Books Unseen — Terry Freedman's ICT & Computing in Education blog — ICT & Computing in Education

Summer reading #1: OuLiPo and the Mathematics of Literature

July 24, 2022

I’ve started to compile a list of books you might wish to explore over the holidays. They’re not all to do with edtech — we all need a break!

Books to be reviewed #3: Climate Change for Dummies

May 25, 2022

This is another book to be reviewed for Teach Secondary magazine.

Books To Be Reviewed #2: Futureproof

May 16, 2022

There are some interesting-looking books at the top of the to-be-reviewed pile. This is one of them.

Books to be reviewed #1: No Excuses

May 16, 2022

There are some interesting-looking books at the top of the to-be-reviewed pile. This is one of them.

Click the cover to see this on Amazon (affiliate link)

An interesting-looking book about AI

May 25, 2021

I haven’t read this book yet, but it looks like it might help teachers address some aspects of the Computing Programme of Study.

Online education: books just in

January 17, 2021

In the last two days I’ve received two books for review. One is almost hot off the press — Online Learning for Dummies was published in December 2020 — the other one is slightly warm — published in September 2020.

Click the cover to see the book on Amazon UK (affiliate link)

How reliable is neuroscience?

July 20, 2020

If 10% of studies in neuroscience are flawed, how can you know which ones are OK?

A world run by artificial intelligence: Zed

July 30, 2019

Technology has always provided a rich seam of possibilities to be mined by authors. In this book Joanna Kavenna imagines a dystopian future in which an AI company is running things.

Recent book reviews

Review: Social Media for Academics

This book is very readable, and if I sound surprised that is because it’s not always true of academics!

Quick looks: VIBE Coding by Example

For the time being, this book is free in Kindle format.

Review: The Game Changers: How Playing Games Changed the World and Can Change You Too

Despite the relative paucity of immediately obvious National Curriculum links, teachers will find several of sections of this book to be highly engaging.

Review: The Dictators: 64 Dictators, 64 Authors, 64 Warnings from History

In some respects one could view this book as a single warning repeated 64 times.

Review: The Bookshop, The Draper, The Candlestick Maker: A History of the High Street

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.

Review: Extraordinary Learning For All

As a source of potential ideas and inspiration, the book could be very useful indeed.

Review: Bad Education: Why Our Universities Are Broken and How We Can Fix Them

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.

Review: Next Practices - An Executive Guide for Education Decision Makers

Is a 2014 book on managing the computing provision in a school still worth buying?

Still relevant (sadly): How to lie with statistics, by Darrell Huff

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.

Quick looks: Bad Education: Why Our Universities Are Broken and How We Can Fix Them

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?