Book review: Talk Triggers

June 2, 2020

Talk Triggers is a word-of-mouth marketing guide with a difference: lots of examples of success stories, but also a logical analysis of why they worked.

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.

You’re going on a journey now, so document it. Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

Covid19: Document it!

April 23, 2020

Looking on the bright side, if you have started teaching your classes online, or setting work for your pupils online, this forced closure of many schools is a great opportunity to carry out some research.

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

Mesh Guide to how Germs Spread, screenshot by Terry Freedman.png

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.

Articles about AI in the media

December 17, 2019

Journalism in the field of AI: is it biased?

Teaching Computing: What the research says

November 7, 2019

What do we know about the pedagogy of teaching Computing? Do teachers spot students’ misconceptions? Can general principles of instruction be applied to the teaching of Computing? Plus other interesting questions.

Report on the Edusummit 2019 conference

October 6, 2019

The Edusummit conference has a different format from most. This is a report on the conference, which will be publishing a call to action and an ebook of papers in the near future.

Computing and computing-related qualifications

September 24, 2019

Here in England the Government, in its quest to put Computing on the map, did its best to make sure the rest of the map was blank – by getting rid of qualifications that lots of students took (especially girls).

Robot made of Lego, at John Lewis, Photo by Terry Freedman

AI: It was a very active and engaging and free way of learning, in some ways

September 16, 2019

I’ve been experimenting with AI-generated articles. I’m using an application called Story AI. You enter the first 40 words, and the AI does the rest. Here’s the result of the experiment.

The Science of Learning: click on the cover to view the book on Amazon (affiliate link)

Review of The Science of Learning

September 1, 2019

This book aims to solve the difficulties teachers face in accessing educational research through the approach of presenting each research study as a double-page spread.

The Scream, by Terry Freedman (with apologies to Munch) — The Scream, by Terry Freedman (*with apologies to Munch)*

Viruses and other nasties are a leadership issue

August 15, 2019

How vulnerable are schools to viruses and so on? Here are the results of a survey, plus some comments on the role of the ed tech leader in the school.

What I've been reading: Offline

July 30, 2019

Why do many people seem to be addicted to their smartphones? This book explains how we get drawn in to constantly checking for updates, and suggests what we might do about it.

Notes from the desktop: digital news report

June 20, 2019

The Reuters Institute’s report on Digital News 2019 has just been published. Here are a couple of extracts.

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.

Engaging with evidence: a free guide

April 2, 2019

A new guide on engaging with evidence has appeared. Here is a quick evaluation of it.

Book review: Understanding how we learn

March 4, 2019

This is a book that dispels a few myths about how we learn, and explains why our intuition is not always our best friend.

Photo by Andras Vas on Unsplash — Photo by Andras Vas on Unsplash

What do kids get up to online?

February 4, 2019

Here are several research reports on kids’ behaviour online.

Educational research reading, by Terry Freedman

Evidence-based teaching: what's striking or new about it?

December 13, 2018

In the latest Ofsted annual report, teachers using an evidence-based approach is something that “strikes” the Chief Inspector. But what is remarkable about it?

Recent book reviews

Backlist: The Written World

Writing was invented ‘only’ a few thousand years ago. It’s a fascinating story.

Backlist: What I'm reading: Bounce

What does it take to become an expert? And what can the Computing teacher do about it?

Backlist: The Fourth Education Revolution

The title of this book invites curiosity: what were the other three ‘revolutions?

A book review for your English department colleagues perhaps

Some of these stories are so richly told, it can almost seem as though you’re right there with him.

Review: Pen Names

OK, so this has nothing to do with education technology, but we all read (I hope!). A very interesting examination of the pen names some authors have adopted, and why.

Review: The Library of Ancient Wisdom: Mesopotamia and the Making of History

There's a really interesting section in this book about how ceramic storage of data and information is probably the most likely medium to stand the test of time.

A book review for your biology colleagues perhaps

The subject under discussion here is how human physiology has developed in different ways, in response to different conditions around the world.

Review: Social Media for Academics

This book is very readable, and if I sound surprised that is because it’s not always true of academics!

Quick looks: VIBE Coding by Example

For the time being, this book is free in Kindle format.

Review: The Game Changers: How Playing Games Changed the World and Can Change You Too

Despite the relative paucity of immediately obvious National Curriculum links, teachers will find several of sections of this book to be highly engaging.