Issue 15

ISSN 2053-5104

ICT in Practice Transforming education through sharing knowledge and practice Created by educators from around the world ISSUE 15

P4 / Teaching with Animation From Theory to Practice

P8 / Coding or Critical Thinking?

Thoughts on the Hour of Code

P12 / YouTube & The Future Of Schools

by Dominic Traynor

SUMMER EDITION JULY 2016

P18 / Roehampton Festival of Computing

www.ictinpractice.com

“… these individuals bring intelligent information about the latest ed-tech in a minute…er

more like 3+ minutes. The show isn’t your typical dry commentary about what we are currently being bombarded with so many developments for education, but a lively discussion, which at time includes guests. Sometimes they bring the challenges, other times the great things. The one thing that strikes me is although their conversation is unscripted, it flows with pithy information to help ease the anxiety of trying to do it and figure it all out.

You really get a sense of who they are, authentic, caring, hilarious, and smart.”

— BAM Radio Network

And joining the team is Dennis Grice, Digital Literacy Coach at Concordia International School Shanghai

FROM THE EDITOR

CONTENTS Teaching with Animation: From Theory to Practice

p4

EdTech Roundtable: Animation in the Classroom

p6

Review: Roblox - Better than Minecraft?

Maybe not, but a nice alternative

p7

Coding Or Critical Thinking?

Reflecting on the Hour of Code

p8

Review: Cargobot Teaches Valuable Programming Skills on the “Down-low”

p9

Reimagine Education Conference: An Invitation

p10

YouTube & The Future Of Schools

by Dominic Traynor

p12

Roehampton Festival of Computing

p18

Review: Animate It Makes Stop Motion Simple

p23

Voices of ISTE Experience ISTE right here!

p24

A John Catt Publication

Primary Computing in

ACTION Yasemin Allsop & Ben Sedman

Available at Amazon

Have you noticed that it is summer out there?

Well, if you are in the northern hemisphere. As educators and administrators we know that summers do not mean blissful time off. While it does sometimes mean sleeping without an alarm (heaven!), summer also means working on our lessons and materials for fall, and attending conferences and seminars.

If you are like me then you have loaded your plate with too much to do. Prepping for a new Advanced Placement class, learning how to code, constructing the framework for a Digital Productions class, flying half way around the world to attend ISTE in Denver, Colorado, three weeks at home in sunny San Diego (again, heaven!), then on to a seminar run by the University of Texas - Austin team for Computer Science Principles … well, that is my summer. I hope your is less hectic.

To give you a taste of the conference life we have an invitation to the Reimagine Education Conference, and we’ve also included a special “voices of ISTE” piece for those of you who did not attend. This piece features short interviews with a cross-section of attendees from Kathy Schrock, to young teachers, to a few EdTech firms that are worth your time.

We also have additional summer conference insights, interviews, reviews, a wonderful award opportunity, and much more. So hoist that margarita, rub the sun tan oil off of the notebook, and join us please for this, the 15th issue of ICT in Practice.

To life!

Chris Carter Teacher, TechCoach, Editor, Reviewer Concordia International School Shanghai Twitter: @christocarter

Teaching with Animation: from Theory to Practice

by Olga Bedrina, Internet Communication Manager for Animatron, an online collaborative animation maker

According to the Visual Teaching Alliance, 90% of secondary students are visual learners, which means that using visual aids in class can dramatically improve learning and help students retain more from what they hear. While traditional whiteboards are still very helpful, educational technology has evolved greatly in recent years, offering educators a wide range of tools to keep students more engaged and ignite their passion for learning. In this regard, animation is the way to go.

So, why is animation so powerful?

1. It resonates with students and makes them excited about learning. Students often do not feel like many school topics are relevant to them, so they zone out, and it’s difficult to bring them back on track (ask any teacher explaining the US Constitution to 9th graders!) Using animation allows teachers to stick to something students can associate themselves with, and it’s within human nature to stay focused and learn more when we see something relevant to us.

2. It’s a great way to help students feel in control of the process. All students are creative; the big task of a teacher is to unleash creativity and put it in students’ hands.

Using animation in the teaching/learning process helps students have that “Aha!” moment and makes them feel like real creators.

