Category Archives: Computer Science Education

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Two free Computing workshops for London teachers on Tuesday 26 May @QMUL / @QMEECS

We have another two workshops happening next week, on the afternoon of Tuesday 26 May, at Queen Mary University of London. Both are free and you are welcome to attend either or both (but you will need to register for each separately) – there is a half hour break between the two workshops.

Thanks to funding from the Mayor of London we are able to offer these workshops at no charge but we do prioritise London Computing teachers though other Computing teachers are welcome too. The workshops are not suitable for school pupils however.

For more information please contact Jo Brodie (j.brodie@qmul.ac.uk)

The workshops below are named ‘2’ and ‘3’ as they are part of a series of three, however the first one “Explorers need maps: Abstraction, Representations and Graphs” (last Monday) has finished but the information and slides are available on the workshop website.

Workshop QMUL2: Tue 26 May 2015, 1.30 to 3pm

Primary Computing Unplugged

Overview

Computing doesn’t need to be taught at a computer and in fact to get across key concepts it is often better (and more fun) not to. This is especially true of the early stages of learning programming and computing more generally. A core idea behind the new computing syllabus is computational thinking. We will give you a deeper understanding of computational thinking and give practical ways to teach both it and other computing topics such as programming away from computers. Computational thinking is a fundamental skill set that students learn by studying computing. We will demonstrate a range of activities that show how core ideas and concepts can be introduced using fun unplugged activities and games. We will show that computing can be fun for everyone and that it doesn’t have to be taught at a computer.

Session material

This session presents a variety of activities from the other workshops. It will cover:

  • What is Computational Thinking?
  • Inspiring ways to teach Computational Thinking.
  • What is an algorithm
  • Writing your first program

Eventbrite - QMUL 02: Paul Curzon workshop - Primary Computing Unplugged for Workshop 2 – Primary computing unplugged
More information about this workshop on our page for Primary computing unplugged.

Workshop QMUL3: Tue 26 May 2015, 3.30 to 5pm

The Magic of Computer Science

Overview

When you learn to be a magician, it turns out you are learning the skills needed to be a great computer scientist too: computational thinking. Just like software, magic is a combination of algorithms and presentation. In this workshop we will demonstrate some simple to do but strong magic tricks. We teach the group how they are done so they can do the tricks themselves and then use the magic to illustrate the linked basics of computing. Overall we will show what computational thinking is all about and how both magicians and computer scientists rely on it.

Session material

This session will demonstrate a variety of activities from the other workshops. It will cover:

  • What is Computational Thinking?
  • Inspiring ways to teach Computational Thinking using easy to learn magic tricks.

Eventbrite - QMUL 03: Paul Curzon workshop - The Magic of Computing for Workshop 3 – The magic of computing
More information about this workshop on our page for The magic of computing.

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[FREE] Three new workshops for teachers from Teaching London Computing on 18 and 26 May

We’ve added another three workshops to our activities and will be running these across two sessions in a couple of weeks. Our previous workshops (at Queen Mary University of London or as part of an invited talk elsewhere) have been very popular.

Workshop One: Mon 18 May 2015, 5.30 to 7pm

Explorers need maps: Abstraction, Representations and Graphs

Overview

Abstraction – essentially just hiding information – is a core part of computational thinking that is closely linked to the choice of data representation. We will give a deeper understanding of abstraction, providing fun ways to teach it, based on cs4fn / Teaching London Computing resources. The great explorers didn’t just wander around new continents finding things. They drew maps. Maps are just abstractions of the world. Based on games and puzzles, we will see how drawing a special kind of map called a graph and a variation the finite state machine is a part of computational thinking problem solving. They are useful tools for understanding how to use, exploring and designing computer systems.

Session material
This session will cover:

  • What is Computational Thinking?
  • Inspiring ways to teach Computational Thinking.
  • What is abstraction?
  • Why does the choice of data representation matter when solving problems?
  • What is a graph and why are they useful?
  • What is a finite state machine and why are they useful?

Eventbrite - QMUL 01: Paul Curzon workshop - Abstraction, Representations and Graphs for Workshop 1 – Abstraction, Representations and Graphs
More information about this workshop on our page for Abstraction, representations and graphs.

