Daniel Stucke

BYOD and 1:1 are not the same

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 17:16:55 +0000

Ryan Bretag nails some thoughts I’ve had recently on Bring Your Own Device as an IT provision in schools. It’s nice to have, and common sense in this day and age to allow learners to use their own devices in your classrooms and on your networks. But it’s no replacement or real alternative to running a 1:1 environment.

Desmos For All

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 11:34:11 +0000

I was most impressed with the Desmos Graphing Calculator last year. It’s a powerful and user friendly graphical calculator.

It’s just been re-written from the ground up in HTLM5 which means it will work perfectly on an iPad or other tablet. It’s genuinely impressive and exciting to see what magic coders are starting to weave with HTML5.

Head over to https://www.abettercalculator.com/c on any device to try it out for yourself.

Oh No Mr Gove!

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 15:58:00 +0000

And just like that, world order is restored. I felt a little uncomfortable praising Mr Gove for his radical move to remove the ICT Programme of Study.

But all is back in balance now.

As MSN reports:

“The Education Secretary has called for longer school days and suggested that teachers should also be happy with longer terms.

Michael Gove said “we’re all in favour” of extending the school day and potentially also cutting short the summer holidays.

Asked about how this would impact on teachers, he told ITV’s Daybreak programme: “If you love your job then there is, I think, absolutely nothing to complain about in making sure you have more of a chance to do it well.”

Really Mr Gove?

Let’s take a look at my last week in teaching:

Saturday (Xmas Hols) - 3 hours (mainly planning lessons)
Sunday (Xmas Hols) - 5 hours (mainly whole school data analysis to make sure we’re on track to do well in the league tables)
Monday (07.30-22.00) - 14 hours (teaching, meetings, planning, supervising break, research)
Tuesday (07.30-18.00) - 10.5 hours (teaching, leading) + (19.00-22.30) 3.5 hours (learning & sharing)
Wednesday (07.30-21.00) - 13 hours (teaching, marking, supervising lunch, meeting, leading, reflecting on your policy decisions)
Thursday (07.30-20.00) - 12.5 hours (teaching, planning, supervising lunch, analysing data, meeting, parents evening)
Friday (07.30-15.00) - 7.5 hours (teaching, more data, more meetings, more duties)

That’s 69 hours.

And that’s an average week.

Where appropriate I’ve removed 30 mins for eating dinner at home. I’ve not had a lunch break, nor a ‘break of reasonable length’ during the day. We work these hours, for 5-8 weeks at a time, and then we collapse, speak to our loved ones and sleep for about half of our holidays, before spending the second half preparing work for the next term.

If you want people like me to run your schools, to innovate new ICT curricula and share them across the country, to make sure my school does well in it’s league tables and receives another Outstanding in it’s next, no-notice, Ofsted inspection, oh yes - and to teach, what exactly should I stop doing?

And all this whilst paying me less? I don’t think so. According to the NUT’s pension calculator, if your proposed changes go through, and if I were to make it to 60 years old, doing my bit to fill the upcoming Headteacher shortage, and then decided to retire at that age. I would be £750,000 worse off. Three quarters of a million pounds worse off.

This does not compute.

I do love my job. But I couldn’t do any more of it. If you asked me to, I’d leave the classroom immediately, and that would be a shame.

Bravo Mr Gove #schoolstech #ictcurric

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 21:27:33 +0000

Unless you’ve been living under a rock today I’m assuming you’ll have seen some excitable headlines followed by a more detailed speech about the future of technology in education in the UK and in particular the future of the subject of ICT.

In a nutshell Mr Gove has scrapped the ICT curriculum, whilst keeping ICT in the curriculum. Confused? Don’t be. We can now effectively teach whatever we want. There will be a consultation, and there will hopefully be new ‘Computer Science’ qualifications in the pipeline. Mr Gove has listened to the calls of industry and responded with startling ruthlessness.