3. Animation is abstract. Let’s imagine you see a live picture of a house. You will probably start thinking whether you like the house, would you like to live in it or not, what color is the house, etc. However, when you see a cartoon picture of a house, you just see it as a concept, an idea of a house and everything it represents (e.g., family, childhood, a place to live, etc). In this sense, animation simplifies visual storytelling and makes it easier for students to abstract.

As Laura Bates put it in her article on benefits of using animation in class, “Using animations is a great way to improve different skills of kids such as reading, writing, storytelling, decision making, problem solving as well cognitive, social and innovative skills. It's sure to facilitate learning of the kids and boost the way you are teaching”.

There are many ways how you can implement animation in the classroom.

History Classes When studying pioneers’ migration routes and trails, ask students to draw and animate them.

Children remember things when they are unique and fun, so implement new tools and ideas to make learning engaging.

Another example would be to ask students to create a video presentation and tell their family story in a visual way. Encourage students to use their family photos, relevant music and video, to personalize the presentation.

My American Story by Emily Nguyen

Project American: My Story by Chloe Starbird and by Jesse Bray (Mr. Bray)

STEM There are some processes, especially those in Physics, that are best illustrated with motion.

Thus, use animation to demonstrate them or better yet, ask students to create a project and explain the topic. These are some ideas for studying Archimedes screw and a lever.

Archimedes Screw by Dmitry Skavish

simple machines Copy 2 by Dmitry Skavish and

by Dmitry Skavish

Some of the other ideas for using animation videos in class include the following: -explaining the water cycle -studying shadows (animation comes in handy when it rains outside) -getting acquainted with electric current -telling student about Brownian motion -studying types of friction

When checking the students’ knowledge on the subject after having covered new material, give students an option: whether they would like to write an essay on the topic or demonstrate their knowledge with an animated project. You will be surprised to see how excited the kids get about animation.

learning and encouraging students to share the knowledge. Asking students to work on an animated project together is a wonderful way of encouraging them to learn from one another, exploring together and developing communication skills.

Languages

Incorporating animation into the teaching/ learning process might be advantageous for both students and teachers. However, we should always keep in mind that just like with any other tool, animation is not the point of the lesson, it’s the vehicle that gets us there. Combine animation with other tools in your arsenal, and you will quickly notice how more engaged students are in class.

When studying a difficult topic, animation is great for engaging students into a conversation. For instance, when learning contractions, use animation to show what exactly that apostrophe in the phrase “I haven’t” stands for. When memorizing new words, ask students to make an animation demonstrating a new word or phrase. Once they finish, they own the word, which makes it so much easier for them to keep it in their minds.

Animation is also great for studying foreign languages. Ask students to make a cartoon and record voice-over to practice pronunciation and grammar.

Animation for Collaborative Learning Most educators strive not only to teach figures and bare facts but also teach students how to think and solve problems. In this regard, ability to work in a team is one of the most essentials skills students need to learn (in fact, it is also one of the 10 skills employers most want to see in employees, according to Forbes). Assignments like group projects can help build some of those skills; however, the traditional educational paradigm of teachers instructing students who are isolated at their desk doesn’t build up real collaborative skills.

Animation is great for collaborative

Keep It Diverse

Audio Podcast Link

Better Than Minecraft?

Maybe Not, But Roblox Is A Nice Alternative

Overview Minecraft is awesome, popular, reasonably priced and great for education. Roblox, a game in the Minecraft genre may also be, or become, all those things. Frankly, I am a little embarrassed that I had not heard of this before. Thankfully a grade four student told me about it.

Roblox is aimed at the 12 and under market, but can be used by older students as well. It has a safe chat feature for students under 13 and parents are able to have a shared login to keep an eye on things.

Roblox lets you build a virtual world (again think Minecraft) and then share out that world to others via the marketplace. The marketplace lets you play a ton of games for free and some are freemium games.

Students spend Robux to buy things.

Purchasing Robux costs money though.

The build studio is not super great looking, but does get the job done. Students can build castles, robots, cars, aircraft carriers, whatever. It has less limits than Minecraft for design. The game play is easy and logical. For example, I dropped a car into the world and was able to climb on it drive around, and push things. No coding required. The emphasis is on design.

Games are easily published to the site for others to share. Or… for teachers to assess? A link is given at the end of the upload for easy, peasy sharing.

