Qualitative data is important too UPDATED

October 25, 2019

I'm a great believer in using different kinds of data to measure how well pupils are doing, not all of which are quantifiable in the usual sense.

Data for its own sake is pointless

June 5, 2019

Unless data can be turned into information, what’s the point of collecting it?

Qualitative data is important too

October 25, 2017

I'm a great believer in using different kinds of data to measure how well pupils are doing, not all of which are quantifiable in the usual sense.

Our lives in data: privacy

May 16, 2017

How much data are you prepared to give away, and what are you prepared to allow organisations to do with it? The answers in my case surprised me.

Big data infographic

September 22, 2016

Here is a big data infographic I produced in 2014.

Recent book reviews

Review: When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing

Hopefully, neither you nor I will ever find ourselves in court, undergoing a medical procedure, or taking an important exam.

Review: Finding Fibonacci: The Quest to Rediscover the Forgotten Mathematical Genius Who Changed the World

Finding Fibonacci is a memoir of the authors’ quest to find out about Fibonacci.

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.