Ian Harris, Oliver Caviglioli, and Carol Thompson

Thinking Skills and Eye Q: Visual Tools for Raising Intelligence is perhaps one of the best books available on mind-mapping and Thinking Skills diagrams. Many of the ideas you’ll come across on this website has been inspired from Thinking Skills and Eye-Q.

I first came across this book as a Newly Qualified Teacher in 2002, and began using it with a particularly challenging top set year 8. It didn’t take long before the whole class was working hard at tackling the various Thinking Skills mysteries and diagrams that I had planned for them. It worked. Since then I naturally plan lessons with the ideas from this book in mind for all my students (11-19 years old).

I have used this book during INSET with departments as it works through strategies to encourage and develop a range of skills particularly for thinking, writing, but also discusses methods to use for Gifted and Talented students, and to make speaking, listening, questioning and responding an intergral part of lessons.

If you are planning to start a new Scheme of Work of simply wish to plan a series of great, challenging and stimulating lessons then this book is for you as it is packed with ideas.

If you have a chance to attend one of their workshops you will not regret it as they are outstanding!

Recent books added to ‘Great Books’ section of www.InnovativeICT.net:

Gary Rosenzweig

If you have basic knowledge of Adobe Flash but do not have time to master the more complex elements of the software and still want to learn how to create great games then this book really does the job well. Gary Rosenzweig’s book is straight forward and explains everything clearly and in an interesting way. The book is very pedagogical and goes through the essentials step-by-step and covers a range of different games and activities that can be mdofied and used in the classroom for example:

• Jigsaws
• Paddle and Racing games
• Memory activities
• Platform games
• Drag & Drop
• and many many other

Gary Rosenweig has recently come out with a new book ActionScript 3.0 Game Programming Universitywhich is a superb addition to the keen Flash enthusiast. His website is also a brilliant resource to take your Flash skills further.

There are other great books on creating Flash Games which are equally useful. Some of these are more complex for the beginner but they do provide the reader with outstanding files which easily can be tweaked to suit your own classes. For example:

Macromedia Flash Professional 8 Game Development with CD-ROM by Glen Rhodes: although you would benefit from reading Rosenzweig’s book before tackling this one, G. Rhodes’ book on developing games in Flash does go through the basics of ActionScripting and the files you get are excellent!

Nintendo Wii Flash Game Creator’s Guide: Design, Develop, and Share Your Games Online: this is a cheap, fun book which shows you how to create games which you can play on the Nintendo Wii – excellent idea!

There are so many books on flash gaming out there but these really move you in the right direction if you wish to develop games for your own students.

Great Books

Teaching should be about exploration, implementation and reflection. It is when these aspects blend together that the teacher has the opportunity to experience real progression. Let us not forget why we, the educators, are here and what the purpose of teaching actually is: to train a new generation of children and young adults to become mature, level-headed individuals, professionals who will eventually lead our companies, run our country and most crucially teach our children and take care of us when we grow older. Let us ensure that we provide a challenging and enriching experience for our learners so that they can look back and say their education was the cornerstone of who they have become as individuals.

We have compiled a list of books we found invaluable in our own practice as teachers, authors and when we run workshops and INSET with colleagues. Some of these books are great in terms of teaching, learning to use ICT and some are simply inspirational.

If you have read a book that has helped you become a more effective classroom practitioner, made students more engaged in their learning or made you view pedagogy in a more holistic way then do drop us a line using the form here

We hope you find them useful! See posts below…

Ian Harris, Oliver Caviglioli, and Carol Thompson

Thinking Skills and Eye Q: Visual Tools for Raising Intelligence is perhaps one of the best books available on mind-mapping and Thinking Skills diagrams. Many of the ideas you’ll come across on this website has been inspired from Thinking Skills and Eye-Q.

We have used this book during INSET with our departments as it works through strategies to encourage and develop a range of skills particularly for thinking, writing, but also discusses methods to use for Gifted and Talented students, and to make speaking, listening, questioning and responding an intergral part of lessons.

If you have a chance to attend one of their workshops you will not regret it as they are outstanding!

Garr Reynolds

Reynolds book is, to put it simply, outstanding. There are several books that discuss the issues of presenting information in various ways, some of which do an excellent job for example Cliff Atkinson’s Beyond Bullet Points, but Presentation Zen takes the reader to another level when it comes to understanding the nature of presenting one’s message.

Reynolds summarises current literature on the topic and gets you thinking about why your key point(s) matter and how we can go about ensuring that the audience, in this case our students, are engaged, want to continue to listen or discuss and that they remember what your message is all about. Presenation Zen encourages the reader to become more creative and, something which we feel is essential, shows us as professionals how we can teach our students to become inspirational and thoughtful communicators.

When we deliver INSET or workshops we always use Garr Reynold’s ideas and his theory behind a successful presentation.