Concerns As with Minecraft, there is always a concern when younger people are able to interact with others online. Personally I don’t worry about this as much as most bad guys really come from within the family or friendship circles, but a parent might not like what another player is saying or the types of games students can play or be encouraged to build.

Sample Uses • Build a section of a story a student has written. Maybe the “big race” scene from their novel.

• Create a landscape that represents a story or an historical point in time. Maybe a castle for example.

• Create a character and a world around that character. Develop a series of stories (video, written, or audio) and share them.

• Do I Plan to Use It? • I really want to use this next year as part of our design center we are developing.

So many great tools to use.

Commitment and Learning Curve Medium learning curve. You will get better as you go and students will be quick to figure out how to develop things. Their motivation is very high.

Best for ES MS or HS? ES and MS Cost Paid and free options Website Link roblox.com

Coding or Critical Thinking?

by Chris Carter

As the Hour of Code again approaches I ponder the efficacy of encouraging all schools to participate under the banner of coding. To be involved in EdTech is to interact with articles, TED Talks, and apps that encourage coding. Still, I am not convinced that all students need to focus on coding per se as much as they will benefit from the skills that are acquired while learning how to code. Perhaps I sound heretical given that I am a tech coach in addition to being a teacher. Still, my gut tells me that calling for an hour of code actually creates its own resistance from teachers and administrators who are either uncomfortable with their own tech skills or who question the role of tech in education (think: Waldorf schools). If, however, EdTech professionals were to call for an hour of critical-thinking, problem-solving, creativity and logic training I believe that the initiative would receive broader and more sustained support. After all, who in the educational field could reasonably argue against our students acquiring these skills?

The “Hour of Solving” and “Hour of Thinking” are two examples of labels that offer significantly broader appeal than “Hour of Code.” All human brains like challenges that are properly scaffolded. We like solving puzzles. We actually like ruminating.

Computational thinking and problem solving, not coding, gets us there.

I applaud efforts to teach these essential skills divorced from high tech tools. Take, for example, a lesson plan that teaches these skills using paper, pencil, and scissors. Here is a team-oriented, body/kinesthetic game that easily fits within the traditional class period, putting paid to the sterile image of individuals, faces cast in sickly glows from the artificial light of computer displays, punching away at cryptic codes that less than one percent of the population even understands, let alone is interested in. Again, check out Code.org’s outstanding Exploring Computer Science curriculum, where the stated goal is not to emphasize the teaching of code but rather “to develop in students the computational practices of algorithm development, problem solving and programming within the context of problems that are relevant to the lives of today’s students.” Many of the lessons use little or no “techie” tools.

We humans are interested in involving ourselves in activities that are first, relevant, and second, fun. I admit that I may have that sequence out of order, but the broader point stands. If we are to support the acquisition of these important skills then we need to present learning opportunities that are deemed both relevant and appealing to the broadest possible spectrum of our community. Let us start by considering the diction that we choose to describe our efforts. After all, I devour sushi but I would hesitate to eat “cold, raw fish.”

Cargobot Teaches Valuable Programming Skills on the “Down-low”

Audio Podcast Link

Overview

With a name like Cargobot, you might think this iPad programming puzzle would be rather boring. I mean who wants to move cargo around? Strangely enough, a lot of students do. Especially those with an engineering mindset. You know, the ones that look at cranes for hours and wonder how they work. Cargobot is essentially a puzzler that implicitly teaches the basics of coding. This includes programming skills like subroutines, loops and conditional programming. Students are encouraged to make their coding more efficient and use less commands to garner the same result.

Concerns It can become more difficult quickly and some students may become bored or frustrated. Unlike CodeCombat and its world and clans, this is a more solitary endeavor. No Google Play, iOS only.

Sample Uses • Supplement your regular lessons with this iPad app • Create competitions to push students along • Create your own leveling up inside the classroom experience by asking students to get past various levels, then they level up in your classroom. How fun!

Do I Plan to Use It? I have already, but mostly as a supplemental or introductory activity for students. I don’t see this as a long term way to learn coding.

Commitment and Learning Curve It is easy to get started out the gate. The learning curve of the game quickly increases, but using the game is easy.

Teachers you will get questions from students, so either have another student expert at the ready, or be sure to stay a couple puzzles ahead!

Best for ES MS or HS? Upper ES all the way to HS will enjoy this.