The second and third run on the same day at half-term, on Tuesday 26 May 2015 (you can come to the first or the second or both, but you will need to register for both separately).

Workshop Two: Tue 26 May 2015, 1.30 to 3pm

Primary Computing Unplugged

Overview

Computing doesn’t need to be taught at a computer and in fact to get across key concepts it is often better (and more fun) not to. This is especially true of the early stages of learning programming and computing more generally. A core idea behind the new computing syllabus is computational thinking. We will give you a deeper understanding of computational thinking and give practical ways to teach both it and other computing topics such as programming away from computers. Computational thinking is a fundamental skill set that students learn by studying computing. We will demonstrate a range of activities that show how core ideas and concepts can be introduced using fun unplugged activities and games. We will show that computing can be fun for everyone and that it doesn’t have to be taught at a computer.

Session material

This session presents a variety of activities from the other workshops. It will cover:

  • What is Computational Thinking?
  • Inspiring ways to teach Computational Thinking.
  • What is an algorithm
  • Writing your first program

Eventbrite - QMUL 02: Paul Curzon workshop - Primary Computing Unplugged for Workshop 2 – Primary computing unplugged
More information about this workshop on our page for Primary computing unplugged.

Workshop Three: Tue 26 May 2015, 3.30 to 5pm

The Magic of Computer Science

Overview

When you learn to be a magician, it turns out you are learning the skills needed to be a great computer scientist too: computational thinking. Just like software, magic is a combination of algorithms and presentation. In this workshop we will demonstrate some simple to do but strong magic tricks. We teach the group how they are done so they can do the tricks themselves and then use the magic to illustrate the linked basics of computing. Overall we will show what computational thinking is all about and how both magicians and computer scientists rely on it.

Session material

This session will demonstrate a variety of activities from the other workshops. It will cover:

  • What is Computational Thinking?
  • Inspiring ways to teach Computational Thinking using easy to learn magic tricks.

Eventbrite - QMUL 03: Paul Curzon workshop - The Magic of Computing for Workshop 3 – The magic of computing
More information about this workshop on our page for The magic of computing.

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miniCPD – one day Controlled Assessment and Programming skills (Sat 2 May)

One of the things we try and do is vary the format of our courses so that we can offer something to suit as many teachers as possible. Some prefer weekly classes, others prefer intensive week-long, some are able to take a day from work for study, others aren’t. One thing teachers have asked us for is help with controlled assessments and so we’re trying out new ‘miniCPD’ one-day sessions.

The first will be on Saturday 2 May and will be held at King’s College London (Waterloo Campus). The cost for the day will be £30 for London teachers thanks to funding from the Mayor of London (£60 for non-London teachers). The miniCPD course will run from 10-4pm.

The new one day course ‘Preparing Pupils for Controlled Assessment‘ uses Python to program solutions to problems of a similar type to those set in GCSE Controlled Assessments. The aim is to make teachers feel confident about tackling these problems and programming solutions themselves, so that they can pass their knowledge, experience and confidence on to their pupils. Teachers should already have some knowledge of the basics of Python; strings, arithmetic, ‘if statements’ and loops. This is not a course for complete beginners.

Eventbrite - KCL: miniCPD - Preparing Pupils for Controlled Assessment (Python) - Saturday short course at King's

About us

Teaching London Computing, is a successful partnership between Queen Mary University of London’s Computer Science Department and King’s College London’s Computing Education team which has been running courses and workshops for the past two years helping Computing and ICT teachers to deliver the new Computing Curricula at GCSE and A-level.

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*New course* A-level CPD Computing for London teachers, from @TeachingLDNComp

Our new A-level CPD course will run over Spring and Summer at King’s College London (Waterloo Campus). The course will run on Tuesday evenings from Tuesday 28 April and run for 10 weeks (with a break for half term) until 7 July 2015. William Marsh from QMUL will be the tutor and all materials will be made available to course delegates at the start of the course.

The course dates are below, full course content information is available from our A-level CPD Computing page and tickets are available from Eventbrite.

You might also be interested in the new free material we’ve added to our section on Interdisciplinary Computational Thinking – lots of classroom activity sheets to download and other free resources.

