Teach Secondary Issue 13.4

Off the Shelves Brilliant titles for you and your students to explore ADatewithLanguage: FascinatingFacts,Eventsand Stories forEveryDayoftheYear (DavidCrystal,Bodleian,£25) A fascinating book containing hundreds of concise entries on quirky occasions, literary facts and significant events,which could be used to good effect by teachers (English practitioners especially) to stimulate discussion and suggest activities. In here, for instance, you’ll find explanations of National ClerihewDay (July 10th), Great Poetry Reading Day (April 28th) andWe LoveMemoirs Day (August 31st).There’s even anAlien Day (April 26th) – perhps good for a dual English/science activity,where students are taskedwith suggesting ways of communicating with aliens? Also noted is the anniversary of Papua NewGuinea gaining its independence (16th September), since the country is home to over 800 languages.Any teachers requiring assembly ideas is bound to benefit from leafing through the book’s informative pages... ReviewedbyTerry Freedman (see bit.ly/Eclecticismformore details) DestinationTimeTravel (SteveNallon&DickFiddy,Luath,£19.63) Abook on temporal adventuresmay seem like an odd inclusion here, but it can actually be used inmanyways.The physics of time travel, for example, can provide glimpses into relativity and related topics. In any case, the science programme of study aims to cultivate in students ‘a sense of excitement and curiosity’ – which DestinationTimeTravel certainly does. English teachers could use some of the ideas it presents as writing prompts,while RE teachersmay be interested in pursuing class discussions around the implications time travel might have for the ‘fate versus free will debate’. History teachers could even use it as a gateway into the alternative history genre. If you’ve ever entertained the prospect of using time travel somewhere in your scheme of work, then I doubt that you’ll find amore comprehensive resource on which to draw than this. ReviewedbyTerry Freedman TheLanguageofDeception: WeaponizingNextGenerationAI (JustinHutchens,Wiley,£26.99) It seems tome that an essential component of themodern e-safety toolkit is the ability to spot things that aren’t genuine.Of course, this now goes far beyond discerning fake news – important though that is – to, as Hutchens explains, navigating online spaces populated by artificially intelligent bots that are so realistic they can convince people to hand over their social security details.What students therefore need to be taught are strategies to avoid being fooled. Hutchens emphasises that the key component in cybersecurity, at least in the short-term, is individual responsibility, but is also happy to share some useful pointers and warning signs – such as distorted text or deformed hands being giveaways for deep- fakedmedia. Deception... is highly readable in its explanations of howAI fakery in its various guises works.AI might not be ‘intelligent’ in the strictest sense – but it can certainly appear to be,which is almost as worrying. ReviewedbyTerry Freedman 44 teachwire.net/secondary