Cost Free!

You can find it in the iTunes store and here: http://twolivesleft.com/CargoBot/ Youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=mPWWDOjtO9s

2016 Reimagine Education Conference and Awards

by Serena Ricci

Three major figures in the world of higher education are providing innovators across the globe with the opportunity to contribute to the transformation of the field. QS Quacquarelli Symonds, The Wharton School, and the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania, are coming together for the third consecutive year to organise the 2016 Reimagine Education Conference and Awards. Offering $50,000 in funding and global visibility to the Overall Winner, while featuring entrants from across the globe, the annual competition is providing a platform for those invested in the future of higher education to accelerate its development.

The competition culminates in the Reimagine Education Conference, held in Philadelphia each December, and attracts investors, academics, and EdTech professionals from the world over: the result is a mixture of perspectives and interests that catalyses vibrant, enthusiastic debate about the role, development, and implementation of information technology in the classroom. The opportunity to access the expertise, ideas, and enthusiasm of educational innovators has brought companies as prominent as Apple, Google, and EdX to previous Reimagine conferences; among previous keynote speakers have been Google’s Jaime Casap and bestselling author Jeremy Rifkin.

Though Reimagine Education is not solely focused on information technology – acknowledging that technology’s role is as much to supplement as it is to replace traditional pedagogical practices – its competition provides numerous opportunities for forward-thinking ICT practitioners to try their hand at winning one of Reimagine Education’s 14 yearly Awards.

Six of its awards are explicitly ICT-focused: ICT Tools for Teaching & Learning, ICT Tools for Services & Support, Digital Content, Best Educational App, the E-Learning Award, and Best Use of ICT Tools. The last of these awards, Best Use of ICT Tools, will be awarded for the first time this year. Its creation is based on the principle that innovation is as much a matter of improving the (use of the) already-existing as it is creating the new, and those who find novel ways of improving educational outcomes with already-existing technology deserve acknowledgment.

Reimagine Education attracts a high calibre of entrant, with previous applications coming from – inter alia – Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, the London School of Economics, King’s College London, Queensland University of Technology, Deakin University, and Delft University of Technology. In fact, Harvard University have been keen contributors to the Reimagine project, submitting an application in 2014 and providing a keynote speaker, Huntington D. Lambert - the dean of the Division of Continuing Education and University Extension – in 2015.

Last year’s Overall Award winner, Osmosis, is one such example of the impact Reimagine winners have on higher education. The brainchild of a company of the same name, its web and mobile learning platform relies on insights from the fields of neuroscience and educational psychology to enhance retention outcomes and improve understanding for the world’s medical students. Home to a community of 29,000 aspiring medics at the time of winning – December 2015 – it is currently providing a universal, scalable platform that makes medical school easier – for all.

Osmosis are one such example of how Information Technology can be implemented into higher education environments to enhance learning outcomes and/or employability outcomes – and the use of ICT Tools in higher education is one of the main focuses of their December conference. Of the four overarching tracks around which the conference is organised, one will be devoted to discussing the creation of and pedagogy surrounding the use of ICT Tools in tertiary institutions.

The track itself will feature panel discussions and keynote speeches from those with expertise in the joint fields of Information Technology and Higher Education, while both Chief Information Officers from world-leading institutions and prominent investors in EdTech have been invited to attend.

Interested? Inspired? Innovative? Applications for Reimagine Education’s Competition are open until the 31st July 2016, and can be submitted at www.reimagineeducation.com.

To apply today, contact Serena Ricci at reimagine@qs.com .

For more information follow us on Twitter at @ReimagineHEdu, email serena@qs.com, or give us a call at +44(0)20 7284 7287.

YouTube & The Future Of Schools

by Dominic Traynor

Couple of weeks ago, I delivered a session to teachers at Lead, Learn, Lancs 2016. It was fascinating as both an attendee and a speaker with amazing sessions on a whole variety of subjects. My own session was called ‘Why YouTube’s Zoella is the Queen of literacy’. The aim of the session was to talk about what we do at A Tale Unfolds and why we need to listen to young people before we decide what to do in the classroom.

By doing so, I argued that we can tackle two big issues that schools need to address.

