Tag: communitySECONDARY

A CODE CLUB IN EVERY SCHOOL: CODING THE FUTURE – NORTH AYRSHIRE

Coding the Future – initiative to allow all 9-13 year olds to experience coding (@NAC_CodeClubs)

This post was written by Rosslyn Lee (@RosJLee), Digital Skills Coordinator for North Ayrshire Council. The programme has delivered Computing Science to primary and secondary learners across the authority. Most of the knowledge came from the team’s personal interests in coding and digital. Code Club Scotland and Barefoot Computing provided training that supported the programme.

 
Coding the Future has had an incredible impact on learners in North Ayrshire, and they have been unable to fulfil demand for code clubs and summer camps because of the high level of interest. Pupils learned a variety of digital skills apart from coding and was captured in photos, videos, saving programs and sharing and demonstrations to adults.
 
 

Coding the Future – North Ayrshire Council

 

In May 2017, North Ayrshire Council made a pledge to tackle the digital skills gap by providing access to Code Clubs for all learners aged 9–13 by August 2020.

The ‘Coding the Future’ project team, including staff from Customer and Digital Services and Education has the aim of expanding and supporting Code Clubs across the authority.  The first step was to look for volunteer staff to become STEM Ambassadors.  North Ayrshire Council allows their staff to volunteer within the community for 14 hours per calendar year.

Approximately 40 staff became STEM Ambassadors and were part of a ‘train the trainer’ approach.  Their objective was to support schools to set up their own clubs, taking a step back once the staff felt confident to run the clubs by themselves.  We had some training from Code Club Scotland to start us off.  This eventually led to a core group of 8-10 people delivering support to schools.

In addition to this training, some staff attended a Barefoot Computing session. 

Schools were advised that they could request help from a volunteer to start up a Code Club.  We tried to work this on a geographical basis, depending on where the volunteer lived. Some schools set up weekly clubs for a term, some for an academic year and some on a more ad hoc basis.

In addition to individual school clubs, two of the team ran a club most Saturdays at Irvine Library which was always well attended, in fact at times oversubscribed.

We ran two very successful Summer Code Camps in 2018 and 2019.  These ran for a week in July and operated from 10am until 3pm each day, with lunches provided by North Ayrshire Council.  The limit on participants was 25, although we could have organised a couple of camps such was the interest.  Unfortunately, this was not possible as staff were using holidays to run the camp.

At camp, the young people had a variety of activities to choose from including Scratch coding, Python, Raspberry Pis,  Microbits, Spheros, Virtual Reality headsets, Merge Cube AR, 3D printing, 360 degree photography and video making.

At the end of the week we held a challenge – participants had to make their own robot using a Sphero, plastic cups and various other craft items including balloons.  We invited parents to come in on the Friday afternoon to enable the young people to show them what they had experienced and created during the week.  We also had visits from the Leader of the Council, a couple of NAC Heads of Service and two of the Digital Skills Team from Education Scotland.

During these visits our young people very ably demonstrated and taught our visitors about the devices they had been using during the week, including a safety talk about the use of VR Headsets.

We also ran a successful Learn to Code Day for staff one Saturday in November 2019, supported and funded by a STEM Grant from Education Scotland.  Activities ranged from unplugged coding to Raspberry Pis and Codapillars to Python.  Participants were from primary and secondary schools as well as members of our Family Learning Team.

In December 2019 as part of Computing Science Education Week, we held an event where North Ayrshire Council employees could bring their children into work at the end of the day, to learn how to code.  This session attracted children of varying ages and we had children coding with Scratch as well as using devices such as BlueBots, Dash and Spheros.

We were delighted that the project won the North Ayrshire Achieves Award ‘Skills for Life’ in 2018 which recognised the work we had already done and our ambitions for the future.

In February 2020 we were included in EdTech50 for 2020 as one of the projects in the UK shaping technology across the UK.

Unfortunately the initiative was hit by COVID early in 2020 and has not yet resumed.   However we hope to run a Summer Camp in 2022 and depending on the virus, be able to support individual schools- in session 21-22 with clubs and staff with training.

 Coding the Future – North Ayrshire Council

In May 2017, North Ayrshire Council made a pledge to tackle the digital skills gap by providing access to Code Clubs for all learners aged 9–13 by August 2020.

The ‘Coding the Future’ project team, including staff from Customer and Digital Services and Education has the aim of expanding and supporting Code Clubs across the authority.  The first step was to look for volunteer staff to become STEM Ambassadors.  North Ayrshire Council allows their staff to volunteer within the community for 14 hours per calendar year.

