Overall the book is a good investment, although I did have some quibbles with it.
Read MoreQuick looks: About Our Schools, by Tim Brighouse and Mick Waters
If you want to see the humble brag elevated to an art form, this is the book for you.
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Crowds and queues, by Terry Freedman
Job-seeking as a metaphor for assessment in computing
When I saw several hundred people lining up for some sort of job registration recently, I immediately thought of the challenges of assessing pupils’ educational technology capability. A bit of a stretch? Not necessarily.
Assessment machine, by Terry Freedman
Artificial Intelligence and marking: pitfalls (2022 Update)
If AI generates an essay, and another AI grades it, has anything useful actually happened?
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“Erm, what?” Photo by Tadeusz Lakota on Unsplash
The "voluntary" national tutoring scheme
The Department for Education’s newly beefed-up National Tutoring Scheme enables schools to arrange tutoring for their students at discounted rate is purely voluntary, but…
Read MoreA 21st century skills paradox (Updated)
Every time I attend an educational ICT conference, at least one of the speakers talks about how little we know about the future. But their argument doesn’t make sense.
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Lights and alleyway, by Terry Freedman
21st century skills do not exist; here are 9 skills that do (Updated)
Has there ever been such a frenzy of thinking and activity over a concept which does not even exist? I am referring, of course, to the ridiculous notion of so-called '21st century skills'.
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Dystopian Visions, by Terry Freedman
Dystopian Visions: The Machine That Won the War
What really happens when a computer is invented that can make every decision in a war?
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Dystopian Visions, by Terry Freedman
Dystopian visions: The Cold Equations
The potentially devastating consequences of a drive for efficiency to the nth degree are shown in this science fiction story.
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Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash
Is objectivity in book reviews possible, or even desirable?
You want the review to be fair, but you also want it to be honest. Maybe being honest is neither objective nor neutral.
Read MoreAn education technology co-ordinator's spring-cleaning checklist (Revisited)
Well, it's spring again, and time for a good clean-up. Here is a checklist for the ed tech co-ordinator.
Read MoreManaging Change: The Importance of Planning (Updated)
I can't count the number of times I've sat in meetings and heard the team leader say, "OK, so by next month X will have happened. What's the next item on the agenda?", to which I've piped up: "Er, exactly how is it going to happen?".
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Just because everyone says something is good, doesn't mean it is.
Making and programming
Is 'making' really an effective -- or cost-effective -- way of learning programming?
Read MoreReview: The Self-Taught Computer Scientist: The beginner’s guide to data structures & algorithms
As its name suggests, this book is aimed at those who want to teach themselves computer science.
Read MoreReview: Book Wars
The digital revolution was not just about books, but social factors, personal desires, institutional goals and more.
Read MoreA new newsletter from me
My public writing tends to be mostly about education technology, and the craft of nonfiction writing. My interests are more varied than that brief description would suggest, but to avoid muddying the waters I either attempt to skew an article so that it fits into one of those categories, or not publish it at all. But now that has changed…
Read MoreThe Government’s Online Safety Bill – good news matters, but what else needs to be considered?
Mark Bentley shares his views on the Government’s Online Safety Bill.
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You don’t need an arrangement as elaborate as this! Photo: Press Association newsroom, by Terry Freedman
5 reasons to have a Computing news section of your lessons (Updated)
One of the ways in in which you can help enliven the Computing curriculum is to allocate some time in every lesson (yes, every lesson) to news. There are several reasons for this.Bett Bulletin (sort of): A new version of 2Publish is coming from 2Simple
Here is some news about an update to a program that enables children to write something and illustrate it. It was demonstrated at Bett.
Read MoreThe Online Harms Bill
The British government wants to make technology companies more responsible for policing online harms. It's one of those ideas that sounds great in theory but is fraught with difficulties.
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