Out of all the talks I’ve done recently, I enjoyed this one the most by far. I think that had something to do with the five questions I asked people to answer on a piece of paper. I don’t normally take this approach but they were questions that had been playing on my mind for a while. I won’t be documenting the exact delivery of the session but hopefully I can sum it up by reflecting on the discussions that happened as a result of these five questions.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Why did you attend this session?

What is the ultimate role of a teacher?

What is the future of books?

Is YouTube bad for society?

Should schools pay for content and resources?

1. Why did you attend this session?

Some people, not everyone was a teacher, were looking for inspiration for their classrooms. Some had heard about the work that we do at A Tale Unfolds and wanted to know more. Two commented that, having worked with lots of schools, vlogging is one of the first thing students say they want to do when older. For those who don’t know who Zoella is, she is one of the world’s most popular video bloggers. Another attendee simply answered the question with, ‘YouTube’, and, judging by the average age of the people in the session, this answer said it all. Five of the teenage students who were helping to run the event had decided to come and listen solely based on the title and, for most of them, this was the only session they attended all day.

The power of YouTube and Zoella is such that the mere mention of them inspires our young people to sit up and listen. All of the five students who attended named all the vloggers in the picture above by only their first names. It was obvious they saw them almost as friends. If teachers are wondering where the attention of our young people are, it’s here. YouTube, according to some report or other, is now the most popular app for under-fives. Think about that. The ‘YouTube Generation’ is now a standard marketing term to describe the people we teach. Zoella reportedly earns around £10k per day as a result of advertising, endorsements and partnerships with brands like Boots and BooHoo who recognise that she is one of the most powerful marketing channels around. She also recently got into producing books, something that I’ll talk about shortly.

2. What is the ultimate role of a teacher?

I am always curiously about this one as it can be difficult to nail down one answer that trumps them all. ‘Inspire, engage and equip’ was a common thread to all the answers from attendees. My own answer is that we need to make young people into successful adults.

According to Time magazine if I remember rightly, by around 2030, a normal-ish job will be memory augmentation surgeon. That is someone who plants a chip in your brain so you can store more information. Wow. Regardless of whether we think this is a good idea, the point of using this example is to highlight just how little we know about the jobs that kids we teach will eventually do. Having said that, one thing we do know is that the vast majority of jobs in the future will require digital skills.

When I left university, I got my first job by selling myself as an expert on Microsoft Word. I told them I could write letters on a computer and they gave me a job. Imagine saying that these days! I work alongside a lot of education start ups and their recent graduates can do basic coding, manage wordpress websites, video edit, carry out simple design jobs and a whole host of other digital skills. These skills are becoming the new version of Microsoft Office skills. If we’re not giving our young people the chance to do those things in the classroom on a regular basis, we’re affecting their chances of being a successful adult.

3. What is the future of books?

With the director of a printing firm and the editor of an online education magazine in the audience, this was a point of discussion that sparked passion. I included this question at the last minute after chatting to a couple of friends before the session, one of whom told us about how she was regularly witnessing very young children trying to touch and manipulate desktop PC screens and actual books like they were tablets. If we remember that YouTube is the most popular app for kids under five now, it’s no surprise. Also, I’ve been researching the ideas of Kevin Kelly, founder of Wired magazine, who talks about the next step of the publishing industry and the emerge of ‘the screen’, one personalised platform that delivers all of our content and digital services.

Whether we like it or not, content is going digital. Printed publishing is declining but my point was that publishing in general is evolving, just as all industries do. That’s no surprise if we ask ourselves if any of us were doing this when we were one year old.

https://youtu.be/cfsNyg61wZ8 This leads us nicely onto the next question.

4. Is YouTube bad for society?

Most people saw YouTube as generally a good thing for society although there were some who were understandably cautious in their answers. ‘It depends how is influences the viewers’ and ‘Too complicated to write down’ were two interesting responses.

There is understandable concern about the amount of video media that people consume. There is no doubt that excessive consumption of media in any form is a bad thing, especially when it is viewed without being put into context by engaging in intelligent and open discussion. However, it is extremely interesting to note that Zoella’s book, Girl Online, recently smashed the record for the fast selling book by a debut author of all time. And whose record did she smash? That of JK Rowling. Conclusion?

It could be argued that Zoella of YouTube has more power to get young people reading than one of the most successful authors ever. The five young YouTube experts in the room hastened to add that books by YouTube vloggers often include writing tasks for the reader to complete. How interesting that they felt compelled to make that point in support of their heroes.

