ISSN 2053-5104
ICT in Practice Transforming education through sharing knowledge and practice Created by educators from around the world ISSUE 10
WINTER EDITION JAN 2015
Making programming accessible for young children using Primo tangible programming blocks
P4 / TANGIBLE BLOCKS Teaching logical thinking to young children
P8 / CODYROBY Computer science unplugged
P18 / CODE WEEK EU Celebrating Code Week Eu in the UK
P24 / SCRATCH Problem solving tasks using Scratch
www.ictinpractice.com
FROM THE EDITOR CONTENTS PRIMO-Tangible programming blocks
p4
CODYROBY-Computer Science Unplugged!
p8
Story telling Apps
p17
Code week EU in the UK
p19
Teachmeet in Norway
p21
Minecraft- Building brick by brick
p23
Problem solving tasks using Scratch
p24
People who inspired us
p26
I would like to start by welcoming our new team members Alessandro Bogliolo, Øystein Imsen and Su Adams. We are very fortunate to work with such inspirational people who are passionate about teaching and learning with technology. I am excited to see how schools across the country adapt to the new demands of the exciting Computing Curriculum. ICT In Practice is a fantastic way of sharing ideas and thoughts about Computing, teaching and learning.
Editor-‐in-‐chief: Yasemin Allsop @yallsop Senior Lecturer in Primary Computing and ICT at MMU
I am currently in my second year as a teacher and I manage the Computing department at my current school. Since becoming a teacher, I have been increasingly keen to share good practice. Being an editor for ICT in Practice gives me the lucky job of witnessing stimulating and unique teaching practice from across the world.
Christopher Carter @christocarter Education technology coach and high school Social Science Team Leader at Concordia International School Shanghai
In this issue we bring you not only practical activity ideas that you can use in the classroom, but also some interesting news on how people are using technology in different ways for teaching and learning.
Alessandro Bogliolo @neutralaccess Coordinator of the School of Information Science and Technology of the University of Urbino, in Italy
We have met some fantastic educators over the years who have done brilliant work for their school, or wider community without expecting anything in return. Their passion for technology enhanced learning is their drive! So, we decided to have a corner for those amazing people who inspire us with their work and contributions to the educational technology community. So if someone has inspired you in the use of technology, or there is someone that can be seen as a role model for the future generations then share their name and celebrate it with us.
EDITORIAL TEAM
Elliott Plumb @followthatPlumb Primary teacher and ICT Coordinator Øystein Ibsen @oimsen Chief Knowledge OfCicer at Digitalpedagogene and Styreleder at PedSmia Su Adams @SuAdamsEdIT IT technician and ICT Coordinator
More hands-‐on activity ideas: In this issue we shared CodyRoby, an unplugged computing activity and a Scratch problem solving task. If you have a good idea, why not share it with us! Remember, the more we share, the more we learn!
Elliott Plumb, editor ICT in Practice @followthatPlumb
Tangible programming blocks makes programming accessible The focus on teaching children programming skills is growing every day. There are many tools that have been designed to support children to develop their logical thinking and problem solving skills. We talked to Filippo Jacob and Matteo Loglio, the founders of Primo, wooden programming blocks, designed to teach logical thinking to children aged 3-7 and asked them about their journey. How did your story begin? In early 2013 myself and my co-‐ founder Matteo Loglio decided to create a company with the intention of designing and producing products to help children and novices learn, play, and create with technology. This is how Primo as a company came to be. Myself, Filippo Yacob, and Matteo are both creatives and technologists and we know that in order to be creative and express oneself, technology is incredibly important. The Cirst product we worked on if the Cubetto Playset, a tangible interface designed to introduce programming logic to little children (3 to 7), without the need for literacy. The goal of the game is to drive a little robot called Cubetto back to his house. To accomplish the goal, children have to program the little robot using a limited set of physical instructions: forward, left, right and function. While the Cirst three are rather intuitive, the last one calls a sub-‐routine, an extra line of instructions packed in a single command. What was the development process and the rationale behind it? Teaching programming to children is a widely debated topic. We are aware of a moderate number of solutions that try to accomplish this for children above the ages of 8. However, there aren’t many of these solutions suitable for younger children, and there aren’t any that work without a screen or without the need for literacy. We see an increasing number of Apps for tablets and computers that also work in combination with physical robots, but none of them are completely free from the pixel domain in the same way the Cubetto Play Set is.
