I wondered what/how ICT is taught in the UK so I am doing this MOOC.....at the end of week 2 I had to do an assignment.
The task involved using the following website and choosing a game/application to create/plan a lesson from.....
The lesson must state the target student, I choose KS3 (12-14Yrs old)
state the objective from the UK syllabus and state where peer learning will occur.
This is my lesson http://bit.ly/1MBUcEo I can use this lesson with my TY students. I submitted my assignment and then received one to correct. But I did not learn much from the first one so I corrected 5, I learned something from 3 of them. So the learning process is dependent on other teachers, I found the forum is a valuable source of information and a good way to make new contacts.
Lesson 2 included a video from a secondary school, showing a ICT class where the teacher had students working on minecraft to demonstrate logic gates, Makey Makey kits and Kinect, and scripting in a virtual world (scratch like interface). Much of this technology is unavailable in my school but also think managing such diverse programs simultaneously would be a challenge for me! But what is noticeable, are students in Ireland being exposed to such technology and/or are we falling behind our neighbours.
Anyway just finished week 2, have 4 more to go so I will keep on learning!!
Summary and key websites:
In September 2014, a new curriculum began in schools in England, with the aim of preparing pupils better for life after school in the 21st Century.
The new curriculum puts a clearer emphasis than before on three core areas.
- Computer science - how computers work and how to write algorithms and solve problems to eventually create a computer program.
- Information technology - how data is represented and managed on computers.
- Digital literacy - how to understand digital information and interact with it safely and appropriately.
Lesson plan for CS in secondary school
Learning objectives could be distinguish by:
All students: Debug simple program
Most Students: Write a program for a purpose
Some Students: To use repetition and if functions in programs
Worth looking a BBC bitesize:
I found the forum excellent and learned a lot from other teachers on what worked for them and they shared resources...
Another teacher recommended this course for explaining CS.
Another teacher recommended
Lesson 2
When introducing new concepts, focus on key words, with written explanations..could use worksheets
Model and demonstrate: debug a programme, find creative commons info on a website.
Encourage independence-problem solving
Facilitate pupil to pupil interaction.....'learning partners' or in some schools they have 'digital ambassadors' older kids teach younger kids.
Summarise learning outcomes at various stages during the lesson, to help student self assess.
from another teacher @UCCSEd
Jeremy Kubica’s Computational Fairy Tales, a quirky but interesting read. This is an optional reading for the course.
teachers comments
"When I was at school I was told that "computers don't think and don't solve problems." The only thing they can do is to recognize numbers "1" and "0." This premise helps us to develop computational thinking."
"part of computational thinking requires you to "think" like a computer. Here are a couple of aphorisms I like...
The question of whether computers can think is just like the question of whether submarines can swim. ~Edsger W. Dijkstra
The question of whether computers can think is just like the question of whether submarines can swim. ~Edsger W. Dijkstra
A computer will do what you tell it to do, but that may be much different from what you had in mind. ~Joseph Weizenbaum"
www.code.org
for coding and debugging elements of the curriculum.
However there are many coding environments which can be run from an iPad such as Scratch Jr, the Bee-Bot app, Hopscotch and the Code Academic app. The touch screen and drag and drop interfaces make accessing simple coding activities much easier.
Computational thinking for SEN
2.3_computational_thinking_am...
Logic Gates
Computing lessons that promote learning effectively are active and participatory. There are five key aspects of the lessons that promote learning in this way:
- They get off to a clear start. The teachers build on pupils’ existing learning and rehearse familiar concepts with the pupils before they move on to something new.
- The teachers set clear objectives using subject specific vocabulary. Computing has a subject-specific vocabulary just like other areas of the curriculum Some of these words will be totally new perhaps, like ‘debug’ and others might not be new, but have different meanings in the context of computing.
- Lessons include ‘off screen activities’ to support pupil learning. It is especially import for pupils to understand the relationship between the code and something happening on screen, and often the best way to get this across is to move away from the screen and into the physical world. In the early stages of computing in Primary schools, learning is often off screen, using programmable toys. As the curriculum progresses into the Secondary phase, concepts are applied in more abstract settings
- When pupils are debugging ready-made code blocks this is a powerful form of learning – it develops the crucial skill of problem solving. This is bit like taking apart a model to understand how it is made and it means that pupils can make changes to the code, like changing the distance a sprite travels or costumes, and see the effect immediately. Trial and error is a major way that pupils learn to program.
- Pupil to pupil learning is important, and successful teachers give lots of opportunities for this to happen. Teachers have also found that if they use freely available software, pupils can download it and practice their skills at home.
Digital Literacy
BBC Make it Digital resources
Digital Literacy
What will my digital job be in the future....
Small basic