Ultimately, I think the point is that, if we try to stem the tide of technology and popular culture, we are going to lose. There are too many upsides to technology that we all take advantage of to halt its advances so it is up to us, teachers more than most, to make sure that our young people engage with it in a way that enhances their lives and for the positive advancement of society.

5. Should schools pay for content and resources?

Before we address this final question, we should take a quick diversion to deliver the normal conclusion to my session and put this question into context. I started A Tale Unfolds which designs education projects and delivers training workshops for schools.

We work on combining traditional literacy skills with digital skills to combat the two issues which I highlighted in the introduction. Poor literacy skills are costing the UK economy £81 billion per year and the lack of digital skills are costing us £63 billion per year. Put bluntly, delivering training and producing content and resources is how we make a living. We’re good at it too. Schools and teachers who use our content tell us that they are seeing huge improvements at up to three times the expected rate.

As well as harnessing the power of video, our resources cover 6 different genres of writing and use filmmaking as the way to inspire young people to read, write and produce digital content all of their own creation. It makes them feel like the people they aspire to be: vloggers. It connects their traditional work to their digital lives and makes them feel engaged like never before. The magic of this approach is that it uses one the principles of business from one of the world’s leading thinkers, Seth Godin.

If we want to address the problems of literacy skills and digital skills, Seth has the answer. I mentioned at the start of this that the aim of my session was to talk about why we need to listen to young people before we decide what to do in the classroom.

That’s why we do what we do at A Tale Unfolds. Not because we decided that we wanted to impose it on schools and their pupils, but because we listened to the pupils and this is what they told us.

Now to get back to the final question, I decided to include it as it is something that I love to ask teachers, especially as a teacher who now sells content and resources. The overwhelming majority of teachers say that content and resources should ideally be free for schools. Notably, the only person in the room who didn’t agree was a teacher who now, like me, produces education projects as a business. If you think about it, do you buy a printed newspaper regularly? Why are printed newspapers now being called legacy products by many large news corporations? Because, on the whole, we no longer buy newspapers. We expect this media to be free and to help us protect breakables when moving house. There are plenty of other examples of similar industry shifts as society evolves, particularly to do with content.

I don’t intend on using this article to tell schools how they should think about this situation. I just thought that the point made by one teacher at my session was profound. They identified that, by insisting on using things for free, schools and teachers are destined to become the ultimate sales force. Tighter school budgets mean ever increasing pressure on what is bought and, the more we expect things for free in schools as we do with media for example, the more only the big corporations who dip their toe into the education world will be able to satisfy that need. The Guardian newspaper launched its membership initiative back in 2014. They say, ‘You matter to us not just for your support, but because we gain from your insight too. Through the conversations we are having with members, we can challenge conventional wisdoms together.’ Only time will tell whether this approach is successful. If it isn’t, then we are at the mercy of what the ‘free’ press tells us. It is interesting to think about how a similar situation might play in the near future in schools if they are continually forced to find thrifty ways to deliver a quality education. Digital billboards in the playground? www.ataleunfolds.co.uk dom (at ) ataleunfolds (dot) co (dot) uk

Roehampton University Festival of Computing took place 17th June 2016 in London, UK. This event brought together primary and secondary teachers, students, researchers and University academics in a one day festival to celebrate computing in education. The festival included inspirational talks, workshops and pedagogical approaches to learning and teaching with technology. From programming to iPads in education, teaching to assessment, there was something for everyone. Below you can find links to some of the session videos from the festival.

Engaging Girls in Computing by Dawn Akyurek and Gemma Marsden https://youtu.be/H5y5VfTSLOw Keynote by Henrike Lode, More than code: Teaching programming with games https://youtu.be/84qQL1VoKy4 William Lau’s talk about Computing Pedagogy https://youtu.be/lQzdkG55TVA You can also read about the thoughts of three educators who attended to the Festival of Computing.

Theresa Russell @chickengirl1976 CAS Hub Leader. CAS Master Teacher – Head of KS3 Computing, Raspberry Pi Certified Educator, Mentor @MCHSRoboGirls and MiniMeRoboGirls, Moderator for GCSE Computer Science Edexcel and CEOP Ambassador I was honoured to be asked to give a talk at the first Festival of Computing at Roehampton University particularly when I discovered that over 200 people had submitted a potential workshop/talk. On the 17th June I arrived at Roehampton University’s Frobel College – an amazing building and beautiful grounds.