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Wood was chose as the main material,
Intelligence Laboratory with Marvin
Cirst of all because it’s natural; you get
Minsky, in the sixties (if you are
a warm feeling from it and it makes a
interested in the subject, we encourage
nice sound. The second reason is
you to read Mindstorms, his most
cultural. Observations were conducted
famous book). He was directing the
on games used in traditional
team who invented LOGO, probably
kindergartens in Switzerland (where
the most used and long lasting
the product was originally designed)
resource to teach programming to
to discover that the games loved by
children. The goal of Seymour Papert
children were all made out of wood.
was not just to teach code, but also to
Wooden toys are very durable and you
help children discover their own
can see marks and scratches on them,
personal way of solving problems.
signs of their past usage from other
Primo can be considered an extreme
children. It’s a material with memory.
simpliCication of LOGO and the
Wood was also chosen as a material
physical turtle. We limited the
because of the stark contrast it creates
instructions, to their purest form,
with technology. Inside of Cubetto
avoiding any kind of textual or
there’s a circuit board, but we wanted
numerical language.
to create a “magical” experience,
At the beginning the robot was a toy
hiding the complexity of the play set.
car. A very complicated and time
The concept behind the Cubetto
consuming shape to produce, as it’s a
Playset is heavily inspired by the work
laser-‐cut shape glued together layer by
of Seymour Papert, a mathematician
layer, and subsequently sanded for
who co-‐founded the MIT ArtiCicial
over an hour.
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The car had another major issue, it was very
when considering multicultural environments.
boy oriented. We wanted to avoid entering in
We tested this assumptions with workshops
discussions about ‘brain toy’ producers being
across Europe, the Middle East, the USA… it
criticised of only producing boy-‐oriented toys.
works the same no matter where you go.
We wanted to stay neutral, we didn’t want to
There is no learning curve, even for teachers,
create a toy speciCically for boys or girls, and
which is important considering that teachers
instead opted for a very neutral geometry, a
sometimes shy away from the right products
box.
due to their inaccessibility. It differs from a
A name was given to the little box, along with
Beebot for example, because the “coding”
a personality and a similey face, making it
experience with the Cubetto Playset itself is
even more appealing for children. The robot is
tangible, and there is a direct reference
called Cubetto (little cube in Italian). The idea
between what the robot is performing and the
with Cubetto is also to create a basic module
instructions they gave Cubetto. It becomes interesting for 7 to 12 year olds though, because the robot has been designed to be assembled and taken apart without any screws, using plug and play electronics. The robot by himself is essentially a Robot that anyone can build and code in minutes. A school that isn’t interested in the early years experience can just get the robot. It comes as a kit with a shell, a chassis, wheels, motors and a PCB that serves as Cubetto’s brain. The PCB is open source, and everything is based on simple plug and play electronics.
that can be expanded and customized easily in the future.
How can it be used with different aged children? Out of the box it’s a great tool for children aged 4 to 7, they play and program a robot using colourful blocks. It’s a game, and it’s fun, they don’t really think about what they are learning. They don’t need a screen, and they don’t even need languages because there is no literacy involved, something important
Children use scratch and Blockly to program
Which computer science concepts can
the robot, and can just plug in a new sensor
be taught using primo?
to change the behaviour of the robot, and even craft new creations and inventions. For 12+ year olds, people can simply purchase the Cubetto Board, which is a great prototyping platform for electronics, programmable with Arduino.
Activity ideas?
