St Paul’s Computing department was lucky to have a visit from Dr Rachel Menzies, a lecturer at Dundee University School of Computing. Dr Menzies worked with the pupils using our programmable Arduino boards. Pupils got to try out wiring up and LEDS and some even got round to programming their own tunes through speakers that they wired up to the boards.
Twinkle Twinkle Getting started
16 pupils from our S1-S4 classes attended the launch event for the STEM Gamemaker challenge at Abertay. The pupils along with teams from other local schools produced initial plans for the game concept, and then explained their initial ideas to the other teams. The event finished with an inspirational speech from Brian Baglow a Scottish Computer Games Ambassador. The event was facilitated by Future Fossils a local games company who then acted as mentors for the teams across the city, visiting schools to help with any issues the teams had and provide some guidance. The teams only had 10 weeks working during lunchtimes, intervals and spare time at home to design, code and promote their idea for a new game.
The pupils had to use a games development tool called Gamemaker, which is produced by the local firm YoYo games, based down on the riverside. The software uses a graphical interface where pupils select objects and attributes and customise them, but at a more advanced level pupils could go underneath this and create their own code using the tool’s programming language GML. One of the main differences between Gamemaker and something like Scratch is its ability to compile and then export the finished product into a variety of different standalone executables which can run on Android, Apple and PC devices. In fact a number of professional use Gamemaker to write Games which can be purchased from places like iTunes.
Gamemaker has a lot of video based tutorials which users can find on Youtube and on the YoYo games website and has a built in sprite editing facility. YoYo games kindly gifted licences for this professional software development tool to all Secondary schools in Dundee as part of the competition.
Daniel and Phil from the local games company Future Fossil came in at lunchtime to see the progress of our Gamemaker teams. The visitors were very impressed by the enthusiasm and creativity shown by the teams.
Our teams finalised their games and submitted them by the deadline, and two of our teams were fortunate to be selected to go forward to the grand final at YoYo games HQ. The pupils then had a week to prepare a pitch for their game which they would deliver to a Dragon’s Den style panel of professionals in YoYo Games boardroom.
Our teams produced business cards, photostories, animated trailers 3D models and display boards in order to sell their games to the panel and after a nail-biting morning of pitches on the day of the final our teams achieved first and second place winning personal licences of the Gamemaker software, a STEM goody bag and Game Design books for the school.
The pupils thoroughly enjoyed the process which combined a huge amount of learning opportunities from the game design and programming side of things to the social, team working and collaboration skills to the literacy and communication side of selling themselves and their idea to a panel of adults. As their teacher I noticed a boost to the pupils self-esteem and confidence as they progressed through the competition and realised just what they could achieve when they worked together.
I’m currently a permanent supply teaching working at St Andrew’s Primary School in a P6 class in Dundee.
I decided to use Kodu as a stimulus to engage my class in technologies and 21st century literacy skills.
Kodu lets kids create games on the PC and XBox via a simple visual programming language.
I used the built in tutorials to give the pupils a brief introduction to Kodu and then allowed them to explore and experiment further. I didn’t have a great knowledge of games design or how to use Kodu prior to this Interdisciplinary Learning project and learnt with the children.
In their IDL folders and through discussions the pupil’s reflected on the skills that they were developing such as creating, evaluting, analysing, applying, understanding and problem solving. The pupils worked in co-operative learning teams to plan, design and evaluate their games.
To make the IDL project more relevant and engaging to the pupils I invited a Dundee Based Games Design company called Future Fossils to work with my class. This provided an understanding of careers and opportunities in game design.The pupils responded very well to this and were very keen and enthusiastic to show off their work and have a real designer test and feedback on their game.
Throughout the IDL project the activities that we engaged in included:
This was one of the most successful IDL projects I have done with a class. I feel that it was very inclusive and the children gained a wealth of skills which they were then able to reflect on.
S3 CfE Scratch Unit
As part of our new S3 course I’ll teach the pupils Scratch using a mixture of written materials and some video tutorials from the Teach ICT website –
http://www.teach-ict.com/programming/scratch/scratch_home.htm.
Before the end of unit assessment where pupils design and implement their own maze game I do a lesson on sensors and let the pupils use the getting started with Pico boards notes – http://www.picocricket.com/pdfs/Getting_Started_With_PicoBoards.pdf
I introduce the board using my visualiser, pointing out the various sensors, then let pupils work away.
