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Online, free, aimed at secondary schools – Barts and Queen Mary Science Festival – 15-16 June 2021 ^JB

This event from our QMUL colleagues is aimed at secondary schools with pupils interested in studying science / medicine / dentistry / nursing etc at university (this event is not about computer science though, but keep an eye out for our new schools computing magazine on ‘Smart Health’, CS4FN issue 27, coming soon). Please tell your colleagues.

The Barts & Queen Mary Science Festival moves online this year for its tenth annual event, running virtually via Zoom or MS Teams from 15-16 June. The events are aimed at older secondary school pupils interested in a career in science and medicine and the capacity will be small (this is also the first time they’ve done the event virtually). Below is a short video illustrating what happened (in real life) at the 2016 festival.

If your school would like to sign up please email sciencefestival@qmul.ac.uk. For the history of the festival please see the festival website.

There will also be a number of recorded talks and other fun virtual activities on science festival website (from 15 June). These will include a virtual activity pack on pollution, a virtual science dashboard and a virtual video play on rheumatology with a doctor and patient volunteer.

Timetable of live virtual activities currently as follows – schools can email the festival organisers and indicate which events they’re interested in attending. Please note that capacity will be lower as this is the first time the event has been run online. Here is a copy of the Science Festival Virtual Rules.

15 June 2021

10am-10.30am – virtual talk on nursing careers. Suitable for 6th formers. Format TBA. – Interested yes/no

11am-11.30am – Community Smiles (dental student volunteers). Suitable for 6th formers. Format Teams. – Interested yes/no

11.30am-12 noon Rose McCabe (City University). Mental health talk for young people. Format Zoom – Interested yes/no

1- 1.30pm – Centre of the Cell Neuron show. Format Teams.
Registration now open see https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/barts-queen-mary-science-festival-centre-of-the-cells-the-neuron-show-tickets-150751502803

1.30pm-2pm Talk on genes and giants, details tba

2pm-2.45pm – Clinical Trials What’s the Story? Suitable for 14-16 year olds. Run with the assistance of Paul Bowers Isaacson, patient volunteer, trials participant and ex chemistry teacher who himself designed an NVQ on the topic of clinical trials.  – Interested yes/no

16 June

10am-10.30am David Collier (Queen Mary) talk on business and science. suitable for 6th formers. Format tba. Interested yes/no

11am- 12 noon Tower Hamlets Archives. Talk on medicine and science history. Suitable for 6th formers. Format: Zoom. (capacity 40)
Registration now open see https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/healthcare-histories-of-the-east-end-tickets-151953315457

1-1.30pm Dr Nikolas Lemos (Queen Mary). Talk on his work in forensics. Suitable for 6th formers. Format tba. Interested yes/no

2pm-3pm – Heart and Genetics talk (various Queen Mary staff). Suitable for 6th formers. Format tba. Interested yes/no

If your school would like to sign up please email sciencefestival@qmul.ac.uk. Indicate which events you’re interested in.

 

QMUL - Queen Mary University of London logo

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Teaching London Computing – Newsletter #9 – May 2021

This is the full text of the 9th newsletter which I (Jo B) normally send to all London-based teachers on our Teaching London Computing subscription list. Teachers outside London usually get a shorter version with anything geographically irrelevant (ie things happening in London) removed, however during lockdown this is less clear.

I also send an occasional version to our international subscribers. Details in the text below on how you can sign up if you’re reading this for the first time and would like to get the emailed version in future. It’s all free :)

 

Dear colleagues

Welcome to May 2021’s Newsletter 9 (previous newsletters live here).

We are currently working on the next issue of CS4FN magazine, on Smart Health, which should be arriving online imminently, and physically in subscribing schools in a few weeks. Changes to working practices during coronavirus made it impossible to publish an issue last year. All of our previous issues are free to download as PDFs and if you’d like to sign up to receive printed copies please see [1] below.

As always please feel free to share this newsletter by forwarding it to colleagues in case they’d like to sign up too – new readers can sign up using the orange form on this page.

You are receiving this email because you’ve previously signed up to the ‘TLC mailing list’ to hear about new courses and resources etc but if you no longer want to hear from us please let me know and I’ll remove you.

Follow us on Twitter @cas_london_crc or @cs4fn.

Table of Contents
1. New CS4FN magazine – Issue 27 – Smart Health
2. CS4FN blog (new) and Teaching London Computing blog
3. Resources
4. Computing Education Research

1. New CS4FN magazine – Issue 27 – Smart Health
CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun) is the computing magazine for schools from Queen Mary University of London’s Computer Science department. It was co-founded by Profs Paul Curzon and Peter McOwan in 2005 and all back issues can be downloaded here.

In our next issue we look at how computer scientists are creating intelligent programs and tools to support medical decision-making, supporting patients and doctors, with a particular focus on the Pambayesian research project (patient managed decision-support using Bayesian Networks).

