AI guides, and student involvement

June 13, 2025

I keep seeing blog articles and guides about using AI in education, and they mostly seem to be a form of painting by numbers.

Is a ‘Digital Champions’ Scheme a Great Way to Provide Learning Opportunities, or Just a Budget Version of Tech Support?

June 11, 2025

There is little doubt that youngsters tend to be very quick at picking things up when it comes to technology, and are just as keen to pass on their knowledge to others.

Why you should review your education technology purchasing plans

May 30, 2025

Having taken a decision, you can’t just leave it. You have to review it at some point.

Review: Extraordinary Learning For All

May 28, 2025

As a source of potential ideas and inspiration, the book could be very useful indeed.

cartoon to illustrate a failed edtech project, generated in ImageFX

22 reasons that education technology projects fail

May 21, 2025

Why do some school and local authority initiatives, not to mention government initiatives, fail, especially when they concern education technology?

On this day: City Learning Centres: The end?

May 19, 2025

A failure to ask the question, when encouraged to adopt a new thing, “So what?”. I'm by no means a Luddite, but I think critical judgment is rather important.

Review: Next Practices - An Executive Guide for Education Decision Makers

May 12, 2025

Is a 2014 book on managing the computing provision in a school still worth buying?

Archival

May 4, 2025

I’ve created a special area of the Digital Educatioon Supplement, which is an online supplement to my newsletter, Digital Education.

Keeping your media safe

April 28, 2025

Cloud services have their place, but schools should still think carefully about how they can keep the media they produce safe, secure and on-site.

Author reading to a school assembly. Image generated in Ideogram.ai

Get the most from visiting authors

April 25, 2025

You might think an author visit wouldn’t be of much use in a subject like Computing, but you’d be mistaken.

Sometimes (often), 'good enough' is better than 'ideal'

April 24, 2025

Sometimes (often), 'good enough' is better than 'ideal'. Yes, it sounds paradoxical, and counterintuitive, but sometimes even the presumed ‘ideal’ is not, erm, ideal.

History lesson, by Terry Freedman.jpg — History lesson, by Terry Freedman

Two more for the archive

April 22, 2025

I’ve just published a couple of documents in the Digital Education Supplement. This is a collection of free resources for subscribers to my newsletter, Digital Education, which is also free.

Should the Computing curriculum be ditched?

March 28, 2025

This is a serious question. What is the point of teaching kids computer programming, when AI can do all the hard work?

The DfE's foray into AI for education: the good news and the (potentilly) bad news

March 20, 2025

We don’t have very long to wait before the educational AI projects funded by the Department for Education are unveiled, if all goes to plan. But I have some concerns.

The KCL Report on the future of Computing Education

October 1, 2024

The Computing curriculum report from Kings College makes some great recommendations for fixing the failures of the current curriculum.

The future of AI in Education: notes on a Westminster Education Forum Conference

September 30, 2024

A few months ago I attended a Westminster Education Forum about the use of AI in Education. I spent quite some time going through the transcript and making notes, but then I thought: why not use AI to do the work?

EdTech Guide 1: 55 things to do at the start of the school year

September 10, 2024

This guide was first made available to subscribers to Digital Education, my free newsletter.

EdTech Diary: Expectations

September 5, 2024

I want to be able to have as much access to technology when I'm in a school as what I enjoy in my own home. I don't think that is too much to ask, but maybe that's me.

Edtech Diary: Wake up and smell the coffee

August 28, 2024

When I worked as a Technology Coordinator, a large part of my job was to encourage teachers in all subjects to make use of educational technology in their lessons and, even better, to build it into their schemes of work. It was something of an uphill struggle sometimes...

How to make your classroom a stimulating environment

August 16, 2024

FREEBIE! Having been going through my files and digitising them, I came across this little booklet I created back in 2005.

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.