DigiLearnScot have been delivering live lessons across the country to support the delivery and professional learning of digital skills and Computing Science. These live lessons have been aimed at learners and teachers in the BGE.

Since October 2022, we, along with partners such as Barefoot Computing, Microbit Educational Foundation, Tech She Can, MakeItHappen, Daydream Believers and many others, 41 live lessons have been delivered, engaging almost 48,000 learners. Over these 41 lessons, 1990 teachers from 1900 schools have taken part.

Many of our live lessons were delivered during our focus weeks. We have had focus weeks on

Cyber
Digital Literacy
Computing Science
Artificial Intelligence

These focus weeks involved code/create-a-long activities during the day for teachers and their classes to join and take part in, followed by professional learning and sharing practice sessions in the evening for teachers.

Our most recent Computing Science Week in November 2023 saw practical code and create a long sessions as well as some unplugged activities broadly suitable for BGE learners, and two especially for early level learners.

Topics covered during this week included

Data Science
Coding
Design
Prototyping
Physical Computing
Unplugged Computational Thinking

This week would not have been possible without the support from:

Daniel Devine, Craig Steele (Digital Skills Education, Data Education in Schools)
Dr Amanda Ford (West College Scotland)
Suzanne Lustenhouwer (Apple Distinguished Educator)
Helen Orde, Roddy Graham, Catherine Little, Suzanne Pritchard and Paul Graham (Inspire Academy, Scottish Borders)
Callum Croughan, Mary Frances Stewart, Zoe Shanks and Alistair Mackay (Digital School Digital Pedagogy Practitioners, North Lanarkshire)
Dr Lorna Gibson (Micro:bit Educational Foundation)
Kate Farrell and Jasmeen Kanwal (Data Education in Schools project at the University of Edinburgh)
Isabella Lieghio, (Education Consultant, Icon Learning/Barefoot Volunteer)
Francisca Carocca & Jessica Blake-West, (DevTech Research Group, directed by Dr. Marina Bers in Boston College)

Content and recording from this week can be found here

For the first time this year, in March we ran a focus week on AI in Schools. A full recap of sessions can be found here.

The Live Lesson Programme for this week involved

Building AI Solutions – a code along activity using machinelearningforkids
AI Maze – finding the ethical exit
AI Wonderland with MakeItHappen
Tech For Gen AI with with TechSheCan

We had over 6500 learners and their teachers join these create a long sessions.

The teacher CLPL offer during this week saw 9 professional learning and sharing practice sessions taking place around the use of generative AI in Scottish schools and potential for change. Over 120 teachers joined us for these events and many more have watched on catch up via our youtube channel.

Feedback From Live Events

Our S2 Pupils really enjoyed the lesson, they enjoyed coding along and learning as they were coding – there was plenty time for them to go back and get the code to work. They spent the next period adding to their maze games to make it their own. some added enemies, others added ways to lose points.
This was P3s first introduction to Micro:bit (apart from those who came to my code club last year). They were so excited and desperate to keep their Hot Potato games in class so they can play with them. When I asked if they wanted to learn more with the Micro:bit there was a resounding cheer. Thank you for running the code-along – it made it feel really special for them!
P5 thought it was good and we had to listen to answer questions. It was good to learn how to make games. We would like to do more of these.
My P7s really enjoyed the live lesson on Data Selfies. They were all very engaged and the instructions were really clear and easy to follow. Great session.
Great session very inspiring for the pupils
Pupils engaged well in the lesson. Want to go on and make games.
Learners were really engaged and enjoyed using the coding. It was set at a really good pace for them and pitched just right for Primary 6. Looking forward to our next session!
Loved the session. As someone who knows how important it is for pupils to learn about the digital world but has absolutely NO ability to teach code it was the perfect mix of challenge, fun and accessibility for my class. Thank you
A brilliant lesson! Delivered by experts it meant that everything was clear for the children and myself. It has encouraged me to sign up for more events like this. We will continue to develop our selfies tomorrow. Thank you both!
Excellent presentation- very engaging for students to watch. Shout outs and exploring individuals work – gave it a “real live” feeling.
Our class just loved collaborating with everyone in the chat ! Great start to computing science week for us thank you!
It was enjoyable. The instructions were clear and the activity was fun and gave us a lot of choice when programming. Thank you
Children really enjoyed creating their own AI classroom. The speed of the tutorial was quite quick especially during the scratch session but since I had tested the website before the lesson I was able to assist. Great lesson-that kept the children engaged. Thank you!
Great session. First time class have used scratch and loved it. We are now planning on exploring program more.
A really good lesson on using coding. Pupils found it quite challenging, in a good way, and it led to lots of questioning/discussion around coding. Thank you😊
Thank you! We learned loads. Can’t wait to finish our apps
Very engaging and fast paced. Some good follow up information which we will access especially Keynote. Really enjoyed. Engaging and clear.
The children really enjoyed it. It was great to find out other resources that schools are using across Scotland.
Children absolutely loved this.