I was slightly limited by the fact that I could only cobble together 5 micro USB cables (these do not come with the kits unfortunately) so pupils work with learning partners and share boards between groups. Having said that the pupils respond really well and get stuck in taking the notes and adding extra functionality to the projects.
Next steps…
I found a tutorial on using the pico board as a controller for a driving game using the slider to steer left and right.
http://scratch.mit.edu/tags/view/picoboard
Internet Safety Wikis at Braeview
As part of the S1 CFE Computing course pupils are studying a unit on the Internet, and a topic within that unit is Internet Safety. Pupils watched some short videos on issues like Cyberbullying using the BBC On top of the digital world site (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00fq2n1) and visited the thinkuknow (http://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/11_16/control/), cbbc (http://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/topics/stay-safe) and kidsmart (http://www.kidsmart.org.uk/) websites. Following on from this the class divided themselves into groups of 2 or 3 people and were given a topic picked at random on which they had to produce an informative Wiki.
The topics they had to choose from were:
The teams then divided up their topic into chunks so that each person had the chance to create a sub page for their wiki. Pupils were shown how to capture, upload and insert images into their wikis and how to create hyperlinks to subpages and other websites.
Finally when the task is finished pupils then peer evaluate another member of their team using traffic lighting and two stars and a wish sheet (shown below). The teams then also peer evaluate another teams wiki using a similar evaluation sheet (again shown below).
This exercise brings in group work, cross curricular themes building on work the pupils have already done in Social Education and develops their technical skills in producing a Wiki for the first time. Obviously Health and Wellbeing outcomes are covered but also numeracy can be slipped in if the teacher talks about file sizes of images and compression e.g. comparing bitmaps with jpegs. In addition Literacy outcomes can be touched on with pupils proof reading their own and other pupils pages and creating their own text.
The wiki can be seen by clicking here. (https://wikis.glowscotland.org.uk/0001444/Internet_Safety_Wiki/1X2)
Teachers can review, edit and comment on pupils wikis in a straighforward manner.
What I’d do differently:
1/ Team dynamics can be a problem with pupils starting off the best of pals week 1 and then falling out by week 3 over artistic differences, I would pick teams more carefully in the future.
2/I would allocate more time to the task as 3 lessons was not enough to allow pupils time to learn the software, get good quality original content in and then evaluate the wikis.
Below are some pictures and captions outlining the lessons:
Front page of wiki
Editing a wiki
To insert a picture it first has to uploaded by clicking attach file button, I found that the Flash uploader worked quicker than the Classic uploader and that it can be hit and miss with a few attempts before the upload actually works and doesn’t just hang, but it worth the wait. Once uploaded or attached you can then insert it using the editor tools and play about with sizing and alignment.
Peer evaluation sheet
Team evaluation sheet
Within S2 Health and Wellbeing we have programmed a 7 week Choices and Challenges block. This year we wanted to develop our pupils awareness of life and learning by introducing a couple of lessons encouraging personal career planning and preparation.
To build on, and make the pupils investigation more meaningful, Harris Academy invited over 40 professionals from different occupational backgrounds / education or training to one of their Social Education classes. The volunteers were interviewed by small groups of S2 pupils. These interviews were recorded using Talk-Trakers. The Talk-Trakers were ideal for gathering evidence and the recordings (podcasts) were an excellent assessment tool as they could be shared and compared.
The experience and outcome covered is
“I am investigating different careers/occupations, ways of working, and learning and training paths. I am gaining experience that helps me recognise the relevance of my learning, skills and interests to my future life”. HWB 3-20a
Pupils have also published their pictures and podcasts to their e-portfolios.
Learning Intentions
We found that pupils really found this experience worth while, they were completely engaged in their learning and enjoyed listening to recordings of the other groups.
Surveys in Glow
As part of our department development plan a task was to elicit more useful feedback from pupils on the content and delivery of our course so that we could adapt our courses moving forward. An ideal way to do this so that the feedback can be collated quickly is by setting up a Subject Glow Group and then creating and adding a survey to the page.
Depending on how you word the questions glow collates the responses for you and can show you graphical summaries of responses so that you quickly see patterns regarding which techniques and topics are most popular etc…
Having used the survey feature a number of times now I find the restricted choice or scale questions the best for summarising responses for a large class giving you hard and fast percentages, but free text questions can certainly throw up points from pupils who might not feel comfortable speaking out in class.
