The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage: The Book

Charles Babbage from 2D GogglesIf, like me, you enjoy reading comics and graphic novels, and are interested in Computing, you may already be familiar with the blog called 2D Goggles Or The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage. This relates the story of the development of the Difference Engine and other aspects of the lives of Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage. Their adventures are based on (mostly) real events and episodes, with a lot of poetic licence thrown in! I thoroughly recommend reading the adventures, and I suggest encouraging your students to do so too. It will help them learn about the development of computing and computer programming in an enjoyable way.
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Quick look: Literacy from Scratch

Scratch ProjectIf you’re concerned that young children won’t be able to grasp computing concepts, or are worried about how you’re going to teach it, have a look around the Literacy from Scratch website.

Managed – and, I think, written by – Lawrence Williams, the  website contains examples of pupils’ work in Scratch, cross-curricular ideas and examples, and notes on pedagogy.

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3D Printing

Over the past few years I've written several articles about 3D printing and its potential application in education. I first came across a 3D printer at a City Learning Centre in London. That was 15 years ago at the time of writing, ie 1998. What I had not realised back then was that 3D printing had already been around for ages -- since the mid-1980s in fact.
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Screen-sharing made easy

screenleapHave you ever been in a situation where you are trying to explain to someone over the phone what you are seeing on your computer? Or trying to explain to them what they should be seeing on theirs? I’ve come across a neat little application which enables you to share your screen with anyone you like – and without installing anything, downloading anything or even paying a penny!

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Learning with Technology – What the Research says

I attended a short but intense event run by the London Knowledge Lab. It’s amazing what you can pack into two hours if you organise it well. The seminar comprised a couple of brief talks, followed by a kind of organised free-for-all in which attendees were encouraged to spend around ten minutes looking at each of several demonstrations of work in progress. I haven’t had time to explore everything I saw or heard about, so here are some general bullet points which may prove useful.
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5 ways to develop critical thinking in ICT

detectiveHow do you encourage pupils and students to think critically in the context of educational technology? Although we can devote a lot of time and energy to setting up the "right environment", I can't help thinking that really it all comes down to some pretty simple questions, and very straightforward approaches.

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Found on the web: 11/22/2011 (p.m.)

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

My bookshelf

Here are thumbnail sketches of a few books which I've come by recently. Taken as a whole they cover:

  • The future of cities: should we build cities around airports instead of away from them?
  • Schooling in the digital age: is it as much to do with politics as technology?
  • Useful educational resources for the iPad.
  • Learning and innovation in ICT: a European perspective.

Hope you find these useful.

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Also on the web: 02/12/2011 (a.m.)

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.