards that is lacking is these other teams. #LTHEchat
A1: I'd really not like to do that - I always treated (and considered) my masters students members of the team, and that seemed to work well. #LTHEchat
October 29, 2025 at 8:24 PM
A1: I'd really not like to do that - I always treated (and considered) my masters students members of the team, and that seemed to work well. #LTHEchat
A6: Sometimes a framework can help originality - e.g. the game frameworks mentioned in the blog, without something like Unreal, Unity, PlayCanvas, or even MonoGame, the user would be bogged down in basics, and have no chance of doing something great on their own. #LTHEchat
October 15, 2025 at 8:00 PM
A6: Sometimes a framework can help originality - e.g. the game frameworks mentioned in the blog, without something like Unreal, Unity, PlayCanvas, or even MonoGame, the user would be bogged down in basics, and have no chance of doing something great on their own. #LTHEchat
A3: In a way my PhD is a framework for writing parsers - I'm working on generative programming, and one of the challenges is to make the creation of parsers easier for non-specialists. #LTHEchat
October 15, 2025 at 7:43 PM
A3: In a way my PhD is a framework for writing parsers - I'm working on generative programming, and one of the challenges is to make the creation of parsers easier for non-specialists. #LTHEchat
That course was part of the BTechEd, so the students had very varied backgrounds, some straight from school, with good highers in maths, and others looking for a second career, with a distant memory of an O grade maths.
October 15, 2025 at 7:30 PM
That course was part of the BTechEd, so the students had very varied backgrounds, some straight from school, with good highers in maths, and others looking for a second career, with a distant memory of an O grade maths.
A2: Teaching programming I tried to make activities that the more capable students could add extras to. The best mixed ability technique I've seen hough was when I covered for a L1 maths class, with very varied levels, where the better students basically became tutors. #LTHEchat
October 15, 2025 at 7:18 PM
A2: Teaching programming I tried to make activities that the more capable students could add extras to. The best mixed ability technique I've seen hough was when I covered for a L1 maths class, with very varied levels, where the better students basically became tutors. #LTHEchat
A1: In the distant past I used Authorware - a sort framework for e-learning content, and more recently I've encouraged teachers to use H5P, which is similar in concept, but much better, and easier for teachers. I've not come across anything similar for students though #LTHEchat
October 15, 2025 at 7:11 PM
A1: In the distant past I used Authorware - a sort framework for e-learning content, and more recently I've encouraged teachers to use H5P, which is similar in concept, but much better, and easier for teachers. I've not come across anything similar for students though #LTHEchat
It makes many of the benefits of a personal tutor available to people who would not otherwise be able to afford it. I think in the long run this is going to be one of the most positive uses of AI. #LTHEchat
October 1, 2025 at 7:34 PM
It makes many of the benefits of a personal tutor available to people who would not otherwise be able to afford it. I think in the long run this is going to be one of the most positive uses of AI. #LTHEchat
A6: A complete removal of artificial barriers to career progression, so ability counts, irrespective of whatever box an HR job-worth has put you in. #LTHEchat
June 25, 2025 at 7:58 PM
A6: A complete removal of artificial barriers to career progression, so ability counts, irrespective of whatever box an HR job-worth has put you in. #LTHEchat
I sometimes suspect it was an aspect of the Peter Principle - people who'd been promoted just beyond their competence by being overconfident and pushy, hitting downwards..
June 25, 2025 at 7:45 PM
I sometimes suspect it was an aspect of the Peter Principle - people who'd been promoted just beyond their competence by being overconfident and pushy, hitting downwards..
At times from people who felt I was getting preferential treatment from our boss, with other bosses who were a problem though, I don't know - maybe they just didn't like people who didn't fit in nice boxes....
June 25, 2025 at 7:32 PM
At times from people who felt I was getting preferential treatment from our boss, with other bosses who were a problem though, I don't know - maybe they just didn't like people who didn't fit in nice boxes....
A1 pt 2 Previously, I got a lot of resentment from other staff on non research contracts, even though my 'research' was really development and process improvement. That was part a sort of gate keeping research culture, but not from researchers. #LTHEchat
June 25, 2025 at 7:21 PM
A1 pt 2 Previously, I got a lot of resentment from other staff on non research contracts, even though my 'research' was really development and process improvement. That was part a sort of gate keeping research culture, but not from researchers. #LTHEchat
A1: I've played with stable diffusion a bit, and used it to create placeholder images, and a header image for a recent PhD related blog post - blog.niallbarr.me.uk/2025/05/test... (text was "An abstract painting representing complex source code with many stages where bugs can be found." #LTHEchat
Testing DSLs and Code Generators – Niall B's blog
blog.niallbarr.me.uk
June 4, 2025 at 7:11 PM
A1: I've played with stable diffusion a bit, and used it to create placeholder images, and a header image for a recent PhD related blog post - blog.niallbarr.me.uk/2025/05/test... (text was "An abstract painting representing complex source code with many stages where bugs can be found." #LTHEchat
A4: The technology is improving all the time, and it's probably up to learning technologists to keep up with that, learn to develop, and show teachers the possibilities with small demos. One challenge is the equipment though - the best dev tools take a lot better hardware than delivery. #LTHEchat
May 28, 2025 at 7:38 PM
A4: The technology is improving all the time, and it's probably up to learning technologists to keep up with that, learn to develop, and show teachers the possibilities with small demos. One challenge is the equipment though - the best dev tools take a lot better hardware than delivery. #LTHEchat