Approximately 40 staff became STEM Ambassadors and were part of a ‘train the trainer’ approach.  Their objective was to support schools to set up their own clubs, taking a step back once the staff felt confident to run the clubs by themselves.  We had some training from Code Club Scotland to start us off.  This eventually led to a core group of 8-10 people delivering support to schools.

In addition to this training, some staff attended a Barefoot Computing session. 

Schools were advised that they could request help from a volunteer to start up a Code Club.  We tried to work this on a geographical basis, depending on where the volunteer lived. Some schools set up weekly clubs for a term, some for an academic year and some on a more ad hoc basis.

In addition to individual school clubs, two of the team ran a club most Saturdays at Irvine Library which was always well attended, in fact at times oversubscribed.

We ran two very successful Summer Code Camps in 2018 and 2019.  These ran for a week in July and operated from 10am until 3pm each day, with lunches provided by North Ayrshire Council.  The limit on participants was 25, although we could have organised a couple of camps such was the interest.  Unfortunately, this was not possible as staff were using holidays to run the camp.

At camp, the young people had a variety of activities to choose from including Scratch coding, Python, Raspberry Pis,  Microbits, Spheros, Virtual Reality headsets, Merge Cube AR, 3D printing, 360 degree photography and video making.

At the end of the week we held a challenge – participants had to make their own robot using a Sphero, plastic cups and various other craft items including balloons.  We invited parents to come in on the Friday afternoon to enable the young people to show them what they had experienced and created during the week.  We also had visits from the Leader of the Council, a couple of NAC Heads of Service and two of the Digital Skills Team from Education Scotland.

During these visits our young people very ably demonstrated and taught our visitors about the devices they had been using during the week, including a safety talk about the use of VR Headsets.

We also ran a successful Learn to Code Day for staff one Saturday in November 2019, supported and funded by a STEM Grant from Education Scotland.  Activities ranged from unplugged coding to Raspberry Pis and Codapillars to Python.  Participants were from primary and secondary schools as well as members of our Family Learning Team.

In December 2019 as part of Computing Science Education Week, we held an event where North Ayrshire Council employees could bring their children into work at the end of the day, to learn how to code.  This session attracted children of varying ages and we had children coding with Scratch as well as using devices such as BlueBots, Dash and Spheros.

We were delighted that the project won the North Ayrshire Achieves Award ‘Skills for Life’ in 2018 which recognised the work we had already done and our ambitions for the future.

In February 2020 we were included in EdTech50 for 2020 as one of the projects in the UK shaping technology across the UK.

Unfortunately the initiative was hit by COVID early in 2020 and has not yet resumed.   However we hope to run a Summer Camp in 2022 and depending on the virus, be able to support individual schools- in session 21-22 with clubs and staff with training.

 

 

 

 

 

 

uhi cyber course reflections

TEACHER’S REFLECTIONS ON CLPL – UHI INTRO TO CYBER SECURITY ONLINE COURSE FOR TEACHERS

“Courses like this are vital to give teachers the skills and confidence to deliver Cyber Security to their pupils.”

by Darren Brown, Computing Science Teacher from Inverness High School in Highland (@invernesshigh), Northern Alliance

I’ve been keen for a few years to bring in more Cyber Security into my school but admittedly I was a little put off due to my lack of knowledge and having no idea how to even start to approach the practical work.

The Intro to Cyber Security course from UHI was exactly what I needed. It did require a few hours a week of work but I progressed through all the basics of Cyber Security building my knowledge. Having done online courses before I was used to working independently but on this course although I could work when suited it me we also had a specific recorded lecture a week to watch and tutorial session where all the students could tune in, ask questions and share ideas. There was also a discussion board for interaction and posting ideas, issues or questions anyone had. There were various extra resources, links, videos and websites available to go into more detail if I wanted to and all related to the latest real world scenarios. There were plenty of practical tasks on various online systems to do hands-on work to build on the theory as well as setup of virtual machines to do proper Ethical Hacking.

At all times what was studied was brought back to thinking about how you could introduce and bring concepts to life in your own classroom. Even the assessments are tailored to creating materials and ideas for classes.

The course had a mix of primary, Computing and other subject secondary teachers so was very accessible for all introducing the key building blocks of Cyber Security but allowing those who wished to do hands on Ethical Hacking to upskill to think about delivering the SQA National Progression Award (NPA) in Cyber Security.