We were welcomed with tea, coffee and Danish pastries – always an added bonus in a morning. First speaker was Marilyn Holness OBE – Deputy Director of Education at Roehampton University with her enthuastic welcome to their first festival of computing.

Followed by a Keynote speech from Henrike Lode CEO and co-founder of Copenhagan based games studio Lohika. @machineers – she gave an inspiring talk about games and code with some brilliant examples which I look forward to trailing in class. Miles Berry Principal Lecturer in Computing Education at Roehampton University completed the keynote speeches where he talked about the importance of the computing curriculum. He included the need to link to other subjects and industry and demonstrated examples of where this could be used. He then invited us to attend workshops which he hoped would inspire us. I attended a great session on KS2 LEGO with Neil Taylor – Lego Wedo 2.0 . Easy to follow instructions, excellent supporting resources (videos, step by step instructions) and mini projects/tasks too.

We broke for lunch where I met an inspiring woman called Dr Sangeet Bhullar who is the founder of wisekids.org.uk with a passion for digital literacy, digital citizenship and creativity. She was impressed by our hard work engaging students with computing.

Another great keynote speech from Dominic Traynor – ensuring lessons are created for your students – not trying to fit students into your lessons. Then a presentation from two ladies Dawn Akyurek (Headteacher) and Gemma Marsden (Art and Computing) who had flown in from Madrid to share their experiences of Girls in Computing. I was up next – I had a small group of professionals including Henrike Lode (keynote speaker which made me more nervous!) The session went well and delegates were interested in our journey and our work with industry. The final work was with James Franklin and his work on pair programming – some thought provoking ideas and things worth trying at school. So many more great workshops which I couldn’t attend – it was a fabulous Festival of Computing – well done Yasemin Allsop for arranging and allowing me to present.

It was a great opportunity and one I won’t forget.

Amy Flemming @anowlandafez Computer Science student. Interested in UX, Computing Education and Disney Last Friday, I had the chance to experience my first conference. As part of my third year project at university, I had researched into ways to teach and assess children aged 5 to 7 in Computer Science. Alongside a PhD student, Ben, who had started this research a year ago, we spent the most of April conducting sessions with two Primary Schools. In May, I wrote up my findings into a professional conference paper, which I submitted as both my Final Year Project at university, and as a Work in Progress paper for WIPSCE. All very exciting for a third year Computer Science student who's passionate about education and children and computing.

Fast forward to June, and Ben had managed to get us a ‘gig’ at Roehampton University’s inaugural ‘Festival of Computing’, where we would be talking about our research and getting to learn more about other research and teaching taking place for computing education. With no real indication of what this would entail, I headed down to London with a presentation, Ben as my confidant and a box of toys we had used for teaching computing concepts to young children. The setting for the conference was in Roehampton University’s Froebel College, specifically Grove House, an old, majestic white house dating back to 1792. This is where the Department of Education resides, so it seemed apt that the conference would take place in the very rooms where teacher training has been taught for over 175 years.

The conference began with an introductory talk by Marilyn Holness, the Deputy Director of Education at Roehampton University. She welcomed everyone to the conference, however made the note that this was called a ‘Festival’ because it was bringing together a mixture of people; including both researchers and teachers. “Today is about fun” she said, encouraging everyone to get stuck in to the vast array of presentations and sessions taking place.

Two keynotes followed, the first by Henrike Lode, who spoke about using games in schools for teaching coding. She spoke about how children should be told not to fear coding, and not worry if they get it wrong. This really resonated with me, as even though I am in my third year of Computer Science, and have been coding for three years, I still struggle with having the confidence to take risks in my programming and being okay with it going wrong.

Miles Berry, a principal lecturer at Roehampton and a contributor to the National Curriculum Computing programme, CAS, Barefoot Computing (to name but a few), spoke next. He talked about ‘Coding across the Curriculum’, giving examples of how computational thinking can be applied to any subject. Examples included using Scratch to draw flowers in Art and using HTML in English to teach children about writing structures.

After a quick tea break, it was time for the sessions to begin. There were a wide range of talks and activities to take part in, however I had to choose carefully as I’d only be able to attend three hour long sessions that day, as in the second session, Ben and I would be presenting.