I’m delighted that my school is in a great position to make the most of these changes (in fact we won’t have many changes). We acted on the NextGen report when it came out last year and have a Y10 group working on the OCR Computing GCSE that I suspect Gove was alluding to in his speech. (Some of our other decisions back then with regards to Creative iMedia & MOS might not prove so long serving).

I never thought I’d say the words, but bravo Mr Gove!

The ICT programme of study was dull and out of date in places, and there is a lot of poor ICT teaching across the country. There is also a wealth of incredible teaching by teachers who have ignored / bent / destroyed the current program of study to their needs. Gove’s decision today means they are free to do so without worry of Ofsted and co castigating them for doing so. There is of course a danger that specific ICT lessons will dwindle in number further with this move. Integrating the skills across the curriculum is key, but we still need specialist teachers delivering these skills with panache if we are to really generate the next generation of talented, creative, coders.

The move to include more Computing / Programming / Computer Science has been much debated of late. It needs to be optional at KS4 but I’m in full support of this. Well qualified & skilled teachers to deliver this will be an issue.

It’s an exciting time to be involved in ICT. It’ll be interesting to see if we really do make it through the next few years without being told what to teach. And it will be interesting to see what qualifications become available at KS4 for us to work towards (and in turn what skills they focus us upon). This is a great chance to continue some of the great work that has gone on with #ictcurric and other endeavours to start putting together a set of core skills and competencies for Digital Literacy & ICT.

A particularly exciting thought crossed my mind when reading the full transcript of the speech. As the programme of study goes, so do the assessment levels and criteria. There will be nothing to say what a Level 5 in ICT is. So how about we scrap levels? What does achieving a Level 5 in ICT really mean? And who understands it? I’d suggest that half the students in KS3 don’t know, no teacher outside of the subject would know, and very few parents would know. Could we put together a simple list of core skills and competencies and measure learner’s progression in each of these. Something akin to APP lite, maybe with a Mozilla Badge system to award and recognise mastery and application of these skills? I suspect that National Curriculum levels will be phased out across the board over coming years, so this could be a great opportunity to put together something far more meaningful. I’d be much happier with my Maths teaching hat on if I could look at my learners records and see who has a Silver Award in Spreadsheets, or a Bronze Award in Scratch Programming, it would be far more meaningful to me and make planning the integration of ICT skills into that subject far easier.

So. Bravo Mr Gove. I may disagree with you a lot of the time, but you’ve been bold today and deserve respect for it. Join in the conversation that has been started today using the hashtag #schoolstech and at the website http://schoolstech.org.uk/. And welcome to the brave new world, when the National Curriculum review finally kicks into action don’t be surprised to see other subjects head in a similar direction.

FizzBuzz CodeYear Fun #schoolstech

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:06:00 +0000

With todays announcement from Mr Gove it seems a good point to reflect on my first steps on a year long coding journey. I spent my Tuesday evening completing the first week of lessons on the brilliant CodeYear. It took me about an hour and a half and was a great little introduction to Javascript. First week covers defining variables, basic arithmetic, and moves on to if/then/else/while statements.

It’s an interesting learning model, there are hints at each stage and I didn’t find myself stuck on too many occasions. If you teach ICT or Maths then I’d thoroughly recommend you take a look at it. It was quite a challenge and I’ll be interested to see how far students could get without a teacher to help them. If they do get stuck, some good Googling skills would help them find a way forward pretty quickly. It’s not a replacement for a skilled teacher thought, but that’s a conversation for another post!

The final bonus challenge is to write a FizzBuzz program that writes out a set of consecutive numbers, but replaces multiples of 3 with “Fizz” and multiple of 5 with “Buzz” and of course, multiples of both with “FizzBuzz”. It’s a great little challenge that the Maths teacher in me loved!

I’ve been encouraging staff and students at school to join me on this journey so it’ll be interesting to see how many are up for the challenge.

