Open sign — Image by Paul Brennan from Pixabay

The benefits of an open door classrooms policy

February 7, 2022

Should classrooms be open, in the sense that anyone might see what's going on, and perhaps even take part in them?

Helping staff to develop and move on

January 28, 2022

You can’t hold on to good teachers forever. They will, at some point, wish to move on and seek positions of influence themselves.

What does a Head of Department do?

January 28, 2022

If you’re the Head of Computing or Education Technology, you may also have a responsibility for the use and possibly even the co-ordination of the use of technology across the whole school.

What Does It Take To Run A Successful Computing Department?

September 8, 2021

Just taken over your school's computing department? Here are my top 10 tips for ensuring success from the start.

Recent book reviews

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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.

Review: Amazing Worlds

A very good showcase for what can be achieved from a partnership between imagination and AI.

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Review: The Batsford Book of Chess for Children New Edition: Beginner’s chess for kids

This book doesn’t have any education technology, but I think the game of chess is a worthwhile activity for kids for developing strategic thinking skills.

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Review: Flattening Classrooms, Engaging Minds: Move to Global Collaboration One Step at a Time (Pearson Resources for 21st Century Learning)

The authors of this book, ran several projects which entailed collaboration between students in classrooms in different countries.