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How Germs Spread: a new MeshGuide

March 17, 2020

This is a timely guide on how germs spread — and how to teach good practice to children.

Bett2020: Eye Gaze UPDATED!

January 25, 2020

A short account of a talk about Eye Gaze, which helps teachers to know what pupils with PMLD are looking at, and what they are ignoring.

Technology Pedagogy and Education Association Conference news

June 14, 2019

Good news if you’re thinking about going to the TPEA conference in July.

Partners. This illustration is from www.pixabay.com and has a CC0 licence.

Can the International Society of Technology in Education's Standards in Computing be adapted for use in the UK?

May 9, 2019

This article details the steps that a few of us in ISTE, ITTE, TPEA and others have taken to investigate whether the ISTE Standards for Computer Science teachers, and their list of Computational Thinking Competencies, could be adapted for use in the UK. There’s also an opportunity for you to give us your opinions if you wish to.

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.