Here’s my final FizzBuzz code in case you’re interested or stuck:

// Ask user how far we should Fizz Buzz for
var Total = prompt("How far shall we fizz buzz?");

// for the numbers 1 through to Total,
for (i=1; i<=Total; i++) { 

  // if the number is divisible by 3, write "Fizz"
  if ( i % 3 === 0 ) { 
    // unless the number is also divisible by 5, then write "FizzBuzz"
    if ( i % 5 === 0 ) {
    console.log("FizzBuzz");
    }
      else 
        console.log("Fizz");
  }

  // if the number is divisible by 5, write "Buzz"
  else if (i % 5 === 0 ){
    console.log("Buzz");
  }

  // otherwise, write just the number
  else {
    console.log(i);
  }
}

Has anyone written this in a neater, purer way? I’d love to see it if you have.

EDIT:

I have to include this, a solution in a tweet by Martyn Colliver:

20% Time in School - Leaving them to it...

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 20:08:43 +0000

Stretford High School has five core values, one of these is creativity, one is independence and one is drive. I have been trying to instill these core skills into my Year 8 Maths class this year by giving them an hour a week to do whatever they choose.

Motivation:

I was inspired at the SSAT National Conference in 2010 by Dan Pink’s talk about drive, in particular his discussions of non-commissioned time, or 20% time as it is known as at Google. To see exactly what I’m talking about it’s well worth 10mins of your time to watch this:

Or you could even read his excellent book which is on special offer at Amazon at the moment: Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. Without going into great detail, Pink suggests that humans perform to a higher level and with greater creativity when they are working on something of their own choosing for the sheer pleasure of it. The intrinsic motivation and drive to learn beat the usual game we play in school of using rewards and sanctions to encourage learning to take place. Personally I can really relate to this, 4 years of blogging and spending far too much of my spare time reading about education and technology online has been done, in part, for the sheer enjoyment I get from it.

A number of companies including Google and Atlassian are actively setting aside time for their workers to work on projects of their own choosing. Google News & GMail amongst other products came out of this time. We had a fantastically productive staff training day last term where departments were given the time to go off and work on anything they chose. Hopefully we’ll collate some more of the output from that day on the Creative Stretford Blog.

In The Classroom:

Time to think, create and follow a whim are not something that we’d often associate with school classrooms, particularly in secondary schools. Kevin McLaughlin has been encouraging his primary students to work on projects of their own choosing. Discussions on that article revolved around timetables, curriculums and secondary schools and how hard this would be to make this work in a secondary school. Which sounds like a challenge!

I’m fortunate to teach an able and enthusiastic Year 8 class (12-13yrs) who are always game for trying something new. We have four hours of timetabled Maths each week, and with this class that’s more than enough time to cover the work that is required. So in September I told them that they would have one of the four hours each week to do anything that they choose. This caused a little confusion at first, I think a few thought I had gone a little mad (or lazy!). Choosing something to do in their 20% time was a real challenge for some at first. We agreed a few ground rules, that although they could do anything, there should be some mathematical or logical bent to it, and that they would share their learning with the rest of the class. We agreed that students should be able to spend this time doing extra work on the Maths we’d been doing if they felt they needed the time for that purpose.

After a bit of time getting used to the concept the ideas started to flow. A group of boys decided they wanted to learn how to solve a Rubik’s Cube. A group of girls wanted to do some art, so I pointed them in the direction of MC Escher and left them to it. Another group wanted to look investigate how optical illusions worked, another group started to build their own Sudoku from scratch. I arranged for us to have access to computers for the hour a week and quite a few groups have started to build games in Scratch and Kodu.

As a teacher I’ve found at times that it’s a little hard to let old habits lie:

I’ve had to bite my lip and stop myself putting too many ideas into students heads, I’m keen for this learning to come from them not me;
I’ve had to avoid getting hung up on outputs, although we have started to blog a good deal of our work and I hope to develop this further this year;
I’ve had to sit back and enjoy the slightly chaotic looking classroom, creative learning looks messy!