Everyone is very busy but this is a CPD course that will directly help your teaching on the ground of Cyber Security. The lecturers were very approachable, gave any help required, answered questions as well as being flexible to teacher’s busy weekly schedules with deadlines. Like general Computing Science it is very clear we need to bring more Cyber Security into all schools at all levels.

“Courses like this are vital to give teachers the skills and confidence to deliver Cyber Security to their pupils.”

abertay cyber security course

ETHICAL HACKING MODULE AT ABERTAY UNIVERSITY – REFLECTIONS OF A TEACHER

In today’s world I am sure I don’t need to point out how important cyber security is and it will be even more central in the future. Understanding how to protect both your financial and personal data is vital for all pupils and not just those interested in a career in computing. As a Computing Science teacher it is therefore my duty to ensure I do all I can to have the next generation as prepared as possible. 

So that I can give the skills needed for all levels, I realised I needed to have a good understanding of language and skills around cyber security as well as having up to date course material. This would then allow me to both develop a curriculum to suit all BGE pupils as well those interested in Cyber Security as a career. 

I have been attempting to introduce the National Progression Award in Cyber Security to senior pupils over the last couple of years. I attended various SQA courses and seminars, I read all the material and I did some online courses from other providers. This all gave me some confidence but I still never quite felt able to have real discussions or importantly problem solve when inevitably things go wrong. I still spent most of my time responding to pupils with “let me go find out” and start asking colleagues and web searching.  

When I was offered the chance to do the Ethical Hacking Module with Abertay University I jumped at the chance.  

For the first couple of weeks I felt completely out of my depth but I re-watched lectures, re-attempted the practical work and in the weeks following I was feeling confident in at least discussing topics with the NPA students using the industry language and giving them anecdotes that I wouldn’t have previously. 

The course was clearly designed to align with the NPA and this meant that the same issues I  came across are likely to be those that  the pupils might also find challenging. Although I am far from being a cyber security expert, I now have much more confidence and the increased skills needed to support pupils who will go on to specialise. I have been able to bring to BGE classes a new ethical hacking and data security topic added to S2.  

If you are a Computing Science teacher, whether presenting pupils to NPA Cyber Security or not, I would recommend taking the chance to do this course if offered.

 

Shona McAlpine (@MsSMcAlpine)

Computing Science Teacher, Stirling High School (SHS Computing (@SHS_CompSci)

INSPIRING DIGITAL ENTERPRISE AWARDS AT GROVE ACADEMY

iDEA Awards, Grove Academy

Gavin Pyott, PT Computing Science

I became aware of the iDEA awards by chance when it was first launched 3 years ago. I can’t explain how glad I am that I did. The programme is so well written and produced that all learners are drawn into the modules and are keen to do more. Due to the positive impact iDEA had with classes in my department l began promoting the awards and encouraging others to use it within their schools. As a result of this l was awarded the title of Teacher Ambassador from iDEA.  

The Inspiring Digital Enterprise Award, known as iDEA, is an international programme that helps students develop and demonstrate digital, enterprise and employability skills.

Since its launch, iDEA has established itself as the digital equivalent of The Duke of Edinburgh Award. The iDEA awards are recognised by universities and employers so are a great addition to any student’s CV.

The iDEA awards allow students to map their knowledge and understanding of the digital world through a series of modules (badges).

The badges have been designed to unlock new opportunities and raise awareness of the diverse range of careers in our digital world, all the while allowing students to gain an industry recognised award to help them stand out from the crowd.

To achieve a Bronze Award, students need to earn a minimum of 250 points, including at least 40 points in each of the core categories of the curriculum: Citizen, Worker, Maker and Entrepreneur.

• CITIZEN BADGES cover digital awareness, safety and ethics.

• WORKER BADGES introduce tools and techniques which are useful in the digital workplace.

• MAKER BADGES cover digital creativity and building and making in the digital world.

• ENTREPRENEUR BADGES explain how to originate ideas and bring them to life.

• GAMER BADGES investigate gamification techniques and help people learn how to make games.

These badges are all very informative and explain complex concepts in a straightforward, easy to understand, way. All badges are designed to be interactive, allowing pupils to answer questions as they go, building up their knowledge step-by-step.

To help track student progress iDEA have launched ‘organiser codes’ and the organiser area. This allows you to provide pupils with a simple code to add to their iDEA profiles. This will then pull the progress charts for each pupil together into a handy, easy to use spreadsheet.