For the first session, I attended ‘Coding and Computing with the iPad in Primary’ by Michael O’Kane. I chose this one as this has been an interest of mine since using Scratch Jr, an iPad application, to teach some of the school children algorithms in my research. The session was primarily for teachers who wanted to include more Computing into their classrooms, but didn't know where to start looking for resources.

We explored iPad apps such as Bugs and Buttons, a fun, cute app for small children to introduce logic and instructions. Then, we moved onto Scratch Jr. Whilst I know the ins and outs of this, it was fun to watch the other teachers in the room become excited by the concept, and felt encouraged that I’d used it for my research.

The second session was my big moment, to talk about ‘Computing for Key Stage One getting off to a good start’ with Ben. We decided our hour would be split into half us talking about our research, then the other half letting the audience play fun toys we’d brought. Whilst I was nervous, it ended up being a positive experience, with everyone in the room enjoying our research (I even spotted someone taking a photo of my slides at one point!) and playing with the toys was a HUGE hit. We brought along some books, Legos, Robot Turtles, Cubelets and Cubetto, with the teachers going crazy for Cubelets. In my opinion, the cuteness of Cubetto stole the show, as I set him off on a path around the table to say hello to everyone.

After a well earned break and lunch, the afternoon started off with two more keynotes.

The first was by Dominic Traynor, a primary school teacher who claimed using video is the best way to get a message across to children, due to the increasing popularity of Youtube and its appeal to children. He showed us a fun movie made by seven year olds, which they created using iMovie. Just goes to show how capable young children are at using computers.

The second keynote, by Dawn Akyürek and Gemma Marsden, really resonated with me. They spoke about how to get girls engaged in Computer Science, starting with the statistic that only 17% of the tech industry is made up of females. As one of three girls in my year, of a total of about 100 students, I too am trying to work out what makes women deter from going into Computer Science. Do they think it’ll be too hard? Is it intimidation to be coding along side the throngs of men? I’m not sure. I’ll leave that discussion for another time.

Moving onto the afternoon sessions, I enjoyed listening to Theresa Russell (a familiar face as she works in Morecambe High School and with CAS Lancaster) about getting more girls into computing, which she did by setting up a girls computing club in her school. They’ve gone on to work with CISCO and even travelled to America to show off their projects. I loved Theresa’s dedication to the girls she worked with, and wished that my Secondary School had encouraged more STEM activities.

For my final session, I listened to Yasemin Allsop, the organiser of the conference and a senior lecturer at the university. Her talk on using games to teach computational thinking was insightful, with her main point being that teachers need to give children time to think out problems, and rather than tell them what to do, let them explore and teach themselves.

And with that, the first ever Festival of Computing was over. With a notepad full of notes and my head full to the brim of ideas for my future research, I made my way back to Lancaster. My first conference was insightful and inspiring - if not very tiring! I was so grateful I’d been given the chance to present my research (thanks Yasemin!), as I’d worked so hard on it and felt this was the perfect way to celebrate it. My only qualm was that I didn't get to see all the talks I wanted to, but, there’s always next year!

“Animate It” Makes Stop Motion Simple

Audio Podcast Link

Overview My theme this week is making complex things simpler. I did a stop motion project a few years ago with our art teacher and it took FOREVER to put it all together. I remember using several apps to make it all work and was really frustrated with the process. Enter Animate It! This app is designed to make stop motion easier. It even overlays the new picture on the old one so you can actually see if you’ve move the object too much. It’s quick and easy and I so wish I had know about this several years ago.

Concerns You will still need a stand or something to stabilize the phone or iPad so that your videos are more successful.

Sample Uses I’ve used stop motion in art and am now going to use it for my after school activity, but you could use it to create videos of student’s stories, create how to videos… There are lots of ideas out there. Here is an app that has lesson ideas although this one is linked to the app “stop motion studio” which is also a good stop motion app. I currently like Animate It better, because it is simpler. If you’d like to add sounds and more to your videos, check out Stop Motion Studio.

Do I Plan to Use It? Yup! Commitment and Learning Curve Low Best for ES MS or HS? All Cost USD $2.99

Voices of ISTE 21CLRadio brings you a taste of the largest EdTech conference in world

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