The whole group has really enjoyed this time so far, they really appreciate the freedom that it offers. There’s been some fantastic work, and some fantastic Maths and logic skills being developed. I’m particularly proud of Adeel, he has taught himself how to solve a Rubik’s Cube, taught some of his peers and then worked with them to produce their own how-to videos and finally created their own blog to share them on! Many of the others have done some great work, I’ll encourage them to share them in more detail on the blog.

We’re going to continue with this for the next term and see where it leads us. I might start making a few suggestions of areas of interest that students might follow, I’ve already suggested that Code Year would be a fantastic use of the time, and I’ll be completing that myself so I hope some of them take up the idea and we can take that learning journey together. Please keep an eye on our class blog to see our progress.

There is time in timetables for work like this, it just takes a little eeking out and a little confidence to make it available. What’s more interesting is how this could be scaled up? Could a secondary school timetable work giving students an hour a day to work on whatever they wanted to? What would we cut? How would we staff it?

#BETT2012 In Lists

Fri, 06 Jan 2012 14:26:15 +0000

For the first time in about four years I won’t be visiting BETT this year in London. For the un-initiated BETT is an enormous educational technology trade show / conference held at Olympia in London each January.

Things I’ll miss:

Bumping into other educators I know from Twitter etc.
Attending some of the fringe events e.g. Teachmeets.
Seeing some of our existing partners who we currently source products from.
Seeing the personal friends who I stay with when visiting.

Things I won’t miss:

Being harassed at every turn by a salesman.
Walking round and round and round and round.
Queuing to put my coat in.
Searching for some phone/wifi signal.
Buying over priced snacks.
Seeing the latest 3D screen / projector / TV.
Seeing the latest amazing developments in the world of Interactive Whiteboards.
Seeing the latest and greatest VLE.
Seeing the latest….. oh you get the idea!
Sleeping on a sofa-bed to save money for school (although see point 4 in the positives).
A bag full of useless freebies - seriously I got some 64Mb USB sticks last year - who knew they even made them so small still?!?

Things I’ll do instead:

Keep up on anything valuable I’ve missed via Twitter hastags and people’s blogs.
Ask companies to come and see me personally at school if we think we want to work with them.
Teach my Year 11s on the run up to their exams.
Save school a chunk of money.
Look to visit some schools that are leading on areas that we are planning to develop.

In this day and age, unless you have a bunch of projects on the go and products to buy then it’s hard to justify attending BETT. I’m speaking from the viewpoint of a teacher / school leaders / IT coordinator here, I know if you’re working in the industry it’s useful to have everyone under one roof. But as educators, in this day and age, you should be able to see and hear all about the latest and greatest tools for learning online as and when they appear on the market. And you should be able to hear this from real teachers who are really using the products with real children - that beats sales patter any day of the year!

Will you be attending BETT? What do you hope to get out of the show?

Learn To Code

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 11:35:06 +0000

Learn To Code:

Code Academy have set up Code Year. A lesson a week that over the course of the year will teach you how to code.

Slate suggest each lesson will run to about 5 hours. Which is a hefty commitment. But I’ve signed up and will be encouraging learners at school to do the same. With our big push on Computing and the future ICT curriculum changes on the horizon, it’s about time I can walk the talk!

"Secondly, never make any comment about your work, about your employer, about teaching issues in..."

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 09:25:32 +0000

““Secondly, never make any comment about your work, about your employer, about teaching issues in general.””

- Jim Docherty, assistant secretary of the SSTA, getting it all wrong.

Please don’t listen to him. Speak your mind, share your ideas. And like I always tell my pupils, think before you post. Common sense not scare-mongering.

Which reminds me I have a policy to write for staff to include this. Does anyone have any good exemplars? I’d like to keep it simple as we did with our Learner’s AUP.

