Our New KS3 Computing Curriculum

Posted on May 29, 2013 by Nicki

Like many ICT teachers I am currently making preparations to become a ‘Computing Teacher’. With this comes the responsibility of planning a new Computing curriculum in Key Stage  3. I am very excited about making these changes and putting my Computing Degree into practice! Luckily I have been making some preparations for this already in my schemes of work in Scratch and Kodu, along with the basic introduction in PC Basics.

In my school we also have another change from September in that for the first time in a few years Year 7 will be having discreet ICT Computing lessons. Up until now this has only been delivered in a cross-curricular fashion since the introduction of our transition school. I’m excited about being able to impact upon all three years of key stage 3 and get them programming from a younger age.

For now I am mostly going to focus on Years 7 and 8 so they will have started to embed those skills ready for when we fully change to Computing in 2014. I’m also hoping to incorporate an OpenBadge system for each topic too (there are some samples of my badge designs below).

So here is my big plan:

Computing at Hartsdown

Example of some of our year 7 badgesYear 7

  • Initial IT/Computing Assessment - This is a short couple of activities in order for us to gain a baseline idea of what the students are capable of and allocate rough levels, previously we carried this out at the start of year 8.
  • Creating Games in Kodu - This will move from Year 9; I have generally found that younger students seem to pick up the skills in Kodu much quicker (and seem more interested) than the older ones.
  • Digital Literacy – This will be a significantly condensed, adapted and re-branded version of my current Skill Building curriculum (currently reserved for low ability year 8 students)
  • Ingenious Inventions - In this scheme of work students will design and create a virtual new invention that will model a physical system to solve a real-world problem. They will use Scratch 2.0 to create a simulation of the invention.
  • PC Basics - This is currently taught at year 8 and designed to teach students the basics of computers and how they work.

Some of our Year 8 badgesYear 8

  • Python Magic - Following my completion of the Python course on Codecademy I’ve now compiled some resources to deliver this to Year 8. I can see why so many schools have decided to follow the Python-route, it is a simple language to get the hang of and enforces good programming practices.
  • PC Basics Extended / Computing Theory (Have yet to think of a quirky name!) - This will cover the main theoretical aspects from the new Programme of Study.

The next four  topics are already delivered in our Year 8 curriculum and  will be kept as part of our curriculum offer. The first three listed should cover the sections on undertaking creative projects and creating and using digital information:

Year 9

This year we have been piloting (loosely) some of the tasks from OCR’s Entry Level Computing course. This needs some tweaking but we shall probably run with it again next year.

I also devised some resources around using Kodu to explore and ‘colonise’ Mars. These cover some of the functional skills tasks so will probably introduce this from next year for all groups too.

I believe our year 9 students are dropping down to one lesson per week from September so between some of these newer resources and some of our old content there should be enough to cover most of the curriculum here. I will make some more changes when Computing is introduced formally in 2014.

Posted in Computing, Key Stage 3, Teaching | 2 Comments

CAS #include Launch Party

Posted on May 5, 2013 by Nicki

On Monday I was lucky enough to attend the launch party for #include, a subgroup of Computing at School (CAS), which aims to increase the diversity of students studying computer science. I was invited to be part of the panel discussion which followed some interesting keynote speeches by Kate Russell from BBC Click and Amy Morris, a student from Sheffield Hallam University. Before the keynote speeches the evening was introduced by the chair of the #include group, Laura Dixon.

Nicki, Geeky Barbie and Kate RussellKate opened up her speech by telling us about her journey into technology and spoke of her love of games as a girl. She became interested in programming when a BBC Micro computer was bought for her brother; raised in an era when “girls subjects” and “boys subjects” were very separate she became disinterested in school but luckily managed to hold onto her fascination of games and technology and has made a career from them, now being a TV presenter and writer. She spoke passionately about the subject and is really keen to encourage more girls to pursue an interest in technology.