After completing the Bronze award, many pupils volunteer to move on to the Silver. Unlike Bronze, the Silver award has been written as a series of topics. Each topic is story-based with students being guided through a real-life scenario as they discover the skills required to progress.

Due to the amazing quality and excellent writing in the badges in the programme the target audience range has really been opened up. I have successfully delivered the iDEA award in S1, S2 and S3. We now have pupils is S4-6 who are also tapping into the programme as it has caught their attention. iDEA also works great in an upper primary setting. My own daughter liked the look of the badges and had a go herself. She successfully completed the Bronze award in Primary 6 and completed her Silver when in Primary 7. Not wanting to stop there she completed a total of 50 Bronze badges to become ‘Badge Champion’ and completed the remaining Silver topic to become a

‘Silver Star’. This determination to complete the modules has been replicated by students in my classes who applied the Pokemon ‘got to get them all’ approach to the badges and awards. I have to admit, I have done this too! The iDEA badges are so interesting and informative I found I couldn’t stop either! As an introduction to a new concept (block chain) or to brush up existing skills the iDEA Award is great CLPL for staff too.

Mr Pyott has created a Sway which will give you a full introduction to the work and process involved in using iDEA and his top tips. To view click here.

To see more from Mr Pyott you can visit his Twitter feed on @MrPyott

To see more from Grove Academy, please visit their Twitter feed on @Grove_Academy

You can find out more on iDEA Awards via https://idea.org.uk/ 

CREATIVE COMPUTING SCIENCE AT STEWARTON ACADEMY

Fraser McKay, Computing Teacher at Stewarton Academy takes some time to talk about Computing Science delivery in the school.  Fraser discusses gender balance, escape rooms and physical computing among other topics,  We also hear from students in S2 and S5 about their experiences. in the course of these 3 videos.

Stewarton Academy is in East Ayrshire.

https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/ea/stewartonacademysite2016/

 

TEACHERS’ REFLECTIONS ON ADDITIONAL TEACHING QUALIFICATION IN COMPUTING

Jonathan Henderson, Lasswade Primary School, Midlothian, @MrHenderson321
Emma Hedges, Victoria Primary School, Falkirk, @MissHedgesVPS

We are delighted to be part of the first cohort of a new program of CLPL aimed at up-levelling primary teachers’ skills in delivering the Technologies curriculum. This online program leverages some of the University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI)’s existing courses for cross-qualifying existing secondary teachers into Computer Science but provides primary teachers with the expertise necessary to deliver the computing curriculum up to SCQF Level 3. This course has been designed and supported by the British Computer Society, Microsoft, Education Scotland and the Scottish Government.

Currently, we are in Week 4 of the first 12 week module on Databases and Computer Systems, with a second module planned to start in September which will focus on Coding and Web Technologies. So far we have learned about Software, Hardware, Numbering Systems and Logic Gates, and we will soon be moving onto learning about databases and SQL. The work for each week is split up into sections which has contributed to making the course manageable to fit in around a full time teaching job. Each week has involved gaining new knowledge via videos and Sways. There have also been interactive elements such as mini quizzes and using what we have learned to complete tasks such as calculations involving binary numbers. There has been a feeling of satisfaction when we have been able to use our new found knowledge, or from learning from our mistakes, to complete these tasks.

We have also been given the opportunity to complete an additional entry-level Cisco course about Linux which many participants have signed up to complete.

So far, it has been fascinating to go further into subjects which are beyond the normal scope of the primary curriculum and refresh and update our understanding of computing. Through being provided with this opportunity we are once again in the role of the learner. This has been an interesting experience and has made us consider the different ways in which we can share what we are learning to the wide range of needs of our learners, as well as with our colleagues.

We are also enjoying the opportunity to network with colleagues from across Scotland as well as across primary and secondary education. It has been interesting to learn about the different backgrounds of our colleagues who are also enrolled on the course and to be able to interact with them online either on the UHI learning space or on Twitter. With the submission date of our first assessment approaching, we’re very much focussed on doing our best in order to get the most out of the course both for ourselves and for our pupils.

Find out more about the qualification here

REMOVING BARRIERS TO LEARNING COMPUTING SCIENCE AT SPEYSIDE HIGH SCHOOL

As a teacher of Computer Science I’ve always looked for ways to remove barriers to learning and make the curriculum more accessible. One of the biggest hurdles to this has been the complex nature of managing the installation and use of IDEs (Integrated Development Environments) to teach computer programming. Without a burning passion for the subject, you can forget getting a young person to download something like Microsoft Visual Studio or Eclipse at home.

