6 Ways to respond to requests for pointless data

So, there you are, basking in your new-found freedom to report to parents what their children can actually do in Computing and ICT, when the data impresario in your school says they want you to supply the school office with a “Level” for each child. And for good measure, they want you to do that four times a term in order to monitor progress. How should you respond?
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Preparing for the new Computing curriculum: what if #4

The new Computing curriculum is little more than a checklist. But what it lacks in detail, especially regarding progression, it more than makes up for in terms of the freedom it affords schools to interpret the new Programme of Study in a way that suits them.

With that in mind, have you ever researched your own area

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5 reasons schools need computing teachers with expertise in the subject

Some Principals and Headteachers think that a good way around the problem of teaching computing is to not worry about whether teachers have subject knowledge at all. “All we need are facilitators”, they say, “while the kids can teach themselves and each other.” This is, as any teacher knows (or should know), easy to say, less easy to do, and not altogether the most desirable thing to do even if you can do it. However, just in case your school happens to be “led” by one of the aforementioned Headteachers, here are some arguments you may want to use. I think that any one of them should suffice, and all of them together make for a cast-iron case.
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Getting permission to go on an ICT or Computing course

On this date 4 years ago I published an article that I think is still relevant today.

It strikes me that, what with a new Computing Programme of Study coming into effect in September 2014, ie under a year’s time, Getting permission to go on an ICT course or to a conference is rather timely. Teachers of ICT having to become

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Report from the 3D print show

Richard Smith, of Igloo in Education and Amazing ICT, recently visited the 3D Print Show in London. What did he make of it?

Hi, Richard Smith here from Igloo in Education. I am delighted to have been asked by Terry to do a guest blog post on the 3D print show that took place in London from 7-9th November.

The venue of the event, the Business Design Centre in Islington, sent out a clear message out to visitors: 3D printing should be about innovative design and the encouragement of original business ideas. Of

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My analogue program

Absolute and comparative advantage bookWhen, on my teacher training course, I was told I had create a resource to be used in school, I thought it would be fun to devise a programmed learning guide to the economic concepts of absolute and comparative advantages. Unfortunately, that was in 1974. Word processors were not yet ubiquitous, and home computers had not yet been invented. That came a year or two later. In any case, when I finally did get my hands on a word processor, courtesy of a friend of mine on my MA course, it was slo-o-o-o-o-w.
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A history of data storage and recovery

I once mentioned to the kids I was teaching how useful I found having CD-ROMs to store stuff on. “What?!”, they said. “You had CDs back then?”

Young people always seem to have a working assumption in life that the technology they use only came into existence when they did. Anything else is ancient history. With that in mind, perhaps your pupils will find the infographic below useful and interesting. It charts the development of data storage and recovery from the time of Babbage, in 1834. Along the way there are interesting articles, photos and videos.

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EdExec Live - ICT Matters: A conference worth going to

I look for three main things in a conference:

  • Good topics, by which I mean not only ones about the latest fad but useful, down-to-earth ones too, and ones that make you think and reflect
  • Good speakers, by which I mean people who are experts in their field, and not merely good entertainers
  • An opportunity to meet and network with others
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10 reasons to attend BETT

BETT2013It’s that time of year again. No, I don’t mean the Christmas lights and shopping, but starting to think about BETT in January. If you’re serious about educational technology you really must try to get there, even if you can only manage a day: you’re bound to see something that you find interesting and useful.
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Computational thinking and spreadsheets

Data Model Template - Excel spreadsheetOne way you can “get into” computational thinking is through spreadsheets. Taking a practical view of what “computational thinking” means (see What is Computational Thinking?), I’d say that spreadsheets definitely fit the bill. In order to try to solve a problem using a spreadsheet, which is a tool for modelling or simulation, you have to do the following things:
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British Gas and the Internet of Things

Andrew Brem HiveBritish Gas and I go back a long way. For years they have provided me with heating and hot water, and until relatively recently with energy for cooking too. I won’t say it’s all been smooth running. For example, there was the time when they threatened to get the bailiffs round to my flat in order to read the meter that they had removed the week before. But on the whole they’ve been alright. I daresay were it not for the customary British reserve we’d be on first name terms by now. I’d write letters beginning,

“Dear British”

and go on to say how pleased I am to receive the latest bill and how much pleasure I have in enclosing payment.

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A self-marking spreadsheet

I like a challenge so I thought I’d try to create a self-marking spreadsheet in Excel. (Look, some men like fast cars, some like sport, and some like womanising. Me? I like spreadsheets. OK?)

 

I was inspired to have a go at this by someone called Lee Rymill, who uploaded a self-marking spreadsheet to the CAS resources area. However, I wanted to take it a few steps further…

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We don’t need no official scheme of work for Computing

It is my fervent hope that Computing At School (CAS) does not update its Computing scheme of work, that Naace does not update its own scheme of work, and that the two organisations do not produce a joint scheme of work. This is not to disparage the work they have done so far, including a very useful document giving joint CAS-Naace guidance on dealing with the new Programme of Study. Indeed, it’s my belief that between them they will produce an excellent scheme of work which raises my concerns.
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Good riddance to levels in ICT and Computing

P1020520Who’s afraid of life without Levels? Quite a few people if the number of schemes of work and assessment grids being developed that incorporate levels are anything to go by. Working without levels is clearly very hard: it is almost impossible to think, much less talk, about pupils’ progress without mentioning levels at some stage.

Yet this is precisely what the government expects.

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9 Challenges of Project-Based Learning

Although I am an advocate of project-based learning, I am not unaware of its challenges. As the old military adage has it, failure to prepare is preparation to fail, so here is a list of what I consider to be the main issues you need to be aware of. Many of them may be subsumed under the general heading “management”, but I believe it’s worth itemising them all nonetheless.
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