Searching To Speak: Primary Maths Masterclass

The Primary Maths Masterclass of Searching To Speak highlights some primary school maths embedded in a story about helping people with disability. It shows how lots of simple maths and computation arise when solving the problem of helping a paralysed person communicate. Along the way it teaches some core search algorithms. It was inspired by the book: the Diving Bell and the Butterfly, by Jean-Dominique Bauby.

The workshop was written by Paul Curzon as part of his CS4FN project. It is designed to be 2 hours long including a 10 minute break.

Explore the design of an algorithm to allow someone with locked-in syndrome to communicate. Locked-in syndrome is a condition resulting from a stroke where a person is totally paralysed. They can see, hear and think but cannot speak. How could a person with Locked-in syndrome write a book? How might they do it if they knew some computational thinking? What maths is used a long the way.
Use the maths of algorithms and computation, averages, tallying, histograms and data visualisation, frequency and frequency analysis.
Learn about computational thinking, search algorithms, linear search, binary search, divide and conquer, code cracking, and comparing algorithms.
Along the way Al-Kindi and Florence Nightingale get name checks.