Monthly Archives: October 2014

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Other courses, events and support for Computing teachers – a mini round-up

Teaching London Computing is one of several projects that support teachers in delivering the new curriculum. If you’re new to teaching Computing, or need a refresher there are lots of sources of information online and events around the UK. Here are a few examples.
A great place to start is Computing At School (CAS) which is free to join and has an active discussion forum as well as a free listing of events.

Computing At School: http://computingatschool.org.uk/

Diversity in Computing Conference 2014 – from Computing At School
“The CAS #include Diversity in Computing Conference is an opportunity for teachers, professionals and academics to meet specialists in our 5 focus strands. Our strands are Gender, Ethnicity, Disability, Socio-Economic Status and SEN. The event will be a mixture of key note speeches and workshops. You will be able to choose to attend two out of our five workshops and gain an insight into how to promote inclusion in your chosen area.”

It takes place (not in London) on Saturday 15 November 2014 from 10am to 3:30pm in Kingswinford.

#include – Computer Science for everyone, @CASinclude, http://casinclude.org.uk/

There are also some one-day courses for teachers such as “Moving from GCSE to A-Level OCR Computing” from Philip Allan Events / Hodder Education which takes place on Monday 10 November 2014, in London, from 10.15 to 4pm. There will also be an AQA course running on Monday 17 November 2014.

“We have designed this workshop to make sure your students perform to their highest level in AS and A2 Computing by providing you with in-depth advice on teaching the subject.”

Philip Allan Events for Teachers (Computing): http://www.philipallanupdates.co.uk/Subjects/Computing.aspx?sid=52

If you can’t easily attend a class in person there are online courses too such as MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) – here’s one at Warwick University which started on 16 October but is still taking registrations.

Computing for Teachers MOOC: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/dcs/schools/cpd/
“This free online computer science course is aimed at teachers preparing to deliver the new computing curriculum. It will prepare you with the necessary subject knowledge and programming skills to be confident in teaching computing up to GCSE. The course provides in-depth coverage across 3 areas:
• Computing concepts,
• Programming in Python,
• How to teach the concepts”

Please note: as we do not know the detailed content of others’ courses we can’t endorse them – but we thought you might like to know about what other people and organisations are up to. We’re happy to mention free or paid-for courses and events on our pages that are relevant to London teachers (and we don’t charge for listing information, or accept any advertising ‘fee’).

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Free Computing workshop with Paul Curzon – Unplugged programming / algorithms, Wed 29 Oct 1.30-5pm

Eventbrite - Free Computing workshop with Paul Curzon - Unplugged computing / algorithms at QMUL for this event on 29 October 2014, 1.30pm to 5pm.

On Wednesday 29 October 2014 Prof Paul Curzon will be doing a 3 hour workshop session at Queen Mary University of London on unplugged programming and algorithms. Previous sessions have proved extremely popular so we recommend booking early.

The workshop will start at 1.30 and continue until 5pm with a half hour break for tea and networking in the middle. These workshops are free for Computing teachers.

You can register for a free place using the orange Eventbrite button above or at the end of the page, or visit the Eventbrite page.

When: Wednesday 29 October 2014, 1.30pm to 5pm
Where: QMUL (Queen Mary University of London)
For whom: Computing teachers
What: Two workshops (click on the links below to find out more and download free class activity sheets)
• Invisible palming! Intelligent paper? So what is an algorithm?
• Programming unplugged: learning programming without computers
Cost: FREE!

Although these workshops are aimed at those who’ll be teaching the Computing Science curriculum we have made a few spaces (also free) available to ‘interested persons’ – ie anyone who is interested in finding out how aspects of the computing curriculum can be introduced into the classroom.

1. Invisible palming! Intelligent paper? So what is an algorithm?

Overview
A core idea in the computing curriculum is that of algorithms and algorithmic thinking. But what is an algorithm? We will demonstrate a series of fun and intriguing ways to introduce the core ideas about algorithms. You will pit your wits against my intelligent piece of paper looking not only what an algorithm is but whether machines can ever be intelligent. You will also learn how really simple magic tricks that anyone can do, can illustrate what an algorithm is in a much more fun way than making a cup of tea (!) and you will learn the magic too!

This session will cover:

  • What is an algorithm?
  • Can machines be intelligent?
  • Computational thinking: algorithmic thinking, abstraction

2. Programming unplugged: learning programming without computers

Overview
It’s easy to assume that programming is something you have to learn at a computer but if you want your students to deeply understand programming concepts, rather than blindly getting programs to work then unplugged techniques can work really well to get students started. We will see how to program a robot face that is made of students, look at a simple way to give a deep understanding of how variables work by making them physical, and see how to compile programs onto your class instead of onto a computer.

Session material This session will cover:

  • Inspiring ways to introduce programming away from computers.
  • What is a variable?
  • How does assignment work?
  • Programming simple objects
  • Introducing flow of control and if statements

Activities are suitable for all age groups and can be adapted to fit your teaching needs.

Biography

Paul Curzon is a Professor of Computer Science at Queen Mary, University of London. He runs the cs4fn ‘Computer Science for Fun’ (cs4fn) project, www.cs4fn.org. It aims to inspire school students about computer science through a series of free magazines, website and school shows. He regularly gives such shows around the UK as well as continuous professional development talks to teachers about the cs4fn approach to teaching. He is Director of the Teaching London Computing Project. He was made a UK National Teaching Fellow in 2010 in recognition of his excellence in teaching and outreach, was a finalist in the 2009 Times Higher Education Innovative Teacher of the year award and has twice won the student nominated Queen Mary award for excellence in teaching.

Eventbrite - Free Computing workshop with Paul Curzon - Unplugged computing / algorithms at QMUL for the event on 29 October 2014.