The Playset focuses on the queue of instructions. They can design, predict and write programs using the blocks. They can also easily debug by changing a block in the sequence. It’s simple and powerful. They can also learn recursions and negation using two special blocks we created. With the Robot by itself, there is basic robotics and physics.
The out of the box experience for both the Playset and the Robot is quite intuitive. It’s based on free play, which is what we encourage. Show children how it works once, and let them go! One thing we do is a cardboard robot workshop, where we get children walking around a grid dressed as Cubetto the Robot, while handing each other instruction blocks. This helps even super young children come to grips with Playset, and it's also great fun.
Can schools use it as part of the curriculum? Some schools already do, and we freely publish lesson plans that guide educators through the core concept mentioned above. It’s all available from our website: http://primo.io
CodyRoby:Turning the Hour of Code into a DIY Unplugged Game Alessandro Bogliolo is the coordinator of the School of Information Science and Technology of the University of Urbino, in Italy (http:// informatica.uniurb.it/). He teaches Computer Architecture and he coordinates research activities in the Cields of wireless sensor networks, mobile applications, and green cloud computing. In 2013 he founded Code’s Cool (http://www.codescool.net/), an open online learning community where pupils and parents can meet University students and teachers to code together. Since 2013 he has served as Europe Codeweek Ambassador in Italy (http://codeweek.it/). In 2014 he coordinated a pan European crowdcoding experiment leading to the development of an Android game called FlagShip (http://Clagshipgame.eu/). In November 2014 he launched CodyRoby (http://codeweek.it/cody-‐roby-‐en/).
More than 90 millions people have tried an Hour of Code so far thanks to the playful massive open online course made available worldwide by Code.org. The Hour of Code is the most famous of the many cloud-‐based visual programming methods that have provided effective support to computer literacy campaigns targeting not only IT-‐gifted pupils, but neophytes of any age, regardless of their aptitudes and dreams. Unplugged activities can further contribute to the diffusion of computational thinking, spatial reasoning and problem solving skills, lowering the access barriers in terms of age, infrastructures, and socio-‐economic conditions. This paper presents a method for organizing unplugged activities that retain the immediacy and effectiveness of the Hour of Code. The method is called CodyRoby to emphasize that computer programming entails two roles: the role of Cody, a coder who provides instructions, and the role of Roby, a robot who executes them. At the beginning there are only three instructions: move forward, turn left, and turn right. Each instruction is represented by an arrow drawn on a playing card. While playing, Cody selects the cards to be passed to Roby, who moves on a chessboard accordingly. No equipment is required. Cody and Roby are just characters played by the players of the game. Having not only to write a code segment, but also to interpret and execute it, adds to the learning experience provided by CodyRoby with respect to its online counterpart.
Computer Science Unplugged! horizontally (from left to right) like
The Cody cards
pieces of a puzzle.
Cody cards are used to represent instructions as the blocks of visual programming tools. In order to make
The DIY Starter Kit
the game as intuitive as possible,
The starter kit is freely available
instructions are represented using
online (http://codeweek.it/cody-‐
only symbols, with no words. The
roby-‐en/diy-‐starter-‐kit/). It consists
three basic Cody cards are shown in
of 6 A4 pages to be printed out, cut
the Figure. They represent spatial
out and folded in order to obtain a
instructions Turn Left (turn to your
deck of 40 Cody cards, a card box, a
left without moving), Move Forward
folding chessboard that Cits into the
(make a step ahead), and Turn Right
card box, and the Roby pieces to be
(turn to your right without moving).
placed on the board. A silent video tutorial is available that shows how
Each card has the size typical of a
to cut out and fold the kit (http://
playing card (about 1.97 x 2.76in) in
youtu.be/D5hQ9UTDQ6s).
order to be easily handled and
Instead of using the kit, teachers
packed in a deck. The instruction
could engage pupils in DIY
associated with the card is
activities aimed at the design of
represented by the big arrow in the
more creative Cody cards and
middle, while the two drawings in
pieces.
the upper part explain the effect of the instruction, showing the position of Roby on the chessboard before (to the left) and after (to the right) execution. The borders of the cards are shaped to suggest that they can be concatenated either vertically (top-‐down) or
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When everything is ready, the players clap their
The Unplugged Games
hands and the game begins.
