Terry Freedman's ICT & Computing in Education blog — ICT & Computing in Education

Review: Leadership: Lessons from a life in diplomacy

March 29, 2023

My reason for reviewing this book was to see if it might contain any useful lessons for SLTs.

What I Look For in a Conference (Updated)

March 21, 2023

I attend a lot of conferences, and over the years I've developed a useful set of criteria by which to evaluate them. Here, then, in no particular order, are my top 14 characteristics of a good conference.

Review: Strange Code: Esoteric Languages That Make Programming Fun Again

March 10, 2023

Given how much there already is to cover in the computing curriculum, why spend time exploring programming languages that are, so to speak, way off the beaten track?

Review: Science Fiction: Voyage to the Edge of Imagination

March 10, 2023

My review of this book has recently been published in Teach Secondary magazine. I thought some readers might be interested in spotting the differences between the published version, and the copy I submitted.

UPDATED! The world according to Stephen Potter

March 8, 2023

How can the insights of “one-upmanship” be applied to education technology?

UPDATED! 10 ways to encourage reluctant teachers to use education technology

March 4, 2023

If part of your job is to encourage other teachers to use technology in their lessons, this article, based on my own experiences, may help. Now updated with additional points.

Last chance to register online for Bett (for free)

March 3, 2023

I’ve just discovered that today (3rd March 2023) is the last day to register online for free for the edtech show known as Bett.

Updated! Supporting teachers through a challenging period

March 1, 2023

Updated! Discounts for Teachers is a free membership scheme which joins forces with retailers to help all staff, in any role working across the education sector to save money.

Recent book reviews

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.

Review: The Dictators: 64 Dictators, 64 Authors, 64 Warnings from History

In some respects one could view this book as a single warning repeated 64 times.

Review: The Bookshop, The Draper, The Candlestick Maker: A History of the High Street

Taking readers from the Middle Ages to (more or less) the present day, Gray charts how the places where we do our shopping and what we buy have changed over the centuries.

Review: Extraordinary Learning For All

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

Review: Bad Education: Why Our Universities Are Broken and How We Can Fix Them

One has the impression that the main role of the university these days is to maximise profit, while that of the majority of teaching staff is to ensure the ‘correct’ views are passed on to students. All the while, students’ main concern seems to be to seek protection from anything that might make them feel unsafe.

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

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

Still relevant (sadly): How to lie with statistics, by Darrell Huff

Although this book is over 60 years old, it is remarkably apposite for our times -- and especially in the fields of educational research and assessing pupils' understanding and progress.

Quick looks: Bad Education: Why Our Universities Are Broken and How We Can Fix Them

It was a great source of pride to me, getting hundreds of students through their A levels and encouraging them to go to university. But for some time I have asked myself a question: would I recommend this route now?