All of the tools mentioned are free of charge, or have a freemium pricing model. This is important because as a school teacher, Richard understands the importance of affordable solutions.
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Review: Teaching in the Online Classroom
An excellent observation is that even small changes can have profound effects.
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Review: Organise Ideas: Thinking by hand, Extending the mind
This book is by no means an easy read, but it’s worth persevering with. It explains why graphic organisers or, more accurately, word diagrams work, drawing on various cognitive-related theories to do so.
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Review: The System: Who Owns the Internet, and How It Owns Us
This book will help teachers to address the parts of the Programme of Study concerned with computer systems, communications and online safety.
Read MoreReview: Audio for Authors (Yes, it IS relevant for teachers!)
Many moons ago I started my own podcast. It was called Terry Freedman’s Education Technology podcast, and it consisted of useful hints and tips for teachers of Computing and related subjects. I have to say that I found it hard going.
Read MoreComing soon (ish): my top ten education books of 2021
I’m thinking that even if I gave a book I reviewed a rave write-up and five stars, it might still not make the list if a book I deemed deserving of four stars is comparatively better.
Read MoreReview: Teaching Machines
There seems to be no end of attempts to improve education by people who have either never worked in it, or not understood what they were looking at.
Read MoreReview: A Student's Guide to Python for Physical Modelling
While this book is comprehensive, and gives instructions step by step, it is not what you might call an idiot’s guide.
Read MoreReview: Teaching Machines (for SchoolsWeek)
Here is a very strange paradox. On the one hand, everyone agrees that a key ingredient for success in life is having great teachers. On the other, there’s a relentless narrative that education is somehow broken and that fixing it entails replacing teachers or transforming some or all of what they do.
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Quick look: Organise Ideas (follow-up)
[When I was a teacher,] as with many of my blog posts these days, my own handouts and lesson summaries were festooned with drawings, diagrams and arrows.
Read MoreReview: Sort Your Brain Out
Instead of sitting down and having an actual break, you consume your lunch while diving into a pile of marking….
Read MoreReview: Teach Like a Champion
This book starts from the premise that while teaching is an art, it also relies on the mastery and application of skills.
Read MoreReview: Atlas of AI
This ‘Atlas’ takes students deep into the field of artificial intelligence which, according to Crawford, is actually neither artificial, nor intelligent.
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What I'm reading: Sort Your Brain Out
One of my first impressions: I like the fact that the book includes relatively recently-acknowledged attributes of the brain, such as neuroplasticity.
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Tiny Noticeable Things: The Secret Weapon to Making a Difference in Business
When my room was flooded at three in the morning while staying in a Marriott hotel in Los Angeles, an assistant helped me to relocate to a different – and drier! – room. As compensation for the inconvenience, she gave me a voucher for a free breakfast in the morning. Bleary-eyed, I accepted it. On waking…
Read MoreHow 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”.
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Review: Understanding and Using Educational Theories
What can the writings of a long-dead theorist tell today's teachers?
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Book review: The Turning Point
When the term “teaching profession” arises, my reaction is more often than not to borrow from Gandhi and opine that such a thing would be a good idea.
Read MoreThumbnail sketch: Teaching in the Online Classroom
I’m always wary of books that are written while the issues that it addresses are new and current.
Read MoreThumbnail sketch: Online learning for dummies
This book addresses online learning from the point of view of the learner, rather than the teacher or the institution
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