So far pupils have taken the opportunity to give feedback in the right spirit and comments have been appropriate and meaningful, however you can easily go in and delete any unsuitable responses.
For instructions on how to create a survey take a look at the glow cookbooks:
http://cookbooks.glowscotland.org.uk/blog/category/glow-components/survey/
Activote Handsets at Braeview
I have tried out these handsets with a number of classes of varying ages and stages and they are a great tool for revision and for pair or group exercises when pupils have to discuss and agree on a response.
Using ActiveInspire you can easily create professional looking multiple choice quizzes, ideal for revision before a test or for a lunchtime supported study club. Once the assessment is created you can use it time and again.
Our technician installed the Activ Hub for us and registered the handsets. If you don’t have an interactive board in your room, the assessments work fine through a plain old multimedia projector.
Before letting classes loose you create a database of classes with pupil names which allows you then to see individual pupils performance. To run the quiz, you dish out the handsets and then through the voting button on the toolbar you can register the handsets, pick a class and then assign handsets to pupils by using a 3 letter code.
Once users have registered their handsets you can run your quiz.
I used this software in conjunction with AB Tutor and displayed my screens on their screens so that they could read the questions more easily at the back of the class.
To release a question to the pupils I simply clicked the Activote button on the toolbox and then in the top of the screen a timer bar ticked away with pupils names underneath to indicate who has responded. When the time is up you have the option to re-release the question to give pupils more time. Once everybody has answered there is an excellent feature which displays the results in a number of ways from a chart providing the percentage of correct answers to a table of names indicating which option the pupils chose and even how long it took to answer it.
The program keeps score as you go through the quiz and you can then collate all the results in a league table (The response time feature comes in handy here if more than one person gets the same score). The table is exportable so you can take it into MS Word for your own records.
I think these handsets are an excellent resource, and the pupils keep asking me when they can use them again.
I have used the more sophisticated ActivExpression handsets which allow pupils to enter text based responses rather than just A to F . Personally though I find the simpler Activote handsets easier to get up and running and quicker for pupils to get into.
More details on Interactive voting including example quizzes I have created can be found on the Interactive Voting Glow area.
Our ICT courses in S1 and S2 have been designed to accommodate meaningful cross-over with other subject areas as recommended in the Curriculum for Excellence.
S1
In S1 we have links with Modern Languages, Home Economics, RME and Science. In the units studied we use topics pupils learn in other subjects as a context to apply the skills we teach, e.g. in our Word Processing unit pupils create a word processed evaluation form for Home Economics and for RME, pupils create a Wheels of Faith poster using MS Word and the BBC World Faiths website for research. In our Presentation unit pupils are working on a hyperlinked PowerPoint on the theme of the Animal Kingdom. These links continue throughout the year in other units, for example in our Graphics unit pupils draw a face and label it up using Modern languages vocabulary and for Home Economics we show the pupils how to design a funny face salad using graphics tools. In addition to the above there is the cross-curricular work the Technologies subjects do in the S1 Rich task where pupils work in teams on a challenge which pulls in skills learned in all four departments in a real world scenario.
S2
As part of our animation unit with the Story Telling Alice application we have an exercise whereby pupils devise a foreign language conversation using vocabulary learnt in Modern languages. We also deliver a small unit looking at numeracy and literacy educational games with all of the S2 pupils competing to get the best scores in each area with prizes for the top boy and girl.
Podcasts at Braeview
As an alternative to past papers, a revision technique I use (which is perfect for filling a double period) is getting pupils to create revision notes on key exam topics and record them as podcasts.
Resources required: Audacity (on virtual apps), microphone, speakers/headphones, Glow Group (optional if you want to upload and share podcasts with other pupils).
Summary of steps involved:
1. Produce a list of revision topics/titles for pupils to randomly choose from.
2. Get pupils to write a study note/summary on that topic.
3. Pupils then use Audacity to record their study note.
4. Pupils can edit the track perhaps altering the sound of their voice using the pitch control.
5. Pupils Export the track as an MP3. (Note for Audacity to export as mp3 you will need the LAME dll file, which can be downloaded from the web)
6. Pupils can then transfer this to a memory stick or MP3 player. In addition to this as a teacher you could gather the class’s podcasts together and upload to the documents tab of your subject Glow Group so that pupils can share/pool resources.
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