Amy’s keynote was next and she told us about the extensive research she has carried out for her dissertation around gender equality in the field of computer science. As part of her research she found that many secondary school girls did not enjoy their ICT lessons and didn’t see it as ‘useful’ for their future. After running workshops with some of the girls, teaching them how to create web apps, she discovered that many of them lacked confidence but as the workshop progressed they thrived and really enjoyed the experience; from completing exit questionnaires she discovered that the girls opinions of IT had now changed and also noted that they preferred working in an all female environment. One of Amy’s final points was that girls-only clubs could help to keep girls interested and maybe make them continue with it at GCSE and A-Level. I think Amy was spot-on with the discoveries she has made and I, too, am planning on running some girls-only workshops in the next term.

After the keynote speeches was the panel session where the audience were encouraged to submit questions via Twitter. The panel consisted of myself,  Dan Bowen, LEA Advisor  to Surrey schools and Phillip Bryant, Qualifications Group Manager of ICT from OCR, the panel was chaired by Carrie Anne Philbin, Vice Chair of the #Include Group and founder of Geek Gurl Diaries. Throughout the panel discussion a number of points were discussed and the ones I can remember are explained below:

One of the first points that arose was the need for strong role-models to help encourage girls into IT and Computing. This is something I am passionate about and I feel is very apparent within the area my school is located (Margate in Kent). There are no big IT companies close by so many of the girls don’t know any women who work in the industry so may not view it as a feasible career option (I’m hoping to carry-out some research in this area over the next few months). As you may know I have been addressing this very issue myself through my website Geeky Barbie’s Travels, interviewing women in the IT & Technology Industries.

We were asked what practices we found useful; I discussed how I try to keep to gender-neutral topics wherever possible so as to engage as many students as I can. One example I explained was the creation of a virtual pet in Scratch within my year 8 scheme of work, both genders seem to like this as the girls enjoy creating their pet and nurturing it whereas the boys like to see what happens when they don’t feed it! My year 9 students at the moment are about to build a quiz app using Touchdevelop and I will be giving them free-rein to choose the topic for this, knowing many of my girls will choose their favourite boy-band as the subject! I have taken the idea of this from OCR’s Entry Level Computing course which was also referenced by Phillip on the panel.

Dan gave some advise on starting a coding club and talked about the importance of giving the club a clear structure with clear goals each session, similar to those found in a lesson. I discovered the same thing myself when I ran a club last year around ‘Kodu Olympics’, having a goal to work towards helped to keep the students focussed (they also liked the idea of a prize at the end of course!)

There were lots of other points raised throughout the discussion as well and if you wish to find out more you can check out the video stream and Twitter feed of the event. Finally I can’t close without sharing the wonderful visual minutes from the event, drawn by Creative Connections, it was amazing watching the artists in action and I was really impressed with their visual snapshot of the evening:

Visual Minutes

Posted in Computing, CPD, Geeky Barbie, ICT, Teaching | Leave a comment

Schools and Real Computer Science

Posted on March 26, 2013 by Nicki

I mentioned in an earlier post that I presented at BETT back in January around the theme of schools and computer science. I just wanted to share with you the video from this talk:

The other videos from the event are posted by BettShow on YouTube.

Posted in Computing, CPD, Geeky Barbie, ICT, Teaching | Leave a comment

Girls and Geekism

Posted on March 2, 2013 by Nicki

WP_000138

Following on from my post about BETT, I mentioned that one of the challenges I raised in my talk was that of encouraging girls into the IT/Tech industry. As many of you will have already read, I recently launched Geeky Barbie’s Travels; a site dedicated to my mascot “Geeky Barbie”, which documents interviews with real women in the IT industry. It is hoped that girls will be able to read about the wide variety of jobs available and find inspiration in some of the stories, they may even consider a career in the industry themselves. Here’s where I need some help! I have a flyer here, which can be printed and handed out to girls in schools, I would love it if some of you would download and distribute to girls in your own schools!

I recently attended an event in Margate called GEEK (Games Expo East Kent) and it was very apparent from looking around that the event was very male dominated. Myself and Geeky Barbie WP_000130 - Copyhad a great time, I particularly enjoyed playing with the BBC Micros and reminiscing over old computer games. There was also an array of various arts and crafts on show too; I was rather impressed with the paper-craft video game and TV characters and I’m actually going to have a go at making Sackboy this weekend! (I’ll tweet a picture of the final product!)