A few years ago, whilst looking for a solution to my concerns I switched to repl.it to teach computer programming with the language Python. Repl.it is an online development environment which is completely browser based and requires no software installations on the user’s device. It is device and operating system agnostic, so it will work on desktops, laptops, mobile and tablet devices.

An example of the repl.it programming interface (Python 3.8)

An example of the repl.it programming interface (Python 3.8)

Over this period, I have transitioned from using repl.it to teach software design, to using repl.it to teach all practical elements of the course with support for creating rich web content using HTML, CSS and JavaScript and interrogating databases using SQLite. Students can easily share these projects with each other and with me. There are even tools to allow students to work together on the same project, allowing for latency free peer programming through repl.it’s “multiplayer” feature.

Repl.it provides tools for assessment, through their Assignments tool which provides the student with a set of instructions, a pre-populated piece of code as a starting point and a console window. The student can then submit the assignment to the teacher for written feedback and receives a notification when this is sent to them. Repl.it assignments also allow for test conditions to be set to provide some level of instant feedback to the student.

 

 

An example of an assignment in Repl.it showing student code, instructions, console and feedback area.

This has enabled my students and I to make a smooth transition from classroom teaching to remote learning for National 5 and Higher Computing Science during the COVID-19 lockdown. Although using online tools for home learning has always been a part of my pedagogical practice at this school, I’ve adapted my methods slightly. At Speyside High School, learners are currently using a combination of Google Classroom, Scholar, repl.it and YouTube videos that I have created to begin their new Senior Phase courses.

To create learning materials, I am using OBS Studio to capture my screen and webcam, which means I am then able to explain concepts to the students as if I was teaching a class and seamlessly flip between my course material and my live coding environment on repl.it.

The tools mentioned in this blogpost are all free to use for teachers.

Repl.it can be found at www.repl.it
OBS Studio can be found at www.obsproject.com

Marc McWhirter
PT Computing & Technical / Speyside High School
@SpeysideCS

Speyside High @speysiderector

 

BEBRAS COMPUTATIONAL THINKING CHALLENGE AT PORTLETHEN ACADEMY

post by Ian Simpson (@familysimpson), Faculty Head of ICT at Portlethen Academy (@portyacad)

What is the Bebras Computing Challenge?

The Bebras Computing Challenge is a long-running international competition which promotes the importance of computational thinking and problem solving skills in a wider world context. It is organised in over 50 countries and designed to get students aged 6 to 18 from all over the world excited about computing.

Students have to employ a variety of problem-solving strategies in order to complete up to 18 challenges in the allotted time. High scoring students may be lucky enough to qualify for a celebration event which, in previous years, has taken place at Hertford College, Oxford.

Why we entered the competition

At Portlethen Academy all S1-3 students take part in the competition, with those in senior phase given the chance to participate as part of their Computing Science or Mathematics classes. Every individual who takes part receives a digital certificate from the University of Oxford which can be printed out in school or at home and those who achieve scores in the top 25% of the cohort are invited to take part in the TCSOCC Challenge in February as recognition of their strong computational thinking skills and to increase their exposure to computer programming problems.

Faculty Head of ICT Ian Simpson has coached groups of students to take part in the Bebras Computing Challenge since 2013. “To get the best out of the groups it shouldn’t be an add on or break from ‘normal lessons’, it is in the school’s best interest to embed teaching of computational thinking skills and prepare for the challenge using the practice challenges or the Perfect Day app.”

What pupils learnt from it

Seven students from S1 and 2 scored highly enough in the 2019 challenge to receive an invitation to the celebration event at Hertford College in January 2020. Thanks to support from contacts at Total and Aberdeenshire DYW six were able to travel to Oxford to take part in the final round, experience Computing Science sample lectures and find out more about life as a student at the University of Oxford. Ian Simpson added “This was the first time that such a high number of students from a state school in Aberdeenshire had qualified for the final round. It was a surprise in some ways but testament to the hard work the students put in preparing for the challenge.”

As well as giving students the chance to think creatively and apply their knowledge from across a variety of subject areas the Bebras Computing Challenge helps build student resilience. These skills have increasing demand in further and higher education and will serve them well in the workplace of the future. Taking part in the final round also gave the students increased confidence in their own abilities and, on the drive back to Heathrow, many were sharing strategies they had learned from other participants to improve on their scores next year.

Sign up for Bebras here.