There are many unplugged games that can be played with CodyRoby. Some of them are
Each player (or team) has to take the cards
described on the CodyRoby website, many
from the side decks and to place them in
mores will be posted soon. Hereafter I outline
sequence in from of her/him as fast as possible
only two of them, that are particularly suited to
in such a way that the sequence of cards can
experience the unplugged Hour of Code: The
drive Roby along the path. The player who
race and The tourist.
Cinishes Cirst presses the GO! button and tests her/his solution. This is done by moving the Roby piece along the path according to the
The race
instructions provided by the cards. The other player follows the test and tries to Cind an error or to think at a smarter solution (i.e., a solution which makes use of fewer cards). If the solution is correct and no shorter sequences are proposed by the other player, the fastest player wins.
The tourist The Tourist is a spatial game for kids to be played by two teams. The game play is similar to The Race, with three main differences: i) it is played on the Cloor, ii) Roby pieces are replaced by a girl or The Race is a board game for two players (or
boy playing the role of the tourist (an
two teams) of any age. The players draw a
impartial referee possibly not
random path across the chessboard by marking
belonging to the two teams), and iii)
with a pencil all the squares along the path. The
the path leads to the image (picture
suggested path length is of 8 squares, that can
of drawing) of a monument.
be marked by the two players in turn (e.g., two at the time). Cells must be contiguous, i.e., any new cell must share an edge with the previous one. The Roby pieces are placed at the beginning of the path and all the cody cards are placed at a side of the chessboard, separated by type into three decks to be easily found and picked up.
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Being a real-‐world spatial game, the path has
shorter solution is provided by the other
to be drawn on the Cloor. The ideal material
team.
to be used to this purpose are puzzle play
The Unplugged Hour for Code
mats, but simple sheets of paper can also be used to compose the path. As in The Race, the two teams start by composing a random path. This is done in turn by placing puzzle tiles (or sheets of paper) on the Cloor. Then a drawing representing a local monument (possibly drawn by the pupils) is placed at the end of the path, while the Tourist takes place at the
The Hour of Code (http://hourofcode.com/) challenges online users to provide spatial instructions to a videogame character to help him/her Cind the correct path throughout a maze. There are 20 mazes of incremental difCiculty. The Cirst 5 mazes make use only of the three basic instructions, while the following ones introduce loops and conditional branches.
beginning. Cody cards are divided by type
The unplugged hour of code consists of
into three decks placed on a school desk. The
playing CodyRoby games using as paths the
two teams work on two desks placed at the
mazes proposed by Code.org. In particular,
same distance from the main desk.
the Cirst 5 mazes of the hour of code can be
The game starts when the Tourist asks
directly played with the starter kit on a 5x5
directions to the monument. The two teams
chessboard, as shown in the Figure. These 5
have to run to get the cards they need and to
paths can be proposed as a warm-‐up activity
put them in sequence to compose the
before allowing pupils to design their own
directions. Then the cards are stacked up in a
paths.
deck with the Cirst instruction on the top. The team who Cinishes Cirst provides the
Cody cards representing Loops and
instruction stack to the Tourist who tests the
Conditions will be released in February 2015.
solution following the instructions under the supervision of the other team. The fastest team wins if the solution is correct and no
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Which Story Telling App should you use in the classroom? by Elliott Plumb One thing we all remember at school is gathering around our teacher and listening to a story at the end of the day. Story telling has, and still remains, a huge part of a child’s school life. As the iPad has begun to emerge into schools across the world, so has the opportunity to download a whole host of applications. Within this bank of applications lies a plethora of story selling apps! This fantastic opportunity allows children to combine the tradition of story telling with Computing and use images, text, video and audio to tell a story. Teachers have always had the opportunity to make story telling magical, now it’s the children's turn! There are a whole host of Story Telling Apps out there, here are a selection of those that are highly acclaimed and best of all, FREE! App name
Suitable for
What is good about it?
