Lot of teachers are back at their computers this morning, facing the task of engaging young people online for the next few weeks. I'm definitely no expert, just been teaching my university students online since September and I've picked up a few tips if they are any use to you👇

Online teaching gives you the opportunity to easily pull in videos, music, images in a way we might not have done had we been in the classroom. Google Classroom, Zoom, Skype all allow you to share your screen and break up your lesson every 15 minutes or so. Lean on your media
Always show your face on video. Students don't engage with just a voice in the ether. Create a home classroom with interesting pictures/posters in the background. God, these are tough times, but be animated and passionate about your subject if you can. Enthusiasm is infectious
One silver lining of this pandemic is that online teaching tools have exploded. Some are fabulous, such as Flipgrid - https://t.co/k55lt2Hi2d - which allow you to engage with young people on a social platform they can relate to. The app also has a Discovery Library. Amazing!
More 👇 It has also opened up a whole world of possibilities for our students here in NI, from helping with learning languages - https://t.co/geLpXa3Ptp - to using flashcards to help students with history on https://t.co/aFfMbsPUvG, the world is our oyster at the present time
Beyond Zoom and Classroom, there are so many other tools online these days to aid engagement. My Quiz is a fun one to do at the end of a class - https://t.co/z7pYegPZAF. It allows you to host quizzes for up to 25 people, shows points, who’s leading, and celebrates the winners
Students are just as stressed as the rest of us. If you have time in the school schedule for a little meditation, it works absolute wonders to calm anxious minds. Great video for younger kids - https://t.co/zM6vy5EGS9 - and for teenagers - https://t.co/3RyGmuJxxy
Teachers have been absolute heroes during this pandemic, securing a future for our kids, even though the present is so uncertain. Everything wont be perfect. Your kids will interrupt, your dog will bark, the smoke alarm will go off, you’ll have tech issues. It’s all good
These are trying times for us all. Teaching online can be stressful. Take 10 minutes to yourself at the end of the day to restore your calm too. There are so many 10 minute meditation videos out there to help ground you. This one is great. https://t.co/em82r0krPZ
Teachers, if you have any apps/platforms that worked especially well for you, let me know. As Big Boris says, we’re all in this together. Very best of luck. Us parents appreciate you so, so much in all of this. We are in awe of your resilience. You are amazing. Never forget that

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Working on a newsletter edition about deliberate practice.

Deliberate practice is crucial if you want to reach expert level in any skill, but what is it, and how can it help you learn more precisely?

A thread based on @augustbradley's conversation with the late Anders Ericsson.

You can find my complete notes from the conversation in my public Roam graph:
https://t.co/Z5bXHsg3oc

The entire conversation is on

The 10,000-hour 'rule' was based on Ericsson's research, but simple practice is not enough for mastery.

We need teachers and coaches to give us feedback on how we're doing to adjust our actions effectively. Technology can help us by providing short feedback loops.

There's purposeful and deliberate practice.

In purposeful practice, you gain breakthroughs by trying out different techniques you find on your own.

In deliberate practice, an expert tells you what to improve on and how to do it, and then you do that (while getting feedback).

It's possible to come to powerful techniques through purposeful practice, but it's always a gamble.

Deliberate practice is possible with a map of the domain and a recommended way to move through it. This makes success more likely.
I held back from commenting overnight to chew it over, but I am still saddened by comments during a presentation I attended yesterday by Prof @trishgreenhalgh & @CIHR_IMHA.

The topic was “LongCovid, Myalgic Encephalomyelitis & More”.
I quote from memory.
1/n
#MECFS #LongCovid


The bulk of Prof @Trishgreenhalgh’s presentation was on the importance of recognising LongCovid patient’s symptoms, and pathways for patients which recognised their condition as real. So far so good.

She was asked about “Post Exertional Malaise”... 2/n

PEM has been reported by many patients, and is the hallmark symptom of ME/CFS, leading many to query whether LongCovid and ME/CFS are similar or have overlapping mechanisms.

@Trishgreenhalgh acknowledged the new @NiceComms advice for LongCovid was planned to complement... 3/n

the ME/CFS guidelines, acknowledging some similarities.

Then it all went wrong.
@TrishGreenhalgh noted the changes to the @NiceComms guidance for ME/CFS, removing support for Graded Exercise Therapy / Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. She noted there is a big debate about this. 4/n

That is correct: The BMJ published Prof Lynne Turner Stokes’ column criticising the change (Prof Turner-Stokes is a key proponent of GET/CBT, and I suspect is known to Prof @TrishGreenhalgh).

https://t.co/0enH8TFPoe

However Prof Greenhalgh then went off-piste.

5/n
Our preprint on the impact of reopening schools on reproduction number in England is now available online: https://t.co/CpfUGzAJ2S. With @Jarvis_Stats @amyg225 @kerrylmwong @KevinvZandvoort @sbfnk + John Edmunds. NOT YET PEER REVIEWED. 1/


We used contact survey data collected by CoMix (
https://t.co/ezbCIOgRa1) to quantify differences in contact patterns during November (Schools open) and January (Schools closed) 'Lockdown periods'. NOT YET PEER REVIEWED 2/

We combined this analysis with estimates of susceptibility and infectiousness of children relative to adults from literature. We also inferred relative susceptibility by fitting R estimates from CoMix to EpiForecasts estimates(https://t.co/6lUM2wK0bn). NOT YET PEER REVIEWED 3/


We estimated that reopening all schools would increase R by between 20% to 90% whereas reopening primary or secondary schools alone would increase R by 10% to 40%, depending on the infectiousness/susceptibility profile we used. NOT YET PEER REVIEWED 4/


Assuming a current R of 0.8 (in line with Govt. estimates: https://t.co/ZZhCe79zC4). Reopening all schools would increase R to between 1.0 and 1.5 and reopening either primary or secondary schools would increase R to between 0.9 and 1.2. NOT YET PEER REVIEWED 5/

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The entire discussion around Facebook’s disclosures of what happened in 2016 is very frustrating. No exec stopped any investigations, but there were a lot of heated discussions about what to publish and when.


In the spring and summer of 2016, as reported by the Times, activity we traced to GRU was reported to the FBI. This was the standard model of interaction companies used for nation-state attacks against likely US targeted.

In the Spring of 2017, after a deep dive into the Fake News phenomena, the security team wanted to publish an update that covered what we had learned. At this point, we didn’t have any advertising content or the big IRA cluster, but we did know about the GRU model.

This report when through dozens of edits as different equities were represented. I did not have any meetings with Sheryl on the paper, but I can’t speak to whether she was in the loop with my higher-ups.

In the end, the difficult question of attribution was settled by us pointing to the DNI report instead of saying Russia or GRU directly. In my pre-briefs with members of Congress, I made it clear that we believed this action was GRU.