Friday Photo: Cycle Hire

September 3, 2010

In London we now have a cycle hire scheme. The idea is to get people going by bike rather than car, bus or train. Not a bad idea

Friday Photo: Fans

August 27, 2010

I took these photographs of a domestic fan – one in colour, the other in black and white – simply because I liked the look of the pattern.

Friday Photo: Ship in a Bottle

August 20, 2010

A ship in a bottle may not sound interesting to you if you’re not of a nautical bent. But one weighing 4 tons?

Friday Photo

August 13, 2010

Helping to get a new series off the ground is a photo of a great advertising hoarding from the London tube. How could you use it in your ICT/educational technology classes?

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”.

Read More →

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.

Read More →

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...

Read More →

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.

Read More →

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.

Read More →

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.

Read More →

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.

Read More →

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.

Read More →

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?

Read More →

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.

Read More →