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ICT & Computing in Education

Articles on education technology and related topics
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Quick look: Desirable difficulties in action

July 17, 2024

The idea of desirable difficulties has always appealed to me. In my teaching I’m partticularly in favour of applying Vygotsky’s concept of the zone of proximal development.

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In Books in Brief, Bookshelf, Discussion topic, Quick Looks, Reviews Tags reviews, Desirable difficulties, Vygotsky
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Quick looks: Support Not Surveillance, by Dr Mary Bousted

May 14, 2022

As far as I’m aware no Education Secretary has had the ability or the courage to deal with the teacher recruitment and retention crisis.

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In Books in Brief, Bookshelf, Quick Looks, Reviews Tags Bousted, review, quick looks
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Quick looks: Tools for Teachers, by Oliver Lovell

May 14, 2022

Overall the book is a good investment, although I did have some quibbles with it.

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In Books in Brief, Bookshelf, Quick Looks, Reviews Tags Oliver Lovell, quick looks, reviews
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Quick looks: About Our Schools, by Tim Brighouse and Mick Waters

May 14, 2022

If you want to see the humble brag elevated to an art form, this is the book for you.

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In Bookshelf, Books in Brief, Quick Looks, Reviews Tags quick looks, Brighouse, Waters
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Click the link to see this on Amazon (affiliate link)

Quick look: The self-taught computer scientist

February 13, 2022

It’s a bit of a tall order, I think, to teach yourself computer science, as opposed to computer programming, because of the need to understand particular concepts.

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In Books in Brief, Bookshelf, Quick Looks Tags computer science, Cory Allthoff, review, quick looks
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Click the pic to see this on Amazon (affiliate link)

Quick look: Organise Ideas (follow-up)

November 12, 2021

[When I was a teacher,] as with many of my blog posts these days, my own handouts and lesson summaries were festooned with drawings, diagrams and arrows.

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In Quick Looks, Reviews, Books in Brief, Bookshelf Tags review, quick looks, Organise Ideas
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Quick look: Organise Ideas

September 27, 2021

My first impression is that this is a handy toolkit which, once mastered, can be applied in lots of different contexts in any subject.

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In Books in Brief Tags quick looks, Organise Ideas, graphic organiser
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Click the pic to see this book on Amazon (affiliate link)

Click the pic to see this book on Amazon (affiliate link)

What I'm reading: Sort Your Brain Out

September 14, 2021

One of my first impressions: I like the fact that the book includes relatively recently-acknowledged attributes of the brain, such as neuroplasticity.

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In Books in Brief, Bookshelf, Reviews Tags Sort Your Brain Out, quick looks
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Thumbnail sketch: Teaching in the Online Classroom

April 30, 2021

I’m always wary of books that are written while the issues that it addresses are new and current.

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In Books in Brief, Bookshelf, Reviews Tags thumbnail sketch, Teaching in the Online Classroom, review, 57
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Thumbnail sketch: Online learning for dummies

April 30, 2021

This book addresses online learning from the point of view of the learner, rather than the teacher or the institution

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In Bookshelf, Reviews, Books in Brief Tags thumbnail sketch, Online Learning for Dummies, Covid-19, Covid19, review, 57
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Thumbnail sketch: The Turning Point

April 30, 2021

I like where this book is coming from. It regards teachers as experts.

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In Books in Brief, Bookshelf, Reviews Tags The Turning Point, review, 57, thumbnail sketch
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Click on the cover to see this book on Amazon (affiliate link)

Book review: How Charts Lie (short version)

September 6, 2020

We are presented with charts all the time. But are they telling us how things really are?

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In Bookshelf, Books in Brief, Reviews, Using and Teaching Computing & ICT Tags How Charts Lie, review
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Quick look: The Meritocracy Trap

December 11, 2019

We like to believe that meritocracy is a good thing, in that it rewards effort, and acts as a great leveller. Is that actually the case?

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In Books in Brief, Bookshelf, Quick Looks, Reviews Tags Meritocracy, Markovits, inequality
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Click the cover to go to the book on Amazon (affiliate link)

Click the cover to go to the book on Amazon (affiliate link)

Quick look: Hello World

October 2, 2019

Hello World, by Hannah Fry, offers an interesting perspective on some of the problems besetting artificial intelligence algorithms.