 

Next A-level CPD course(s): Our next 10 week A-level CPD course will begin on Tuesday 28 April 2015.
Eventbrite - KCL: Summer 2015 - A-level Computing CPD - from Teaching London Computing

Fees
Our courses are reduced by 50% to £150 for London teachers, thanks to our funding, the full price for non-London teachers is £300 – please see our Fees and Funding page for more information. London teachers have priority on our courses.

Eligibility requirements
This course is a follow-on from our GCSE Computing CPD courses. The course assumes that you will be familiar with programming in Python or a similar language.

More information?
Please contact Jo Brodie (j.brodie@qmul.ac.uk)

Course dates: all on Tuesdays

Week 1: 28 April 2015
Week 2: 5 May 2015
Week 3: 12 May 2015
Week 4: 19 May 2015
Half-term: 26 May 2015 (no class)
Week 5: 2 June 2015
Week 6: 9 June 2015
Week 7: 16 June 2015
Week 8: 23 June 2015
Week 9: 30 June 2015
Week 10: 7 July 2015

Please sign-up to be kept informed of future courses.

 

 

 

 

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New free activity: The Emotion Machine – ready to download and print, with instructions

Computing teachers might find this useful, newly published on our website.

Emotion Machine bThe Emotion Machine

Age group: 7 – 12
Abilities assumed: None
Time: 40-60 minutes
Size of group: 1 upwards

Focus
• Programming
• Sequences
• Low-level code and high-level commands
• Compilers and interpreters
• Abstraction
Summary
Students create and program a 2D robot made of card to show different emotions. They create a table that can be used to translate emotions (high level commands) into low level machine instructions.

robot pdf

Click to download the PDF. Click the link above to visit the info page for instructions.

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Classroom Sessions to Embed Computational Thinking – at @RoyalHolloway w Prof Dave Cohen

Please note: as we do not know the detailed content of others’ courses we can’t endorse them – but we think 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 and near-London teachers (and we don’t charge for listing information, or accept any advertising fee).

There are some sessions on computational thinking taking place in April and May 2015 at Royal Holloway University of London, with Professor Dave Cohen.

Classroom Sessions to Embed Computational Thinking

Department of Computer Science
Royal Holloway, University of London
Egham Hill
 TW20 0EX Egham
United Kingdom

iStock_000016465426Medium

Schedule

Each session will begin at 4pm and finish by 7pm. There will be thirty places available. The sessions cost £20.

Don’t forget that Teaching London Computing is running some CPD courses for teachers who are teaching the new GCSE Computing curriculum. We have two courses running over Easter, both are the same length but one is split across a couple of weeks and the other is a week-long intensive course. You can find out more about both of them and book tickets here.

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Teachers: Help your students build their own apps in the #AppsforGood course. Apply to deliver in 2015/16

AppsForGood are looking for Education Partners – here’s some information about them (and there’s a printable / shareable flyer at the end).

Print“Apps for Good is an education programme where students learn to build and pitch their own apps – helping students to become real-life entrepreneurs and digital creators.

The course meets the demands of the new curriculum in an engaging way and builds skills in teamwork, communication and problem solving.

Apps for Good provide their course framework, training and connections to tech Expert volunteers, and then let you do what you are best at – inspiring and guiding young people. Join 500 schools across the UK and apply to become an Education Partner: http://www.appsforgood.org/public/teach-apps-for-good – it’s free for non-fee paying schools.”

Follow them on Twitter  Screen Shot 2015-02-25 at 17.23.02  @appsforgoodcdi

Apps for Good – Info Flyer

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New Easter CPD courses for Computing teachers in London: GCSE courses, at King’s College London

I’m delighted to announce that we have TWO new GCSE courses running soon and they will be held at King’s College London, Waterloo Campus and led by Margaret Derrington. These courses are aimed at experienced ICT teachers who would like to develop their subject knowledge in order to teach the new Computing Curriculum and the new Computing GCSEs.

Tickets are on sale now. The courses cost £300 but thanks to funding from the Mayor of London we can offer a 50% discount to London schools (get in touch if you’re not sure if your school qualifies).

More information and a guide syllabus is available from the links below and from our GCSE Computing page.

