Category: Computing Science

Bebras Computing 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.

 

Inspiring Digital Enterprise Awards, 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/ 

Race for the Line Event by Liz Dighton at Boroughmuir High School

On a rather cold, but thankfully dry, Wednesday all 220 of our S1 pupils were involved in an inter-disciplinary project which was part of the National BBC micro:bit Model Rocket Car Challenge called Race for the Line.  Over 400 schools from all over the UK are participating in the competition.  The inspiration behind the national project is the Bloodhound car which is attempting to beat the 1000mph world land speed record and also inspire the next generation of engineers to get involved in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths.  #STEM 

In Design and Technology classes leading up to the Race Day, pupils worked together in teams of 4 to make a foam rocket car creating a design folio which showed how they had considered aerodynamics, friction etc.  In Computing classes the pupils programmed the Micro:bits which were used to carry out the timing mechanism on the race track and in Science they explored the forces which would be applied to the cars. 

On Race Day we were joined in school by a team from the Royal Navy who are based at Rosyth and are members of the crew of the new aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales.  The Navy team equipped each car with a solid fuel rocket and setup the Race Track in the playground.  Each class took turns to race their cars and the times were recorded for each car.  The Navy had brought along one of their PT instructors so to keep warm pupils carried out a fitness test with a couple of our S1’s managing to reach the fitness standard for the Royal Navy while wearing their school shoes!!!  After racing the cars the pupils then used our new Dual teaching space on the 3rd floor to create some posters to summarise their learning in this project.  Some of these are now on display in the classrooms around the school. 

The top 3 car teams went forward to the Regional Final on the 3rd of May when they competed against all of the teams from other school in East Central Scotland @ the Royal Navy facility at Rosyth and 3 also qualified for the Scottish Final at the Barracks at Redford.   

 

 

 

Ada Lovelace Day – Opening Opportunities with Digital Technology by Emma Hedges

Digital technology skills are one of my favourite things to teach because of the opportunities and experiences they provide pupils with. I have taught children who struggle with putting pen to paper, however when provided with the correct technology they flourish. The technology we use in the classroom has allowed my pupil’s imaginations and creativity to come to life and it has boosted the confidence of shy children, allowing them to become more animated and involved with their learning.

Technology allows learners to engage in their education in ways that haven’t always been possible. I hope that this will allow my pupils, who may previously have disengaged from education, to go on to explore avenues that wouldn’t otherwise have been possible.

 

Fun fact: Ada Lovelace and I share a birthday, just a few hundred years apart!

@MissHedgesVPS

19 November 2020 4-5pm. Confidence, creativity, and curiosity in early level computing science: unplugged and outdoors. PM Webinar via Glow

 

This webinar will take place within Microsoft Teams within Glow. A Glow login is required to join the webinar.

This webinar will focus on how we can create experiences and spaces that allows unplugged computing science to be embedded at the early level through play and where to access a wealth of free learning and teaching resources to embed unplugged computing science at the early level.

This session is for practitioners working with learners in ELC or Primary School AND all other practitioners who work with learners at any level, with an interest in creatively embedding unplugged computing science their indoor and outdoor learning environments.

This video is a recording of the first early level computing science webinar of this series. Please feel free to view it before attending this webinar if you wish (not essential).

If you do not have Glow l access, the session is being delivered earlier in the day at 10am via Google Meet. Please look at the other events listed in the upcoming webinars section of the blog: 

This webinar will also be recorded.

 All information for early level webinars is also available here via this Sway. 

Please click on this Eventbrite link to sign up.

19 November 2020 10-11am. Confidence, creativity, and curiosity in early level computing science: unplugged and outdoors. AM Webinar via Google Meet.

 

This webinar will take place within Google Meet. A GMail login is required to join the webinar.

This webinar will focus on how we can create experiences and spaces that allows unplugged computing science to be embedded at the early level through play and where to access a wealth of free learning and teaching resources to embed unplugged computing science at the early level.

This session is for practitioners working with learners in ELC or Primary School AND all other practitioners who work with learners at any level, with an interest in creatively embedding unplugged computing science their indoor and outdoor learning environments.

This video is a recording of the first early level computing science webinar of this series. Please feel free to view it before attending this webinar if you wish (not essential).

If you do not have GMail access, the session is being delivered later in the day at 4pm via Teams within Glow. Please look at the other events listed in the upcoming webinars section of the blog: 

This webinar will also be recorded.

 All information for early level webinars is also available here via this Sway. 

Please click on this Eventbrite link to sign up.

30 November 2020, 16:00 – 16:45 Code Club H&WB and Environmental learning resources

A Glow Login is required to join this webinar. This webinar will take place on Glow, Education Scotland Digital Teams channel.

Join Dr. Lorna Gibson, Programme Manager, Code Club, while she shares new resources available for practitioners using coding to explore the environment, health and wellbeing, and more. Project demonstrations plus opportunity for questions.

Register here

03 November 2020 16:00 – 16:45, Experience running an online Code Club

This webinar will take place on Glow, Education Scotland Digital Teams channel. A Glow login is required.

Join Dr. Lorna Gibson, Programme Manager, Code Club, for an online session aimed at practitioners. Experience running an online club and try out the new health and wellbeing projects. This is a practical session followed by short Q&A

  Sign up here  

Having the skills and opportunity to work with others using digital technology, Heriot Primary, Renfrewshire

Kay Harvey, Heriot Primary School, Renfrewshire (@HeriotPrimary)

Whenever I plan a lesson, I refer to the Digital Learner poster to ensure that I am incorporating at least one of these skills in my lesson. In my primary one class, we had been learning about shapes and their properties. In order to consolidate their learning, I brought out a shape mat and told them we were going to play a game where they had to travel from one shape to another using a Robot Mouse. This instantly grabbed their attention and I initially let them play around with the mouse to see what they knew and if anyone could work out how to programme the mouse.

A few of the children immediately recognised the arrows from games consoles and their computer keyboard. They began playing with the mouse, using words like forwards and backwards. I then stepped in to show them how to ‘clear’ their instructions and asked them to input one direction, press go and then press clear after the mouse carried out the instruction. This allowed all pupils to take part in the activity at a very basic level.

At this point, some of the children started to ask if they could do a “long move” to get the mouse there quicker. This then opened a discussion about how would you remember what instructions you had put into the mouse. A 4 year old boy suggested working with a partner, where one child could input the instructions into the mouse and the other child could use their hand, place it on the mat and move it along the squares on the mat following the instructions. Working together, the pupils managed to programme the mouse to move across the mat.

This was a great activity to introduce directional language, introduce the concept of coding, as well as ensure that the pupils were confident in being able to identify different shapes. Working together as a team, the pupils were quick to point out if the instruction was correct (that’s right, not left) and would help guide each other to the correct shape, especially if they mistook a pentagon for a hexagon.

 

Celebrating Computing Science on Ada Lovelace Day 2020 in Glasgow

Richard McKean from Glasgow City Council wanted to share a massive thanks from everyone involved in digital learning across Glasgow this Ada Lovelace Day:

“We are very proud of the digital leaders of learning we have in our Early Years Centres, Primary Schools and Secondary Schools as they support each other to ensure our children and young people have essential digital literacy and computing science skills.​

Today on Ada Lovelace Day we would like to give a ‘Big Shout Out’ to the ten female primary teachers who, during lockdown, recorded lessons for primary children to develop their skills in digital literacy and computing science in a progressive and fun way. ​

These recorded lessons are now being used by teachers and children in our schools across the city. Thank you to them!​”