Talking Tom and Ben News
KS1 & KS2
This App is great fun and allows children to experiment with their acting skills as well as providing suitable videos and images for the news screen. If you are teaching particular English topics, informative or persuasive texts in particular, this app gives children the opportunity to use key vocabulary. It is a free app so there is no excuse to not give it a try!
StoryKit
KS2 and above
This more mature story telling app is very easy to use and is displayed like a book. Children can even create a story that can be shown on the Smartboard. This app has proved popular with adults and children alike!
Sock Puppets
KS1 and Lower This personal favourite is extremely good fun. I have KS2 used this app for Modern Foreign Language lessons, as the audio is so easy to use. You can modify your sock characters and put different backgrounds in place. This app is perfect for basic conversations (Especially if children are practicing different languages!).
Animoto
KS1 & KS2
This is a slightly different story telling app. This app would give children a great opportunity to order and present events in their life. Chronologically ordering events such as summer holidays, Easter or a school trip would be perfect for this app.
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CELEBRATING CODE WEEK EU IN THE UK by Su Adams, ICT Technician & ICT Coordinator
On 18th October Staplehurst School celebrated Code Week UK in style with our 2nd U Can Too -‐ Mozilla Maker Party. We saw visitors not only from our own school, but many schools from the local area, as well as schools from as far aCield as Snodland, Romford in Essex, and Surrey. We even had two lovely visitors from Korea, who were performing government research on the UK Computing Curriculum. U Can Too was so busy that we couldn't register everyone who walked through our
were very popular, especially our 'Crack the
doors, but we do know that we had more than
Code' game and our 'Sphero Maze Challenge'
350 who came along and gave coding a go at
both of which our Code Club got the chance to
our event. We were exceptionally lucky to be
get in on the coding.
invited to apply for a grant from Google, even luckier to win that grant! Our 1st U Can Too
Here are some of the other activities that
event saw just under 100 people attend, so we
our visitors spent their 2 hours
increased our publicity campaign and added
doing: Giant Voice Controlled Human Crane,
many new activities; both enabled by the
Life-‐Size Robot Turtles board game, Mozilla X-‐
funding from Google. With such an increase in
Ray Goggles, Sphero Maze Challenge, Sphero
numbers attending we were pleased that we
Arena, FUZE Raspberry Pi’s, Code Club
made the right decisions and thoroughly
Scratch Creation – Crack the Code, Scratch
excited to see families working together to
programming, Scratch Jr, Looming with
create so many different coding based projects
algorithms, Zu3D Animations, Soldering,
and having so much fun.
Minecraft, Lilypad eSewing, Electric Paint. We also had a shop and an eSafety area.
Our activities were very varied, including unplugged coding activities, like our giant version of Robot Turtles as well as the more obvious choices, such as Scratch. We also had activities that we made ourselves with some good old-‐fashioned wood, these
There is more info on our event blog, please Cind the link below: http://www.staplehurstschool.co.uk/ school-‐events.php
As well as our U Can Too event we got up to
working on creating a video of the DLs
many other activities during Code Week UK.
review, I should have it done for you by the
We delivered training to parents sharing
end of the week. In the meantime, here is a
with them several of the programming tools
short review from one of our DLs about our
that are available to their children at home,
presentation at your London event:
we took our Digital Leaders along to present an 'unplugged' coding workshop at Code
James says:
Week UK's London event, which was an amazing experience for us all and our Key Stage 2 children presented an eSafety Expo, including acting, singing and debates on a variety of eSafety topics. As well as all this
“CODE WEEK UK on 15th October This activity was very fun. I particularly enjoyed talking to Ross and Mathew who
our Code Club and Digital Leaders had some
were computer scientists, as well as
extra special sessions during Code Week UK.
teaching grownups our unplugged activity.
