Future Things I am Excited About

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So there are a lot of exciting new things on the horizon and I thought I would just write a short post on the things I am starting to get excited about! Some are in the near future and others a little more distant. Firstly, next week is going to be a very exciting week for two reasons. Girls Game WorkshopThe first reason being my Girls’ Game Workshop which is due to take place on Monday 1st and Tuesday 2nd July. I will be working with a group of year 8 and 9 girls running a workshop in which they will begin by writing a story-line for their games, they will then design their characters, create the artwork and develop their game using Scratch 2.0. By beginning with the story-line and design work I am hoping to ease the girls into the game development gently, I also want to show them that the games industry isn’t just about the programming. I want them to understand that there are lots of different aspects to game design and that the creative side is just as important. Once they have completed their games we are hoping to host a live-linkup with Northfleet School for Girls; the girls from my school will present their games over Skype and we’ll then send across the links for the Northfleet girls to play and give feedback.

Kodu KupThe other exciting thing next week is the Kodu Kup! All year I have been working with Microsoft to launch and run the Kodu Kup and after hundreds of entries and a close judging process we now have eleven finalists who will be taking part in the final at Microsoft HQ on 5th July. I’m really excited about meeting all of the finalists and hearing from both them and their teachers about how their games have grown.

Project SparkMy third exciting thing is a bit further down the line and is called Project Spark. I heard about this when it was launched at E3 last week, check out the video here. This looks like a fantastic progression route from Kodu. Again, it allows you to build your own games in a similar style and the programming instructions are given in the same event-driven way as Kodu as shown below. This will make the jump between the two game environments even smaller:

Project Spark Programming

This is due to be released in the Autumn around the same time as the Xbox One(something else I’m excited about!). It will be available for the console as well as Windows 8, I’ve heard a rumour that it will also be free too! If so, it will be yet another fantastic free tool from Microsoft!

Pixel UsFinally, the thing I am most excited about at the moment is my forthcoming wedding in a few months! As you’d expect this even contains a few geeky twists, notably the names of our tables, named after computer games with the top table being ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’. Over the summer I’ll be making papercraft centrepieces, you can check out my Sonic prototype below:

Sonic Papercraft

 

Our New KS3 Computing Curriculum

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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.

CAS #include Launch Party

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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

Girls and Geekism

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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!