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
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
The following film is a recording of a science show for primary schools presented by Dr Alan Bruce of the University of Abertay to a mixed audience of primary 6 & 7 pupils. It has been developed as a spin out from the popular Tayside Space School and shows a series of fun science (particularly Physics) experiments. It is designed to promote science in a fun and entertaining manner using space and space travel as a means of introducing basic scientific principles such as gravity and electricity and highlighting their importance in our everyday lives.
The following presentation was one of a series of 12 shows enjoyed by more that 800 pupils from across Dundee and Angus during 2012 and the University would like to thank the Institute of Physics in Scotland for providing funding to support the development and delivery of the shows.
Pupils will be shocked, surprised and entertained by the show, but more importantly Alan and the team at Abertay, hope the show will excite and encourage them to take their first steps towards becoming Scotland’s scientists of the future.
Leave a comment if you use the film with pupils e.g. What are their reactions? Will you plan any follow up practical work?
You can contact Alan at A.bruce@abertay.ac.uk and see the video on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRTDqf0IyE0&feature=youtu.be
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.
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.
Education Scotland have today published advice and guidance, with exemplification in a range of subjects to support learning and teaching in the new NQs. More material will be published over the coming months.
The updated NQ website can be found here:
http://www.educationscotland.gov.uk/nationalqualifications/index.asp
Arduino at Braeview Academy
Education Scotland have a facility called CPD Consolarium whereby teachers can sign up to the Glow Group and then make a bid online for software and hardware which if successful you can use for loan period, the condition being that you give feedback through a Wiki created for you by Education Scotland.
This past year I have had a loan of Arduino kits which are programmable boards to which you can motors, lights, sensors etc.. and then by plugging the board into your PC using a USB cable you can then write computer programs and upload them to the board. I used the boards with my Advanced Higher pupils and also arranged for Chris Martin from Dundee University who has some experience 
in this field of physical computing to deliver a workshop to my Higher pupils with his wheeled robots made from Arduino boards.
Rather than repeat the information on the blog the link below takes you to the wiki I am working on.
I strongly recommend putting in a bid for some kit as Education Scotland has a huge amount available from Nintendos to PS3s. If my bid is successful I hope to try out some other programmable boards that they have made available.
