More assessment resources, and a change of cover

March 7, 2017

In a recent article I said that I've compiled 88 resources for my course on assessing Computing. Well, having interviewed someone yesterday and someone else a few days ago, I've now increased that to 94. Not all of them will be right for everyone, but each of them will be right for somebody.

I've also changed the cover of my book on how to get the most from education conferences:

A new cover, but the same book, which is available at http://viewBook.at/conferences.

(Incidentally, the price is still £0.99 or $0.99, but I shall be raising it soon.)

I really must stop this constant tweaking. That's the trouble with computers: they make it too easy. In the days of typing or handwriting worksheets, you knew when to say "That is good enough": when making a small amendment would mean redoing the whole thing. These days, one has to rely on self-discoipline, which is much harder.

Recent book reviews

The Teachers' Standards in Primary Schools.jpg

Quick look: The Teachers' Standards in Primary Schools

This is very well set out. It takes each standard, and gives you ideas on how to achieve it, and what success in this context looks like.

How Computer Games Help Children learn.jpg

Quick look: How Computer Games Help Children learn

When I was teaching Econnures I realised that I could have taught quite a chunk of the synabus if I'd been able to run Sim City on the school network.

Quick look: Reinventing Project-Based Learning

I can verify from first hand experience that PBL kept students highly engaged, and helped them to develop skills such as working with others and independent research.

Quick look: The Human Touch

Although this book is published by the BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, the focus is not on IT at all.

Quick look: Better Living through science

I have often thought that I would have been much more interested in science at school, and been much more successful at it, had the teachers taught us anything of practical value.

Quick look: Tubes: Behind the scenes at the internet

We are all so accustomed to using the internet, searching the world wide web — "going online" — that most of us most of the time probably do not stop to consider the question: yes, but where exactly is it?

Quick look: Profits, Prophets, Coaches and Kings: (When) do leaders make a difference?

I have somewhat dichotomous views of this question of whether leaders make a difference, or much of a difference.

Review: Power Up, by Matthew Lane

This book looks at the maths concepts — and, to some extent, the physics concepts — hidden in popular video games.

Review: The Shortest History of AI

How is it that ChatGPT, Claude and other Al models appear to perform so well at certain complex tasks that some people become convinced that they're sentient — only for them to then promptly fail at simple tasks that even a child could handle?

Review: Teacher Geek

Every so often I like to take a look, or another look, at a book published a while ago, and today I’ve been looking at Teacher Geek, by Rachel Jones.