Review: The Fourth Education Revolution

September 11, 2020

Will robots and AI take over from teachers?

Click on the cover to see this book on Amazon (affiliate link)

Book review: How Charts Lie (short version)

September 6, 2020

We are presented with charts all the time. But are they telling us how things really are?

Book review: The Meritocracy Trap

September 5, 2020

I’ve gone slightly off-topic with this book review, but I thought it provided an interesting thesis which may be useful to consider as part of bigger picture than only technology.

Book review: 50 Teaching and Learning Approaches

September 4, 2020

Can a book that summarises educational theories in a series of vignettes be a substitute for in-depth study?

Book review: 100 Top Tips - Microsoft Excel, by Sean McManus

September 3, 2020

Could this book of 100 top tips for using Excel benefit heads of department or subject leaders?

Click the cover to see the book on Amazon UK (affiliate link)

Review: Your Press Release is Breaking My Heart

August 5, 2020

Finding it hard to get the media to report your school’s achievements? You may find this guide useful.

Book review bulletin 1

May 13, 2020

I’ve recently reviewed four ed tech-related books. Here are links to them. They are: Teachers vs Tech? * How charts lie * Little quick fix: finding the theme in your data * Hello world: how to be human in the age of the machine

Click the cover to see the book on Amazon (affiliate link)

Book review: Teachers vs Tech?

May 7, 2020

Two cheers for this well-researched book. If I were still a head of department in a school I would buy a copy or two to lend to interested colleagues, especially NQTs, despite my criticisms.

Book review: How Charts Lie

May 3, 2020

This is a good book to read, and definitely one you’ll want in your armoury of resources.

Book review: Little Quick Fix: Find the theme in your data

April 22, 2020

How do you find out what main themes are coming through your qualitative research data? In short, how can you see the wood for the trees? This is the issue which this book addresses

Book review: Hello World: How to be human in the age of the machine

March 29, 2020

Several books have been published over the last few years dealing with artificial intelligence. These books display varying levels of hysteria or anger, so it was a refreshing change to read a more balanced approach.

Click the cover to see this on Amazon (Amazon Associate link)

Book review: Leaders Eat Last

March 27, 2020

Most of us have worked for all kinds of leaders, some good, some bad, some outstanding, others dismal, plus the odd one or two whose presence or absence appears to make no difference at all. But what makes someone a great leader?

Click the cover to see the book on Amazon (Amazon Associate link)

Book Review: Critical Media Literacy and Fake News in Post-Truth America

March 23, 2020

Don’t let the country-specific title put you off. This is a very useful (and readable) book.

Review: The School Fundraising Handbook

March 2, 2020

One of the chief banes of my life as a head of computing in a comprehensive school was acquiring enough money to develop the subject and to improve the experience of using education technology for everyone across the school. I only wish this book had been available when I needed it most.

Review: Are Your Kids Naked Online? Updated

February 10, 2020

A book of e-safety advice for parents.

Updated.

Review of Mr Shaha's Recipes for Wonder

January 8, 2020

I learnt more science from reading this book than I learnt in five years of secondary school.

Quick look: The Meritocracy Trap

December 11, 2019

We like to believe that meritocracy is a good thing, in that it rewards effort, and acts as a great leveller. Is that actually the case?

Click the cover to see the book on Payhip.

Review of Computing and Related Qualifications

October 31, 2019

Bob Harrison writes: “We have a computing curriculum and suite of qualifications which neither meet the needs of all pupils nor the needs of a rapidly evolving digital workplace and world.”

Review of Dear Data

October 28, 2019

This book covers an immense range of the kinds of data that we ‘store’. The authors spent a year sending each other weekly, themed postcards. These contained not words, but pictorial representations of the data they had collected.

Review: Trust me, I'm lying

October 14, 2019

In TMIL, Holiday demonstrates how easy it is to manipulate the news. A must-read for teachers of media or digital literacy.

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.

The Learning Rainforest Great Teaching in Real Classrooms Great Teaching in Real Classrooms.jpg

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.

Outstanding Formative Assessment Culture and Practice.jpg

Review: Outstanding Formative Assessment: Culture and Practice

This book contains numerous assessment for learning techniques.

New Media in the Classroom Rethinking Primary Literacy.jpg

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.