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In Bookshelf, Books in Brief, Reviews Tags artificial intelligence, Hello World, algorithms, Hannah Fry
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Click the pic to go to the book on Amazon (affiliate link)

Click the pic to go to the book on Amazon (affiliate link)

Quick looks: Critical Media Literacy and Fake News in Post-Truth America

August 22, 2019

This is a very interesting, thought-provoking and readable book. I’ve only read 25% so far, but it’s looking good so far.

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In Books in Brief, Bookshelf, Reviews Tags quick looks, book reviews
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Trust Me, I’m Lying

Trust Me, I’m Lying

Quick look: Trust Me, I'm Lying

June 11, 2019

This book lifts the lid on the practices that various media use to promulgate fake news even while appearing to be squeaky clean.

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In Books in Brief, Quick Looks, Using and Teaching Computing & ICT, Digital Education Tags fake news, quick looks, review
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Computing books received, by Terry Freedman

Computing books received, by Terry Freedman

Computing books received in March 2019

March 29, 2019

These books, which I received recently, look interesting, and I’m looking forward to reading and reviewing them. All book links are Amazon affiliate links.

How to think like a coder was shortlisted for an educational writers’ award, which you can read about here: The 2018 Educational Writers Award. I didn’t receive this in March, but have only now started to look at it in depth. I’ve already penned a few notes about it here: Books in Brief: How to think like a coder.

Monitored, which I’ve just started reading, is an examination of big data and surveillance from a Marxist perspective. I haven’t looked at any Marxist literature for a very long time — not since I tried to read Das Kapital when I was 17 (I got as far as page 23, which was 8 pages further than one of my teachers!) — so it’s a completely new perspective for me, which makes this an interesting, if difficult, read.

It covers similar ground to other books on the same subject matter that I have to review — indeed it references some of them — but with a clearly different take on the whole thing. I have to say that from the little I’ve read so far I remain unconvinced, and happily so.

Mission Python has been sent to me by Teach Secondary magazine. As the title suggests, it’s a book that teaches you how to program in Python. All I can say about it so far is that it looks colourful, and that I’m looking forward to reading it.

In Books in Brief, Bookshelf, News & views, Reviews Tags books, books received, bookshelf
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Click the cover to see the book on Amazon. Please note that this is an affiliate link.

Click the cover to see the book on Amazon. Please note that this is an affiliate link.

Books in brief: How to think like a coder

December 15, 2018

Here’s a quick look at How to think like a coder, by Jim Christian.

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In Bookshelf, Books in Brief, Quick Looks Tags book reviews
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Thumbnail sketch: Bad Choices: How Algorithms Can Help You Think Smarter

August 29, 2018

Here is a short review of this book about algorithms.

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In Computing, Digital Education, Reviews, Bookshelf, Books in Brief, Using and Teaching Computing & ICT Tags Book review, book reviews, algorithms, computing
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Books in brief: Technically Wrong

August 17, 2018

This is one of a current spate of books about the in-built bias found in many automated processes.

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In Bookshelf, Books in Brief, Digital Education, Unintended consequences Tags Technically Wrong, bias, algorithms, AI, Artificial Intelligence, reviews, book review
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Older Posts →
Recent book reviews
Backlist: The Written World
Backlist: The Written World

Writing was invented ‘only’ a few thousand years ago. It’s a fascinating story.

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Backlist: What I'm reading: Bounce
Backlist: What I'm reading: Bounce

What does it take to become an expert? And what can the Computing teacher do about it?

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Backlist: The Fourth Education Revolution
Backlist: The Fourth Education Revolution

The title of this book invites curiosity: what were the other three ‘revolutions?

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A book review for your English department colleagues perhaps
A book review for your English department colleagues perhaps

Some of these stories are so richly told, it can almost seem as though you’re right there with him.

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Review: Pen Names
Review: Pen Names

OK, so this has nothing to do with education technology, but we all read (I hope!). A very interesting examination of the pen names some authors have adopted, and why.

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Review: The Library of Ancient Wisdom: Mesopotamia and the Making of History
Review: The Library of Ancient Wisdom: Mesopotamia and the Making of History

There's a really interesting section in this book about how ceramic storage of data and information is probably the most likely medium to stand the test of time.

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A book review for your biology colleagues perhaps
A book review for your biology colleagues perhaps

The subject under discussion here is how human physiology has developed in different ways, in response to different conditions around the world.

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Review: Social Media for Academics
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!

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Quick looks: VIBE Coding by Example
Quick looks: VIBE Coding by Example

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

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

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