1a. Last call for subscribers! (for this issue)
We send around 24,000 copies to 2,400 subscribing UK schools (some subscribers have 1 copy for the library, some have 30 for a class set etc) and if you’re not yet among them but would like to be please use the purple form here. If you’re not sure if you’re already subscribed please email Jo to check. Please sign up by midday Friday 14th May for this issue.

2. CS4FN blog (new) and Teaching London Computing blog
As a new way to access CS4FN articles we are posting both new and archive articles from the magazine on our new blog site at https://cs4fn.blog/. Read fun, accessible articles about research and leading-edge technology, learn as you go, and become inspired about Computer Science, Audio and Electronic Engineering.

We publish articles for teachers on our sister site, Teaching London Computing, which is also packed full of free classroom resources.

Some recently added articles on the CS4FN blog

From last year on the Teaching London Computing (TLC) blog for teachers

 

3. Resources
3a. Greek translation of The Chocolate Turing Machine’ talk
For any Greek speakers Paul gave his workshop on ‘The Chocolate Turing Machine’ at the online Computing at School Festival in Greece (to hundreds of Greek schools) a recording of which is available on YouTube, which had a live translator. The main presentation begins at around 28min 40s. More on the Chocolate Turing Machine.

3b. STEM Learning eLibrary
The STEM Learning eLibrary has added another three of our teacher resources to its curated collection of CS4FN / TLC resources.

  • Roman numeral pixel puzzle [TLC page | STEM Learning eLibrary page] – learn about pixels and Roman numerals in this colour-by-number puzzle from which a mosaic-style picture will emerge (printable or spreadsheet version available)

  • Hieroglyphs pixel puzzle [TLC page | STEM Learning eLibrary page] – this time hieroglyphs provide the code to colour in an Egyptian-style picture (can be done on paper or on a computer)

  • Sequencing / looping puzzle (frogs & tadpoles) [TLC page | STEM Learning eLibrary page] – introduce sequences and loops by putting five stages of a frog’s life cycle in the right order – a printer is needed for this one but the cartoon drawings are simple enough to copy by hand if one isn’t available.

3c. Command Line Heroes Podcast – Dr Clarence Ellis
Prof Paul Curzon was one of the guests on the latest (S6E5) episode of the Command LIne Heroes podcast, talking about the work of Dr Clarence Ellis who was the first Black man to earn a PhD in Computer Science (and whose CS4FN article by Paul you can read here). Dr Ellis developed ‘Operational Transformation’, a tool which lets multiple people edit a document all at the same time without interfering with each other’s work (we use this a lot in Google Docs). Paul also talks about his own approach to CS4FN (Computer Science For Fun) and inspiring young people to find out more about computer science and its history.

4. Computing Education Research
For educators interested in computing education research Jane Waite organises a monthly ‘book club’ at 7.30pm on the first Thursday of every month for CAS (Computing At School). The events are free, organised via a Facebook group, ticketed by Eventbrite and held on Gather Town – find out more here, in particular the Joining In button.

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New free issue of CS4FN computing magazine for schools coming in Summer – hooray :) ^JB

After a year-long Covid-imposed hiatus we’re delighted 🥳 🎉 that things are moving speedily towards publishing and distributing the next issue of CS4FN, the free computing magazine for schools from the Computer Science department at Queen Mary University of London.

Issue 27, due in June 2021, will be on Smart Health and all our back issues (and other booklets) can be downloaded free as PDFs here https://cs4fndownloads.wordpress.com/

Some back issues of CS4FN

After such a long wait we thought it was a good opportunity to check our mailing list with a finetooth comb and make sure everyone’s address was correct, and that they were receiving the copies that they want.

There are about 2,400 subscribers on our list and we send approx 24,000 copies out to them (some want 1, some a class set of 30, some a bigger number). We try and make sure everyone gets what they request but with a mailing list that’s been in existence for 16 years it makes sense to check it occasionally.

You might be getting an email from me (Admin Jo) to check that you are still at the school you’re subscribed with, particularly where a school has several teachers subscribed.

Of course if you or your school isn’t yet subscribed to receive free copies of CS4FN please sign up (using the purple form) here: https://teachinglondoncomputing.org/sign-up/

Finding duplicates (in some cases triplicates) isn’t always easy as people write their school’s name in different ways – compare St. Trinians, Saint Trinian’s, or St Trinian’s. An easily made typo in a postcode – 1AA 1AB versus 1AA 1BA can also hide duplication, and people move on to different schools. So it’s a delicate procedure and may take some time to get round to everyone.

Also, there is the ever-present possibility of me making a mistake somewhere…

My daftest error so far was when I decided to Find & Replace all instances of “UK” for “United Kingdom”. This would have gone very well had I restricted my manipulations only to the Country column but, alas, anyone called Luke or working at a school called St Luke’s or whose address was Duke Road etc ended up with an incomprehensible address.

I only realised when mail began to be returned with addresses like ‘DUnited Kingdome Road” on it. A cautionary example of verschlimmbesserung, or ‘disimprovementing’ – when one intends to improve something but ends up making it worse.

See also this example of ‘fixing a bug’ from Malcolm in the Middle ;)