Starting a new job as head of the Information Technology and Business Studies department in a school, I was filled with excitement, and a certain amount of anxiety — but not entirely for the usual reasons…
Read MorePhoto by Honest Paws on Unsplash
The state of Computing
Ofsted (the Office for Standards in Education) has published its first report in ages into Computing as a subject. I've summarised the findings, and added some links and comments on my own in italics.
Read More#Flashback Friday: Review of The Long Tail
The “Long Tail" has been lauded and quoted at length. But what does the book actually say, and how does it stand up to scrutiny. In this lengthy review I give it a cautious "thumbs up".
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Books to be reviewed #3: Climate Change for Dummies
This is another book to be reviewed for Teach Secondary magazine.
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Follow the signs to a couple of new newsletters. Photo: Signpost pointing right, by Terry Freedman
New publications alert: If it don't fit...
After a year of weighing up the pros and cons I decided to start a couple of publications on Substack. One is about literature and life in general, and the other one is focused on education more generally
Read MoreReview of Tools for Teachers
My review of this book has just been published in Teach Secondary magazine. The review there is slightly different from the one I submitted, so I’ve included my original one here as text, and the Teach Secondary one as a scan.
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Printing press, by Terry Freedman
Introducing teachers to desktop publishing
When I started at a school where part of my role was to encourage other teachers to use the education technology facilities, one of the strategies I used was to produce fake news stories using the school’s desktop publishing software.
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Image by Tumisu, please consider ☕ Thank you! 🤗 from Pixabay
#FlashbackFriday: Lesson observation
A still-relevant article from a few years ago.
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Handshake, by Terry Freedman
Breaking the social media contract (Updated)
Why I’m unfollowing people more and more.
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TfL data by Terry Freedman
An article about data
Elaine keeps telling me to remember to clock in and out at stations, even if the barriers are open. She’s right.
Read MoreBooks To Be Reviewed #2: Futureproof
There are some interesting-looking books at the top of the to-be-reviewed pile. This is one of them.
Read MoreBooks to be reviewed #1: No Excuses
There are some interesting-looking books at the top of the to-be-reviewed pile. This is one of them.
Read MoreQuick looks: Support Not Surveillance, by Dr Mary Bousted
As far as I’m aware no Education Secretary has had the ability or the courage to deal with the teacher recruitment and retention crisis.
Read MoreQuick looks: Tools for Teachers, by Oliver Lovell
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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