Code Club were visited by Vicki from FUZE
Ross & Matthew taught me that there are
who delivered a fantastic workshop using
different ways of sorting which are quite
FUZE Basic to Code Raspberry Pi's and controlled a robotic arm using the Raspberry Pi. Whilst our Digital Leaders were visited by
exiting. If I was offered the opportunity, I would deCinitely do this activity again. It
Lego Education for a Lego WeDo workshop
was very informative. Personally I think it
challenge, our DLs worked in pairs to see
would be a school trip that all of Year 6
who could make their Lego WeDo Motorized
would enjoy, but it would be too crowded.
Spinning Tops spin for the longest... it was a
If next year’s Digital Leaders are given the
tie, Samantha and Eleanor v Sam and James. It was impossible to tell which Cinished Cirst when both spinning tops stopped in unision! As you can tell, we had a very busy week exploring the world of coding, and most importantly we loved every minute of it! Our U Can Too event, was the biggest part of our Code Week UK endeavours. We are very proud of the success of our event (and the week in general) and attribute much of it's success to the funding provided by Google. With this in mind we would like to say a huge thank you for your invitation to apply for it and also your support for our involvement in Code Week UK. I am still
opportunity to represent us again, I would say, go ahead, it’s a great experience!”
TEACHMEET IN NORWAY by Øystein Imsen
The Cirst teachmeet in the capital of
equals a trip from London to Istanbul, and
Norway took place early in January, in the
since there are far less people living there
University of Oslo. Forty teachers and
– they seldom meet.
some representatives from ed-‐tech related businesses and startups attended, many
The teachmeet in Oslo was organised by
more watched the live stream. This is part
Digitalpedagogene, the Norwegian answer
of a strategy to bring teachers and
to CAS and similar organisations and
developers together in an ed-‐tech cluster,
companies who train teachers in
and a decent way to kick off a new year.
technology and pedagogics. There are two
A teachmeet is a good way to meet other
different types of teacher educations in
teachers, share practices and get updates
Norway, the Universities and the
on educational technologies. There is an
"lærerskole", academies who are less
abundance of excellent ideas and relevant
oriented towards research. Both
technology out there, but content in school
Universities and Academies are having a
does not change by itself. Enthusiasts and
hard time keeping up with the
professionals need support and motivation
development, and this is one of the
to keep up their good work. Distances in
reasons why private companies like
Norway can be difCicult to overcome. The
Digitalpedagogene are in demand.
distance from Oslo to the Russian border
Building an arena for ICT in schools is
Norwegian schools have a tradition for being
important to the Oslo region. Every year,
progressive and student centred, but the last ten
swarms of Norwegians seek out the BETT show
years have been different. Old fashioned
in London -‐ to get new impulses from abroad,
governance of schools and increased focus on
but Cirst of all to meet other Norwegians who
teach-‐to-‐test has cemented the contents in
are interested in school and technology. Some
schools, forcing teachers to take responsibility
are there to sell, some are Cierce network
for school development themselves. The
builders, and some are just there to hang out,
national authorities have also delegated responsibility for schools to a communal level, which has led to bad investments, confusion and increasing differences. As a result of this system failure, teachers went through a bitter strike last year, and the wounds between school leadership and teachers still need some mending.
but in the end, they are all part of a movement who agree about one thing: there is an urgent need for change in education, and ICT is bound
A teachmeet must be both informal, informative
to play an important role. The emerging coding
and entertaining, but nobody expects anyone to
movement, “Lær kidsa koding”, has also had an
have the qualities of a stand-‐up comedian and a
important impact.
professor in education sciences at the same time. Still, those attending, got excellent
First, there was an interesting introduction from
presentations on gaming, Arduino and robotics,
a local celebrity. Professor Sten Ludvigsen, head
the use of iPad in music lessons, Minecraft in
of the advisory commission working on
kindergartens and how to use fan-‐art as a
“framtidens skole”, the future of Norwegian
learning method. There was enough content for
schools, presented his views on what direction
several teachmeets, and there is hopefully still
he would recommend to the politicians. A short
more to come.
resume: Cross-‐ curriculum and problem based learning, self-‐regulation and collaboration –
This was the Cirst teachmeet in Oslo, and there
everything normally associated with the 21st
will be many more. Once the word spreads, and
century skills movement – is the recipe to
more teachers loosen up to the concept, there
success and innovation. It remains to be seen if
might be hope that a new tradition has been
politicians will choose to listen to Ludvigsen,
born.
one can only hope.
