Here is a set of links to the educational computing books I’ve reviewed up till 22 September 2019.
Incidentally, if you’re fed up with books you have to read, and would prefer an unreadable one with lots of tables to consult instead, then check out my latest opus. It’s called Computing and related qualifications, and is intended to make it quicker and easier for the Head of Computing in English schools to find a computing qualification that would suit some or even all of their students.
Here’s the link: Computing and related qualifications
This book is very readable, and if I sound surprised that is because it’s not always true of academics!
Despite the relative paucity of immediately obvious National Curriculum links, teachers will find several of sections of this book to be highly engaging.
In some respects one could view this book as a single warning repeated 64 times.
Taking readers from the Middle Ages to (more or less) the present day, Gray charts how the places where we do our shopping and what we buy have changed over the centuries.
As a source of potential ideas and inspiration, the book could be very useful indeed.
One has the impression that the main role of the university these days is to maximise profit, while that of the majority of teaching staff is to ensure the ‘correct’ views are passed on to students. All the while, students’ main concern seems to be to seek protection from anything that might make them feel unsafe.
Is a 2014 book on managing the computing provision in a school still worth buying?
It was a great source of pride to me, getting hundreds of students through their A levels and encouraging them to go to university. But for some time I have asked myself a question: would I recommend this route now?
At first glance, you might take this to be one of those books full of affirmations and anecdotes designed to lift your mood.
Although this book is over 60 years old, it is remarkably apposite for our times -- and especially in the fields of educational research and assessing pupils' understanding and progress.