This ebook by Richard Byrne is a collation of handy hints and top tips that first appeared in his newsletter over the last eight years. The topics it covers include:
Protecting Privacy When Sharing Videos and Pictures
Techy and Fun Tricks to Impress Students and Colleagues
A Quiz Activity Ideal for Breakout Rooms
Build Your Own Search Engine
Three Underutilized Search Tools
and many, many more.
All of the tools mentioned are free of charge, or have a freemium pricing model. This is important because as a school teacher, Richard understands the importance of affordable solutions. Not only that, but applications that don’t have a huge learning curve for the busy teacher.
The ebook itself is not free, but it’s important to acknowledge a couple of truths. Firstly, although you can save some money by looking for the tools yourself, think of the time you will have to spend doing so: undoubtedly many hours.
I did a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation, and worked out that if you’re just starting out as a teacher in the UK, and on the lowest salary in that range, it will take you less than an hour to earn the money to buy this book.
Secondly, though, we are assuming that you know what you want to look for in the first place. I spent an hour or so reading through the book, and even though I’ve been leading education technology departments and teaching computing and related subjects since 1987, I discovered a lot of applications I didn’t know existed, for achieving things I didn’t realise were possible.
Now, if you think you already know about everything that’s available, allow me to relate a short conversation I had with my lady wife a few years ago. I’d been asked to give a talk to a group of computing teachers, and show them some great things you can do with technology. I had the idea that maybe I’d show them Google Docs, but then I had a crisis of confidence:
Me: I was going to show them Google Docs, and how you could use it in a department to work on schemes of work and lesson plans collaboratively, but surely every teacher has heard about using Google Docs in this way.
Mrs F: Why? Did you know about Google Docs before you knew about it?
Me: Er, no.
Mrs F: Well then.
I went ahead and showed them how to work together on a Google Doc, and they were bowled over. In the same way, I think you will probably find much in this ebook that you didn’t know about.
As with the articles on Richard’s website, Free Technology For Teachers, most of the descriptions of applications and techniques are accompanied by a video demonstration.
My verdict: buy this book. Or find out more by clicking on the cover.
This review was first published in the free Digital Education newsletter. See below for details.
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