A Gift

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 09:02:57 +0000

“It was a gift to us,” she said. “And for him to be so confident and unafraid of death and to share it with other people was so touching.”

Ben Breedlove’s Mum. Ben passed away shortly after making these videos.

Is this classed as educational? Why are we still discussing filtering YouTube? An amazing resource.

"I often refer to Animoto as a gateway to “real” video projects. Animoto makes it very..."

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 16:01:00 +0000

““I often refer to Animoto as a gateway to “real” video projects. Animoto makes it very easy for anyone to create a great-looking video.””

- Richard Byrne on Animoto for iOS.

Good point, great product, good app. Our Humanities department in particular are using this to create fantastic, engaging videos for topics and even for types of lessons - almost using them to brand the lesson.

Animoto.

Outstanding Design Pt.1 - Typerighter.com

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 20:46:10 +0000

Typerighter is one of the best designed web apps I’ve ever come across. You can try it out here. You’ll be presented with a completely blank web page. In which you can type. And that’s it! The user interface is non-existent, the options appear non-existent, it’s just a blank page that gradually fills with text as you type, and it’s so simple it works identically on any web browser you can imagine, including all smart phones, tablets etc..

Typerighter is also unusual in that it isn’t free. At present it costs $5.97, and that goes up a penny for each new user. With that you get your own url, mine’s http://danielstucke.typerighter.com. Type in any sub-domain to that and you’ll create a new blank page. I’m writing this article at https://danielstucke.typerighter.com/typerighter as we speak. All you will see as you type is the occasional tiny ‘saved’ flash up in the top right of the screen. It’s a fantastic, distraction free, writing experience. There are a few features. Add ‘.txt’ to the end of your url and the text is automatically downloaded as a text file. Add ‘.html’ to the end, and if you’ve written your text using Markdown it will be displayed in perfectly formatted html.

I’ve started writing my blog posts in Markdown on Typerighter, and I’ve also started keeping an open page on whichever browser I’m working in at the time and just using it as a scratchpad for making any notes as my day goes by. It works flawlessly on iPhone and iPad too.

Typerighter in all it’s pared down glory, that’s all there is to it.

I’ve finally got round to changing my 3 default passwords...

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 18:39:03 +0000

I’ve finally got round to changing my 3 default passwords using this method. I have 1 for banking. 1 for my main social media and blogging accounts and then 1 for all the other sites I subscribe to.

Youtube For Schools? Solving a problem that doesn't exist.

Mon, 12 Dec 2011 18:51:38 +0000

So Google have released Youtube For Schools? http://www.youtube.com/schools. This gives access to all the videos on Youtube Edu, and also others curated by your teachers, specific to your school Google Apps account.

Well that’s lovely. But really. Isn’t it time your school just used the other Youtube For Schools over at http://youtube.com? We’ve been using it freely for years. Nobody has to curate lists in advance. Spur of the moment learning moments can happen all the time. And do you know what? The World keeps turning. Students learn to manage their own Internet browsing. They learn that Youtube comments are something you just ignore. Sometimes they listen to music when they’re working. Life goes on.

Stop solving problems that don’t exist. Start teaching our young people how to manage their lives online by allowing them to use the tools as they really are.

ReBlog: Don't Be A Free User (Pinboard Blog)

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 07:35:43 +0000

ReBlog: Don't Be A Free User (Pinboard Blog):

minimalmac:

What if a little site you love doesn’t have a business model? Yell at the developers! Explain that you are tired of good projects folding and are willing to pay cash American dollar to prevent that from happening. It doesn’t take prohibitive per-user revenue to put a project in the black. It just requires a number greater than zero.

So, today I recorded a future episode of the podcast about this very theme (before I saw this post). I’m a happy paying user of Pinboard, one that even pays the extra money for the archiving feature. Not only do I believe this idea to be true but, as I announce in that upcoming show, I’m willing to put my money where my mouth is by sending, anonymously, cash to a service I use and love daily that has no outward discernible business model.

