Teaching London Computing – Newsletter #13 – Winter 2023 | Teaching London Computing: A RESOURCE HUB from CAS LONDON & CS4FN

This is the full text of the latest newsletter which I (Jo B) email to all the UK teachers on our Teaching London Computing subscription list. Despite the name we support teachers across the UK and our resources can be freely downloaded by anyone anywhere in the world.

If you would like to sign up to received emailed copies of the newsletter please use the orange form here.

Christmas Lectures – we’re livestreaming them
Other events
A Bit of CS4FN – more mini booklets coming
Free classroom resources
Courses
Computing-themed Christmas gifts

1. Christmas Lectures – we’re livestreaming them

The Royal Institution Christmas Lectures – livestreamed to venues around the UK
FREE EVENT: come and watch a livestream of the Christmas Lectures being recorded.

The Ri #XmasLectures are given in the Faraday Lecture Theatre at the Royal Institution in central London to a live audience of young people. This year Prof Mike Wooldridge will be presenting “The Truth About AI”.

The lectures are filmed by the BBC for later broadcast over the Christmas holidays and the Ri will also be beaming out a livestream of the event by videolink so that more people can watch the lectures being recorded as they happen. There are several venues around the UK and the CS4FN / Teaching London Computing team will be hosting FREE livestream screenings at QMUL’s People’s Palace over the three separate recording dates (Tue 12 / Thu 14 and Sat 16 December). The team at QMUL’s Centre of the Cell will also be hosting the livestreaming events.

Please let parents and guardians know that they can bring the whole family to watch. The lectures are aimed at 11-17 year olds but younger and older siblings are welcome too.

Twitter / X hashtag: #XmasLectures

Other UK venues will be offering the livestream too.

📜A few days before on 6th December Mike will also be giving one of The Turing Lectures at the Royal Institution “The Turing Lectures: The future of generative AI”.

2. Other events

Please see our “Techy Talks for non-techy people” page for the latest list of talks and events aimed at a largely non-technical audience. There are public lectures, games events, things to watch at home or attend in person and a mix of free and not-free. There are about 20 events listed.

⚠️ Please note that Paul Curzon’s free online CAS Research talk for teachers on medical device software on 22 November 2023 has been postponed until Spring 2024.

I’m A Scientist Get Me Out Of Here 2024
You may have heard of or taken part in this with your class. Students get to ask scientists questions about a particular topic (I took part as a scientist in 2021) on the forum and there are also fast-paced live (text-based) discussions for schools, with questions coming in from a class of 30+ young people and being answered as quickly as possibly by a rotating team of scientists. Next year they’ve tweaked the format slightly but there are themes on computer science and technology. See more at https://imascientist.org.uk/activity-themes/ and sign up to take part.

ICT for Education seminars 2023 and beyond
These are “…for Computing teachers and school leaders at primary, secondary and FE level. ICT for Education seminars look to foster cooperation and coordination among Computer science teachers and to develop a community with a common goal, focus, and direction on the provision of a computer science education that is inclusive and fit for purpose. Expert speakers address the issues and challenges facing the teaching of Computing / Computer Science in UK schools.” The seminars are free and take place in different venues. The next is 28th November at Roehampton University. More information and tickets.

Ukie Digital Schoolhouse – Junior Esports Tournament

“…get your primary school involved with our junior tournament, for pupils aged 8-11. We are including some new exciting titles as part of this year’s tournament, featuring Mario Kart 8, Just Dance Now and The Addams Family Mansion Mayhem.

If your school is part of the Digital Schoolhouse programme, there is no entry cost to join in with this tournament! If you’re not a Digital Schoolhouse, you can still sign up for a very small cost, and we can provide you with all that you need to get involved.” More information.

3. A Bit of CS4FN – more mini booklets coming

More ‘A Bit of CS4FN’ booklets and a new primary puzzle booklet coming next year

Thanks to our project funding from the EPSRC we will be producing more of our smaller primary-focused “A Bit of CS4FN” magazines (see image above). These have short stories, puzzles and things to do and are aimed at ~9-12 year olds. We include mix subjects too (because primary teachers are often teaching the whole curriculum, not just computing) so watch out for lots of interdisciplinary mini magazines coming your way in 2024! Teachers have told us that they’ve used them in teaching but also leave the mini magazines in reading boxes for kids to read by themselves. Younger kids might enjoy looking at the pictures.

• You can download the first three issues here and if you’re not subscribed to our ‘bit of’ mailing list you can add yourself here or contact Jo to update your record.

Our other primary-focused booklets can be downloaded as PDFs from https://cs4fndownloads.wordpress.com/primary/

4. Free classroom resources

With Christmas around the corner we have several free activities for your classroom to download.

We’ll also be re-doing our CS4FN Christmas Computing Advent Calendar with a blog post every day that links (however tenuously) a festive aspect of Christmas (e.g. decorated baubles) with something to do with computer science (e.g. printed circuit boards!). We first ran this in 2021 and it was quite popular and also fun to do.

Christmas kriss-kross puzzles for filling in
These are fun puzzles for teachers to print out and for kids to do. There’s a list of words of different lengths and a grid like a crossword puzzle. Each word fits in one space only. If you want to use the puzzles as a teaching moment the page draws attention to the types of skills involved that computer scientists use too, for example logic and pattern-matching. For much younger children you might want to focus more on numeracy and literacy. Find out more.

Christmas pixel puzzles for colouring in
Also for younger children we have some Pixel Puzzles which are dual purpose. Firstly just a fun thing to colour in but also a potential opportunity to talk about image and data compression (see the symmetrical puzzles). Find out more.

Christmas mini-zine for colouring in
Colour in, fold and cut or tear this cute little CS4FN Christmas & computing-themed booklet. It also uses one or two of the puzzles above. Find out more.

Available for A4 and US Letter sizes.

Display to showcase the CS4FN Christmas zine with a green panel

Lots more festive activities here that are linked to computing below, including our festive hexahexaflexagon (help Father Christmas find all the presents).

Christmas Computing

5. Courses

Isaac Computer Science offer events for students around the UK and resources for teachers (free registration / login required).

NCCE – the National Centre for Computing Education offers courses for computing teachers. You can filter by level, location and whether in-person or online. There is some funding available for state schools.

National Careers Service: The Skills Toolkit – the UK Government has a curated list of FREE courses in a variety of topics and at different levels. It includes courses in maths, using a computer (computer essentials / digital literacy) as well as computer science topics and coding.

UK Government: Free courses for jobs – for post-A-level students: a curated list of free courses for 19+ year olds, which offer a Level 3 qualification. If eligible the course may be free. Digital is one of the topics but many other subjects too. See the free course-finder.

6. Computing-themed Christmas gifts

And just for fun, last year’s blog post about some suitably festive presents for computing fans. It includes sensible books and fun coasters made from circuit boards.

For fans of magic we also have our Conjuring with Computation book for sale, by Paul Curzon and Peter McOwan. Find out more and download two free chapters here.