Innovation fund cover, by Terry Freedman

Constraints can be good for innovation - Updated!

February 4, 2020

UPDATED! Constraints may not always be a bad thing, and sometimes can even be positively advantageous.

Bett2020 Reader Pen

January 31, 2020

A device that could help students with reading difficulties.

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.

Virtual Reality Headset, by Terry Freedman

A good application of Virtual Reality (I think)

January 23, 2020

Using the MEL VR headset and software at Bett2020, I entered the molecule of a diamond, followed by that of a pencil.

8 questions to ask educational technology suppliers

January 20, 2020

If you’re in the market to buy a product or service to enhance the educational technology in your school, what are the questions you should be asking potential suppliers? Definitely not “What is your response time?”. Here are 8 suggestions for questions you should ask instead, and why the response time one is not very useful.

Free illustrations for your blog or website

January 10, 2020

11 websites where you can find free illustrations.

6 articles and 13 resources about fake news

January 9, 2020

Here are some interesting articles, plus guides on how to check news on the internet, including photos and videos. Plus classroom activities.

Bett 2020 Dates for your diary

December 10, 2019

Bett 2020 is coming…

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.

A Self-referential blog post

October 17, 2019

An apparently pointless article but one that has a point if you think about it.

Review: Trust me, I'm lying

October 14, 2019

In TMIL, Holiday demonstrates how easy it is to manipulate the news. A must-read for teachers of media or digital literacy.

Useless utilities, pointless programs -- and why we should encourage kids to create them

October 11, 2019

We should encourage pupils to write useless bits of code. Here’s why.

A spreadsheet moment

October 11, 2019

A girl had been made to leave her lesson, and wanted to help me teach spreadsheets. My mind said “No way”, my intuition said “Why not?”

32 must-have features of computer labs

October 8, 2019

While it's fashionable to decry the use of computer labs, still they continue to exist in many schools. If you have, or are thinking of having, a computer lab, what ought it to look like? What should it contain?

newsguard toolbar shield, screenshot by Terry Freedman

Review of Newsguard

October 7, 2019

Newsguard is a service that rates websites for honesty, transparency and trustworthiness. It evaluates websites against several criteria, such as whether information is gathered and presented responsibly. A browser extension will enable you to see at a glance whether or a not a site they have evaluated is trustworthy.

A pictogram version of the next edition of the Digital Education newsletter

October 4, 2019

The forthcoming edition of the Digital Education newsletter features some great links and resources. See if you can figure out what topics are covered from these illustrations!

Goal-setting. Screenshot by Terry Freedman

How to automatically allocate time for an activity in your Google calendar

October 3, 2019

If you use Google Calendar then you can use the goal-setting function to whiz through your diary on your phone and find suitable times for an activity to wish to pursue.

Proof of time travel? Photo by Terry Freedman

More fake news

October 1, 2019

Since mentioning that I am working on a special fake news edition of Digital Education, I have come across a few more brilliant resources.

Digital Education Newsletter: Fake News Special

September 26, 2019

How can you tell if a video on a website is faked? How can you tell if a news outlet is being economical with the truth via misleading headlines? With around 20 links to useful resources, the next issue of the Digital Education newsletter has the answers.

Book review round-up to 22 September 2019

September 25, 2019

Here is a set of links to the educational computing books I’ve reviewed up till 22 September 2019.

Recent book reviews

Review: How I review books on edtech

My views on what constitutes a book on edtech are fairly catholic. Indeed, it would me more accurate to denote the books I review as books for teachers of ICT, Computing, digital literacy etc etc,, rather than books on edtech. The latter tend to have titles like “How to teach Computing”, or “How to use Excel in the classroom”.

Review: Nuts and Bolts: How Tiny Inventions Make Our World Work

It's rather disconcerting when one considers that buildings like The Shard are essentially held together by nuts, bolts and washers.

Review: Love Triangle: The Life-changing Magic of Trigonometry

Like, I suspect, many people, I have never knowingly come across an isosceles triangle in my life, and wouldn’t know what to do with it if I did. However...

Review: Making Sense Of Chaos – A Better Economics for a Better World

Before you rush off on the grounds that this book has nothing to do with Computing, let me reassure you that it does.

Bjork & Bjork’s Desirable Difficulties in Action

The original work on which this volume is based has perhaps been honoured more in the breach than in the observance.

Review: Coderspeak – The language of computer programmers

This book won’t necessarily help a student pass a computing exam, but it will almost certainly make them a more aware, and thus better, programmer.

Review: Quiet Power, by Susan Cain

Introverts thrive by being allowed to be quiet, having time for reflection and not being required to 'perform' all the time.

Quick look: Desirable difficulties in action

The idea of desirable difficulties has always appealed to me. In my teaching I’m partticularly in favour of applying Vygotsky’s concept of the zone of proximal development.

Review: The Collaboration Book – 41 Ideas for Working Better

Most people would agree that collaboration is a good thing – so how can we collaborate more effectively in school settings?

Review: Listen: On Music, Sound and Us

This book might not directly address obvious aspects of the music curriculum, but it can certainly give teachers access to a rich seam of facts and anecdotes with which to embellish their lessons.