The Big Sweep: a hardboiled story, with a review by ChatGPT

September 3, 2026

The following story was a light-hearted attempt to write hardboiled fiction for heads of education technology in schools. Plus: ChatGPT’s review of it.

Robot writer, by Terry Freedman — My depiction of ChatGPT getting more and more frazzled by the number of assignments I throw at it — Drawing by Terry Freedman

Coming soon... Digital Education ezine, focusing on ChatGPT

February 6, 2023

Yes, it’s all over the internet, but ChatGPT is still worth looking at. I am compiling a list of useful (I trust) links, and have a few things to add to the plethora of comments already out there.

Can ChatGPT write decent course outlines?

January 22, 2023

I’ve been experimenting with using ChatGPT to write course outlines, and for one of the courses I compared the result with the outlines I had already written (and taught to). The results were interesting.

How can CHatGPT be used in education? And can it write decent book reviews?

January 10, 2023

I asked ChatGPT, and here’s what it said…

Section of an artcile records spreadsheet, by Terry Freedman

Using ChatGPT as a search engine

December 20, 2022

Although I haven’t been overly impressed with ChatGPT as a creative force, I have to say that I am impressed with it as an alternative to Google.

AI-generated content: does it matter how articles are written? Revisited

December 19, 2022

As ChatGPT is on everybody’s lips at the moment, I thought I’d revisit an article I wrote several years ago.

Recent book reviews

Two reviews in one: Turner and Constable: Rivals and Originals -- art and history

One for your colleagues, perhaps: art, art history, ploitics with a small ‘p’.

Two reviews in one: State of Ridicule: A History of Satire in English Literature -- politics, history, English

One for your colleagues, perhaps. Sperrin has provided a wealth of information that can be used to provide a rich experience for students of politics, history and English literature.

Two reviews in one: A Little History of Mathematics

I submitted my review of this book to Teach Secondary magazine, an educational magazine in the UK. The first review below is what the magazine published. The second one is what I actually wrote! In substantive terms there is little difference between the two, but you may find it interesting to see what the editor altered.

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Review: The Learning Rainforest: Great Teaching in Real Classrooms

This is a great book for dipping into in order to read about different teaching and assessment strategies, backed up by research.

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Review: Outstanding Formative Assessment: Culture and Practice

This book contains numerous assessment for learning techniques.

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Review: New Media in the Classroom: Rethinking Primary Literacy

This provides a great deal of information about the different aspects of "literacy” and how digital tools can be brought into the service of literacy in the primary school.

Review: Designing the internet of things

This book takes you through the process of designing connected devices from prototyping to launching.

Quick look: (Un)educated: My Life as a Teacher, and Why You Should Never Become One

“Some of it is laugh-out loud funny, but some of it, about his reference being spiked, made me angry …”

A Heads-up: Hot Type: The Magnificent Machine that Gave Birth to Mass Media and Drove Mark Twain Mad

This is about the invention of linotype, and its consequences.

Are we in, or entering, a post-literate society?

I know that there are people who think that Tik-Tok videos and other (very) short-form content is a kind of literacy that’s on a par with reading, but I have my doubts.