Course One

The first course is split into five sessions running over two weeks from the end of March to the second week of April:

Computing CPD GCSE Easter Holidays March 30 – April 10
Teaching London Computing
Monday, 30 March 2015 at 10:00 to Friday, 10 April 2015 at 16:00

5 sessions over two weeks, each class runs from 10am to 4pm.

  • Monday, March 30
  • Wednesday, April 1
  • Wednesday, April 8
  • Thursday, April 9
  • Friday, April 10

Eventbrite - Computing CPD GCSE Easter Holidays March 30 - April 10

 

Course Two

The second course is a one-week intensive in the third week of April:

Computing CPD GCSE Easter Holidays (1-week intensive) April 13 -17
Teaching London Computing
Monday, 13 April 2015 at 10:00 to Friday, 17 April 2015 at 16:00

Eventbrite - Computing CPD GCSE Easter Holidays (1-week intensive) April 13 -17

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Paul Curzon’s doing two free workshops next Friday afternoon (20th) for Computing teachers in London cc @cs4fn

Paul Curzon’s free workshops, held at Queen Mary University of London’s Mile End campus, are fun and informal and support teachers who want to introduce programming concepts and computational thinking into the classroom in an engaging way. Each workshop is accompanied by downloadable classroom activities (also free) – these can be downloaded from the links below.

Next week’s (Friday 20th February) is a double session but you can choose to come to one workshop, or both.

The first workshop is at 2pm then there will be a half hour break with the second starting at 4pm, we aim to finish at 5.30pm.

Do I have to be a London computing teacher to attend?
The workshops are aimed at those who are currently (or who are about to begin) teaching the Computing curricula (particularly GCSE and A-level, though the information in the workshops has been used with younger children). As we’re funded by the Mayor of London we prioritise those who are currently teaching in London schools. The workshops are not suitable for school pupils though as the events are about how to introduce computing concepts into the classroom. Contact Jo Brodie (j.brodie@qmul.ac.uk) for further information.

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.

Workshop A:
Programming unplugged: learning programming without computers

2.00-3.30pm (free Eventbrite tickets)

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

Workshop B:
Computational thinking: it’s about people too

4pm-5.30pm (free Eventbrite tickets)

Overview
Computing is not just about technology, it is about understanding people too. When we solve computing problems we are solving them for people. Computational thinking is the general group of problem solving skills that students learn as a result of studying computing. Often this is equated with algorithmic thinking – a direct result of learning to program. However it just as important to make programs usable by people – or they won’t be used. We will see how magic gives a fun way to introduce these ideas and how a simple game demonstrates why graphical user interfaces are effective.

This session is in collaboration with CHI+MED: an EPSRC-funded project about making medical devices safer.

Session material This session will cover:

  • computational thinking: understanding people
  • human computer interaction
  • why GUIs are better than text-based interfaces
  • The importance of data structures
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Friday 20 February 2015 @QMUL – two free workshops for computing teachers, with Paul Curzon

On Friday 20 February we have a double workshop session for computing teachers in London*. These demonstrate ways of introducing programming and computational thinking topics to the classroom in a fun way, without the need to use computers. You are welcome to attend either or both sessions, which are FREE. These will be held at Queen Mary University of London (Mile End Campus).

Next workshops
• Friday 20 February 2015, 2.00-3.30pm – Programming unplugged: learning programming without computers (click to see more information)
Eventbrite - Paul Curzon's free workshop for computing teachers (A): Programming unplugged: learning programming without computers for the first workshop ‘Programming unplugged: learning programming with computers’ at 2pm on 20 February.

• Friday 20 February 2015, 4.00-5.30pm – Computational thinking: it’s about people too (click to see more information)
Eventbrite - Paul Curzon's free workshop for computing teachers (B): Computational Thinking: it’s about people too for the second workshop ‘Computational thinking: it’s about people too’ at 4pm on 20 February.

Sign-up to hear about our workshops as they are advertised.

 

*Do I have to be a London computing teacher to attend?
The workshops are aimed at those who are currently (or who are about to begin) teaching the Computing curricula (particularly GCSE and A-level, though the information in the workshops has been used with younger children). As we’re funded by the Mayor of London we prioritise those who are currently teaching in London schools. The workshops are not suitable for school pupils though as the events are about how to introduce computing concepts into the classroom. Contact Jo Brodie (j.brodie@qmul.ac.uk) for further information.