Here is my idea:

What if, 1% of the users of a particular free service of 36 million clients and growing, were to decide to drop $10.00 cash every month into an envelope and mail it to said service? What if that envelope had no return address? Perhaps there was an note inside that begged them to create a model to let us pay them to use the service. To make sure the service continued on once the bubble inevitably bursts and the VC’s take their payout and fly to the Grand Caymans.

My guess is that such a service would have to keep the money. Perhaps they would go through a couple of months of having their offices flooded with 300,000+ ten dollar bills. This might get to be a hassle so, perhaps, maybe, they finally get the hint and have a few million dollars of starting cash to launch a way for us to pay directly for this thing we use and love.

Crazy, right? Yep.

So, here is the address I’m sending my unmarked cash with the note in the envelope with no return address.

Tumblr, Inc., 35 East 21st Street, 9th Floor, New York, NY, 10010

I welcome those that care as much as I do to do the same.

Update: Forgot to mention, and I never ask this… Please reblog the shit out of this one.

Graphing Google

Tue, 06 Dec 2011 18:16:24 +0000

Graphing Google:

Now you can plot mathematical functions right on the search result page. Just type in a function and you’ll see an interactive graph on the top of the search results page.

Ban Calculators?

Sun, 04 Dec 2011 10:25:29 +0000

Ban Calculators?:

Just catching up on last week’s reading and found the Conservative’s latest idea from the NC Review. Banning calculators in early years of Primary school.

As someone planning a one device per child school you’d think I’d be up in arms. But I teach maths. And most pupils arrive at our school aged 11 and don’t know their times tables. And it genuinely does hold them back for the rest of their mathematical (and general) lives. Technology is wonderful, but basic literacy and numeracy skills are still vital and will be for the foreseeable future.

What do you think?

Rasberry Pi gets one step closer! See here and here why...

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 20:47:33 +0000

Rasberry Pi gets one step closer!

See here and here why it’s exciting.

Pre-Digital

Sun, 27 Nov 2011 16:50:35 +0000

Succinct and thought provoking piece by Seth Godin:

Is your school pre-digital? I’ve spent much of the first 3 months of the school year setting up a new installation of SIMs. Much of our knowledge of our learners is digitised, but we really need some better software to make the most of this data. SIMs Discover is a start in the right direction.

But what about everything else we do, how much of that could be digitised? Feedback and assessment information is the most obvious place, we’ve only scratched the surface so far of what’s possible.

Return to Granny's Garden?

Sun, 27 Nov 2011 15:24:04 +0000

The BBC along with Keri Facer at Manchester Metropolitan University are investigating the idea of a BBC Micro Mk2.0.

For those of you who didn’t grow up in 80’s Britain, the BBC Micro was an Acorn computer, build for the BBC Computer Literacy Project and became the mainstay of early IT in almost every British school. An army of young learners were either taught, or taught themselves the basics of programming using the BBC BASIC language on these machines.

The BBC Micro became a household fixture as well as a school one, featuring educational games such as Granny’s Garden (amazingly still available for sale - yours for £35!), and also the classic Elite, written by David Braben (more of him later).

We live in a World of cycles, and once again, computer literacy and the teaching of ICT is back in focus.

Here’s some of the preface to the cal for responses on the proposed new project:

Today, there is criticism of the ICT curriculum and the teaching of programming (or computational thinking) in schools. The Royal Society, amongst others, believe that design and delivery of ICT and computer science curricula in schools is so poor that students’ understanding and enjoyment of the subject is severely limited. In response to this the BBC is exploring the possibility of developing a project with the specific purpose of encouraging an interest in computers, computer science and computer programming amongst young people.

We would like to know your views on what the BBC could do in this area. In particular, what you would see as the desirable equivalent of the BBC Micro and The Computer Programme today? What technologies and processes, what tools and skills would such a project need to develop?