Attending this event got me wondering where all the girls were! Why was I in the minority? Speaking to the girls in my school, most of them are more interested in pop stars and surfing the Net rather than using computers in a more creative way; many of them want to pursue what we would regard as traditional “women’s jobs”, hairdresser, beautician, nursery nurse, midwife etc. I’ve decided that if I’m going to persuade them to consider a career in the IT industry I am first going to need to learn what is putting them off from the start! They generally seem to enjoy ICT in Key Stage 3 and even Key Stage 4, but when it comes to their sixth form options they just don’t opt-in. Across three new A-Level groups this year I only have one girl! Which is  my lowest number ever! I want to know what puts them off. In my school most of the IT teachers are actually women too so they do have some positive role models.

My next intention in my Geeky-Barbie crusade is to compose a questionnaire to carefully try to work out why girls turn-off from the subject, why they don’t seem to see it as a viable career option. This is where I need some more help, I know if I write the questionnaire on my own I’ll miss out a vital question and I want to get it right. Therefore I’d be REALLY grateful if any of my readers could comment below with suggestions of questions I could include. I’ll then share the questionnaire online so teachers can carry out the survey in their own schools too.

Please do help with question ideas, I really want this to be as comprehensive as possible! Also please share this with others who may be able to help!

Thanks for reading!

Posted in Computing, Geeky Barbie, ICT | 1 Comment

The PiL Network: Free Resources and Tools for Educators!

Posted on February 21, 2013 by Nicki

That’s right, I did say “free”!

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of organising an INSET training day in my school. This is one of my roles as an AST and being the ICT INSET Day for the year I was keen to get stuck in!

After surveying staff earlier in the year I had an idea of what kind of ICT training staff wanted so based on this I arranged for some of my colleagues to deliver sessions and offered staff six sessions in total, they could opt-in to four of these:

  • Online Surveys
  • SIMS (Our database management system)
  • iPads
  • Ranger Remote Control (The software we use to monitor and control students’ computer usage)
  • Interactive Whiteboards
  • Windows and the Learning Suite << My session

I delivered the last session on the list and it occurred to me that I should really share this further a-field than just teachers in my own school, so as it’s half term I finally have enough time to write this post! This session addressed recent ITL research by Microsoft which led us into discussing the fantastic Partners in Learning (PiL) website on which Microsoft provide a huge number of FREE tools for teachers to use in their classrooms, not to mention the vast array of learning resources and discussions by other teachers across the world. This is a place for collaboration and sharing ideas, particularly if you are interested in gaining links with schools in other countries.

The tools I looked at within my session are part of the Learning Suite, this is a collection of free tools, and the Learning Suite application gives you a nice interface to download each tool. Some of these tools are also available freely elsewhere, whereas others are only available for free if you are a member of the PiL Network:

LearningSuite

There are 29 free tools featured as part of the Learning Suite but in my training session I only had time for three:

  • AutoCollage – This allows you to create a collage very simply and quickly by selecting the folder that contains the pictures you wish to include, the software then automatically creates a collage of these images. The staff I showed this to were very impressed and had lots of ideas of how this could be used in lessons. The History and English teachers were particularly enthusiastic!
  • Photosynth – This is another great tool; it allows you to create a 180 or 360 degree panorama by stitching a number of pictures together (in most cases seamlessly!). There are also mobile apps available for most platforms. You can take a look at Photosynths made by others on the Photosynth website. Some of the staff in my session actually began building a virtual tour of my classroom!
  • Mouse Mischief – This tool is a plugin for PowerPoint; it enables you to plug additional mice into your PC and the children can use their own mouse (they get their own cursor on the screen too) to answer questions. I demonstrated with just two additional mice where the class were divided into two teams. Staff were very impressed with this, especially as it is really easy to use and the quiz questions can be added to already existing PowerPoint presentations!

Following the exploration of these tools staff were then encouraged to sign up to the site so they too could gain access to these tools and resources. I wanted to encourage this as joining the Partners in Learning Network three years ago really was one of the best decisions I have made. I signed-up when I won a competition to win 20 netbooks for my school, since then I have received free training in the form of a summer camp and have attended national, European and global forums! This has led me down an exciting path, meeting and collaborating with hundreds of other educators and I have never looked back! So my one piece of advice this half term - sign up to the Partners in Learning Network!

 

Posted in CPD, Free Stuff, Microsoft, Teaching | 2 Comments