Welcome to the Sandwell Computing Blog

Tech City Opportunities Portal - With so much going on in Tech City this is well worth a look.

Tech City Portal

Leading to Opportunities

for our students

"Welcome to the club of Tech City. If you’re interested in tech and you’re willing to work hard, you can be a part of it.

Tech companies are looking for people with technical, design and people skills. If you know what you want to learn but don’t know where to find it, you’re in the right place. Here you can search for all the different local programmes that teach you how to code, build software or understand electronics.

Search here by telling us your preferences, what you want to do, and who you want to be."

School Recommendation - The Turtle Prize



http://turtleprize.com/

Free Python competition resource with lesson plans and good supporting resources. 

School Recommendation - Piffin (Rasberry Pi Lab Kit)

PIFFIN - a place to source electronic lab kits for the Rasberry Pi.

Planning Tools - Online Programming Courses - (Pay Per View)

This is a site which I think is useful for a number of reasons:

• The courses General Assembly (GA) provide give us a good guide to understand real world training demand in terms of coding and web development at the moment
• There are free sessions which introduce the longer online courses with the intention of helping clients to ascertain whether they are at the right level for the course content - we could use that to better understand our own training needs
• I think the site adds confidence as I'm sure you will browse the courses and think I could teach that or certainly teach myself, given time

Expert Tip - This (I'm told) is the future of building cross platform websites and apps (Advanced Level)

Coding Tip - Python School .Net (Sue Sentance)

This looks quite well organised.

School Find - Matt Britland on Pinterest - You need to see this!

Matt Britland's Pinterest page was brought to our attention by City Academy's Ahmed Mangera - a fantastic resource, thanks Ahmed.

Coder Tip - Brendan Eich built Javascript in just 10 Days

Idea - Code Family Tree Display

Watching Douglas Crockford we got interested in the family tree of code. If we are going to teach Javascript, Python and HTML it's worthwhile setting the historical context in as many ways as we can.

Coder Tip - Douglas Crockford on JavaScript - Episode IV: The Metamorphosis of Ajax (If you liked episode 1 you may also like 4 (IV) - stick with it though to hear how the browser wars were played out in the 90s)

Coder Tip - The Only Real Javascript Expert is Douglas Crockford - Part 1 of 5 - 'Javascript's Proper Historical Context' (very interesting)

Coder Tip - Sublime Text 3 - It's so pretty!

Sublime Text 3 is a beautiful text editor which comes recommended by Burberry's business analyst. The reasons are listed on the website but we like the way the interface colour scheme can be changed. 

A more colourful way to learn with features like distraction free editing etc.

Recommendation - Better Than Code Academy? - W3Schools

W3Schools teaches code in a clean, repetitive format which we think may better suit some of our students. 





We like it because:

• The individual lessons are short and listed on the left hand side
• Explanations are clear
• The lessons can be repeated
• Each lesson has a 'try it' option 

School Find - Code Avengers - Cool

A new school recommendation which we must say looks pretty cool for teachers and students alike. We'd love to know if you've tried it. Thanks for sharing it.

School Find - KS3, KS4 and KS5 ICT/Computing Resources - Gr82BGeeky

This site is highly recommended by one of our Secondary ICT/Computing HoDs. 

Take a look!

Idea - Computing Skills Passport to Support Transition

Considering the work we have done around transition and the feedback we got about carrying NC levels and student information over from KS2 to KS3 we have come up with an idea. Working with a local artist/designer Louise Best we have come up with an idea to provide students with a Computing Skills Passport. It would look and feel like a normal passport with rubber stamps adapted for new NC Computing and ICT skills. Being a physical object the passport can easily travel with the student and has an authentic feel to support and motivate.

What do you think? 

KS4 OCR GCSE in Computing - New Support Materials and Resources

OCR have posted quite a few NEW support materials and resources which may be of interest to you. They include:

• Summary Brochure
• Erratum Notice to Centres
• Unit A451/01 - Computer Systems and Programming - Specimen 2, Mark Scheme and Question Paper
• January 2013 and June 2013 Examiners Reports
• An 'Unofficial Guide to Computing GCSE' by Mark Clarkson
• Unit A452 - Practical Investigation - Sample scheme of work and lesson plan booklet

If you are considering offering this course in September it might be worth having a look, perhaps at the unofficial guide first.

Let us know if you need any help with pathways/plans or any other ICT/Computing/Computer Science matter.

OCR Cambridge - GCSE Computing MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) - Please Register and Comment

Register as a teacher and gain access to the content which is being updated in April - a lot of it is video instruction - it's good quality and all free.

OCR (Sponsored) Computer Science - Round Table Discussion 'Coding the Future' - It's long (1h 17m) but very interesting (Especially at exactly 18m in)

KS4 Edexcel GCSE Computer Science - Sample Assessment Materials - Worth Looking at as a Starting Point

New - KS4 Edexcel GCSE Computer Science - Teacher Support Materials - Block 4 Scheme of Work with Task-Sheets (And Answer Sheets)

School Find - Matt Britland's 'Computing Curriculum Projects for Students in Years 7 - 9'

Thanks to Oktay who flagged up this great resource. It's a blog by Matt Britland who does advisory work for The Guardian and gives away great resources such as the comprehensive, 16 Mb's big:

'Computing Curriculum Projects for Students in Years 7 - 9'

Will you sign up for the Master Teacher programme?

 

Computing GCSE Board Comparison - Will you offer Computing in 2014? If so please Comment on which Board you will go with

Government Release - Year of Code

See the Government Release

School Find - Appshed - Some amazing projects taking place in our schools - Want to know more?

School Find - Kodu (I think you might know about this - but just in case)

BETT Find - Quadblogging - Some 'big names' were supporting this one

BETT Find - What's My Heart Rate (Free) - I'm recommending it but I don't believe it - How can this really work?

BETT Find - My Cognition (We can't recommend it - it's not free - but they wanted schools to try it out though - based in Moorgate)

BETT Find - Hopscotch - Like Blockly but it's an App (Free and highly rated)

BETT Find - Blockly - Learning Games and Code Without Typing (Like Scratch)

Google Buys UK DeepMind AI Start Up

A brilliant publishing blog by the co-founder of Twitter - Inspiring reading, writing and publishing on any subject

The film 'Her' is well worth watching - He falls in love with his operating system! - AI that's almost believable

Hour of Code via Code.Org

Code Academy - NEW Brilliant Classroom Resources

HTML/CSS/Python Teaching Resources for use in the classroom. Includes Powerpoints which are really helpful

Python Examples with Code

This Site has many Python examples.  

Java - Examples and Code

This Site provides example code to look at and run providing an authentic link between Code and Run Code we may have seen before. Is the level of reinforcement enough?

The BECTA Self Review Framework

I think the NAACE BECTA SRF is still a great reflective tool which helps ICT coordinators to set appropriate targets. What do you think?

Links to the Specifications

Here are links to the GCSE Computer Science Specifications:

AQA

OCR

Edexcel