MINECRAFT- LEARNING BRICK BY BRICK by Lisa Whittaker, teacher at the WOW Zone Placing emerald blocks, crafting tables and
The event, run by TeacherGaming, was part
using a furnace are not ordinarily things that
of their European tour, and saw children
you would associate with primary-‐aged
working collaboratively to navigate through
children. However, on the October 27th
the virtual world, build houses and program
MinecraftEdu workshops hosted by The
turtles. Mikael Uusi-‐Mäkelä, Learning
WOW Zone in Wythenshawe, this is exactly
Designer at TeacherGaming said:
what over 30 young people did! The WOW Zone is Wythenshawe Community Housing Group’s learning centre that works with local schools on a variety of exciting, creative, technology-‐ based projects. The WOW Zone team aims to raise children’s aspirations and equip them
‘Compared to all of the
other places I’ve been on the tour, the room was very well equipped and the group
with the knowledge and skills to enter this
actually worked well as a
modern age of computing. The feedback
group, as opposed to working
from this event, from both children and parents, proves how relevant an event like this really is. Mark, a parent from Wythenshawe, said:
‘Athena and Zanthe
enjoyed the Minecraft workshop immensely. It’s great to see such forward thinking ideas that will introduce kids to the world of code, whilst allowing them to socialise and share ideas.’
individually.’
Construction of a virtual house is much more
of the new Computing Curriculum. MinecraftEdu
complex than you might Cirst imagine. Initially,
covers objectives linked with coding in a discrete
student’s inventories were bare. They had to
way, so that children don’t even realise that they
‘mine’ for raw materials, and combine those
are learning. The sessions highlighted the
materials to create new ones, thus learning about
children’s natural afCinity to the language of code.
manufacturing processes and skills. Approaching Minecraft in an educational setting, using
Chris Jones, Computing & Solutions Expert for
structured guidance, enabled the children to be
over 20 years, said:
creative without being destructive.
‘They [children] take to it like a duck to water. I’ve never seen kids so excited and enthusiastic about anything before.’ The WOW Zone are proud to have been the North-‐West host on this tour, and will continue to deliver high-‐quality MinecraftEdu sessions as part of their unique offer to schools.
Daniel (aged 11) said:
‘It’s fun, it’s great and it helps educate!’
Primary school teachers are now expected to deliver programming and coding sessions as part
The WOW Zone is WCHG’s learning centre based at the Woodhouse Park Lifestyle Centre, in Wythenshawe, Manchester. All their learning programmes are delivered on site in their dedicated Apple Mac suite, involving the creative use of ICT. Students use the latest technology as a platform to enhance their learning and thrive in a positive environment. During 2012, 335 students accessed a learning programme at the WOW Zone. In 2013 they worked with 413 students. And in 2014, they worked with over 375 students. “Top quality teaching and learning, top quality teachers and learners.” - The late Paul Goggins, MP
PROBLEM SOLVING USING SCRATCH by Yasemin Allsop I am aware that the computer science aspects of the new computing curriculum creates extra work for some teachers as they need to learn many unfamiliar concepts. I know this can be challenging and time consuming, but I think we are very fortunate because there is a vast range of free programming environments /apps available for teachers to use for teaching computer science elements to children. What we need to remember is that the program itself doesn’t just make children develop computational thinking, the context we use, the pedagogical approach we employ shapes the learning experience of our students. On the next page I have shared a simple activity which can be used as a main task or as an assessment task at the end of a coding session. The aim is to support children to design solutions for a speciCic purpose by selecting and using correct blocks in a sequence. These activities can encourage them to think in logical steps which is the main foundation of problem solving skills and at the same time provide opportunities for peer or whole class discussions. Before this task there are some hands-‐on activities that you can do with children that will help them to design and use algorithms, which is a key element of programming. You could: • Ask the children to design their own dance routines in small groups on paper. Then let them try out each others dance algorithms. Remind them to use functions such as ‘repeat’, ‘If’, and ‘forever’. • Download the vector version of standard Scratch Blocks created by Paul Heather from the link below: http://scratched.gse.harvard.edu/resources/vector-‐scratch-‐blocks • Print the cards and laminate them. You can use these cards to practice speciCic actions with the children before moving onto the on-‐screen program. The children can work in small groups to give instructions to each other using the Scratch cards. • An example solution for the dance task can be seen at http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/ 43629216/
Let’s Dance!
