Digital Education Ezine April 2015

April 29, 2015

At last! Or, to use the vernacular, woo hoo! The latest edition of the Digital Education ezine is now out. It contains a round-up of products seen at Bett, articles on girls and women in technology, loads of links and book reviews. Here’s a detailed list of the contents:

Digital literacy is about asking the right questions

April 29, 2015

Being digitally literate is not just about knowing how to use programs or being aware of copyright law. It’s also about being able to ask the right questions. This is another reason to have a news section in your Computing lessons

Coming soon: a bumper edition of Digital Education

April 24, 2015

The next edition of Digital Education is super-huge. To give you some idea of just how big, there are 16 guest contributors. This is what’s covered:

Book review: The Long Tail, by Chris Anderson

April 23, 2015

From the archives

"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".

Lovelace, Babbage and Me

April 22, 2015

What’s the connection between Ada Lovelace, Charles Babbage, and me? Well, it’s a bit tenuous. Apart from the obvious, that we all liked computing (in effect), it is that they appear in a new graphic novel, and I love graphic novels.

Articles you may have missed

April 21, 2015

Although I slowed down over the Easter break – at least in terms of writing blog posts – I did write a few articles. Here is a selection that you may find interesting and useful. While you’re reading those, I shall be working on the next edition of the newsletter Digital Education.

Kettles and algorithms

April 17, 2015

Like many Englishmen, the most important thing to me is having a decent cup of tea. So I was delighted when we bought a variable temperature kettle. This doesn’t just heat up the water to boiling point. It lets you select the right temperature for the kind of drink you have. But how does it work?

How can a programming language be boring?

April 16, 2015

Someone told me of a Twitter exchange that took place a few weeks ago in which teachers were saying that their kids found Scratch boring. Well (he says, arms akimbo), here are my views on that.

Spreadsheets: vindicated at last!

April 7, 2015

I’ve long been an ardent advocate of spreadsheets. They can be an invaluable tool in business, education or any other field in which planning, cost or both are paramount. As far as Computing and ICT is concerned, they can be used for teaching modelling and computational thinking. However, they have been denigrated as being “just” an office tool, far removed from the exciting world of coding or robotics.