LEARNING OBJECTIVES • I can select and use programming blocks in a sequence to achieve a speciCic outcome. • I can use variables in a program.
Open the project ‘dance’ on the Scratch website. http://scratch.mit.edu/ projects/43599688/ and save it to your documents using a different name. Complete the tasks below: 1. Gobo is learning to dance. Add blocks to the script to make Gobo dance. 2.Gobo needs to feel the rhythm. Add sound blocks to create a beat. 3.What block do you need in order to make Gobo say 'I love dancing'?
CHALLENGE Can you make Gobo stop dancing after 30 seconds? Tip: You need to use a variable © Yasemin Allsop
PEOPLE WHO INSPIRED US! This corner is allocated to an inspirational person who has contributed to the educational technology community to tell us about themselves. Please meet Katherine Childs, Educational Technologist who works for Derbyshire Primary Schools in the UK. My Cirst encounter with computers was playing a game called Hunt the Wumpus on a BBC Micro computer. My dad was a Maths teacher at a secondary school and he used to bring the departmental computer home in the holidays . I then went on to code my own simple games in BASIC from books and learned the hard way that the code was stored in RAM when we had a power cut and I lost a game that was 75% complete! Computers were always something that my generation did as a hobby though – and gradually school subjects took over. Studying Computing in school wasn’t an option, and with no Internet connections in homes or schools (can you imagine life without the internet now?!) there was no one to talk to about computers either. So I followed an Arts path, studying Music and Foreign Languages. It was only when did work experience and subsequently had a job that I realised that I had a knack with computer systems. I tended to pick things up more quickly than other people, and while I didn’t understand everything, I was the go-‐ to person for technical queries . The company I was working for paid me to do a degree in IT & Computing, which was a complete change from what I had done before. I worked full-‐time and studied part-‐time with the Open University, learning programming languages such as
Smalltalk, C++ and Javascript, and graduated with a Cirst-‐class honours degree. I have to hold my hands up and say I’ve never coded anything of importance though – and I think that’s because the link between education and application in the real world was never quite there. But now, with the new Computing curriculum, children have the opportunity to learn coding from a young age. The collaborative nature of coding means that it has a cross-‐curricular appeal. You can’t code on your own – even if you write all the code on your own, you still need someone else to test it. Coding also offers a unique opportunity for creativity that I don’t think can be found anywhere else in the curriculum, except for maybe music. When you have a piano keyboard in front of you, what you create with the notes is up to you. When you have a coding environment, you have the tools to use, but how you put them together is again your choice. On St Pancras station concourse there are a couple of pianos which any member of the public can go and play. When I arrived in London this afternoon, one of the pianos was free so I sat down and played some music by Adele. I was feeling pretty happy about that – until I then walked up the concourse and found the other piano being played by a gentleman who had actually drawn a crowd of people stopping to listen to him playing some Liszt! As a child, I stumbled around with coding but never had the chance to learn it from anyone else – I see my role now as passing on the baton to the next generation of children who are getting fantastic opportunities to create, collaborate and code. I’m sure they will soon overtake me and become the coding equivalent of the concert pianists of their generation!”
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