I’m keen to see anything that can help with the modernisation of the ICT curriculum, and anything that can help support our move into teaching Computing as a discrete subject.

Here’s my response to the questions:

What aspects of computational thinking (e.g. understanding how ‘computers think/work’, using programming languages, understanding systems thinking or other issues) should a BBC Micro 2.0 project focus on? What do you think people should be able to learn to do with computers today? Why?

Key areas that the current curriculum lacks focus upon are understanding the procedural nature of how a computer program works - hardware control, and an opportunity to learn to program. It would seem logical that a BBC Micro 2.0 project would be purely software based. If programming is to be at it’s core then a decision on whether to use an existing language, a modification of one, or a completely new language will have to be made. Two possible avenues would be a programming language that outputs HTML5 ‘programs’ - this would allow the widest possible distribution of programs, including on mobile devices. Another would be a programming language sitting on a Rasberry Pi device. This would have the bonus of being a complete hardware/software package at a very low price.

What are the best ways to support and encourage those young people (aged 9-14) with an interest in this area, to develop their interest and skills in computational thinking ? Can you suggest any examples of resources or activities that you know of?

Games design is the top way to engage with young people interested in computational thinking. Software packages such as Scratch & Kodu offer an excellent way in to early programming concepts. Games such as Lightbot offer a very early and accessible introduction. Code Academy is an interesting new development and a great way for young learners to get an introduction to programming without teacher support.

What are the best ways to support and encourage young people (aged 9-14) with other interests to develop an interest in and understanding of computational thinking? Can you suggest any examples of resources or activities that you know of?

See above, again, games offer the biggest ‘hook’ for young learners. Kodu would be the best example of a way of enticing otherwise uninterested young learners into computational thinking.

What are the key obstacles to learning computational thinking and how might these best be overcome?

Curriculum time, curriculum, qualifications and assessment. Until computational thinking is written deeply into the National Curriculum, or the NC is itself massively reduced, it will not be a priority in schools and will not get the class time that it needs to be developed. Hopefully the NC review will lower the total prescribed content, reduce the emphasis on software use such as MS Office and increase the emphasis on computational thinking. It would also be nice to see if brought to the fore in the Maths curriculum, at the expense of some of the less useful skills that currently exist there.

If you were to make hardware available to schools in the same way as the BBC Micro in 1981, what sorts of hardware would you think was essential to develop the skills and understanding needed?

Rasberry Pi looks like the perfect idea for a new generation of BBC Micro-esque hardware. It seems to be building a positive head of steam in the run up to it’s launch. BBC support of this project would surely help it succeed and the link with David Braben is almost poetic. Hardware needs to be mobile. A software only solution that works on a wide variety of platforms would make most sense. As discussed above, something that output HTML5 would make most sense.

If you were designing a tv programme today that sought to have the same effect as The Computer Programme in stimulating interest in the most important new area of technological development, what area would you expect it to address and what topics would you expect it to cover? Would it still be in the field of computer science? What areas?

A show that involved learners, with a strong online presence and with inspirational guests and challenges. You could run online challenges to write programs to solve a certain problem, or along a certain theme. The best of these could be invited to some kind of studio show where they compete to be a winner, maybe with judges from the relevant industry.

Do you know of any projects, resources and activities that would be examples that this project could learn from?

See above. Kodu, Scratch, Code Academy (& Khan Academy as a model), Rasberry Pi, Lightbot.

Do you have any other comments on the idea of a new BBC Micro project?

BBC support of computational thinking would be hugely positive, this has to be a priority area in UK education (see Nesta report & our journey). A software solution that offers young learners something close to the instant gratification of Scratch or Kodu whilst giving transferable skills to more formal languages would be hugely positive. As would support of the Rasberry Pi project.

Photo Credit to psd on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/psd/5435967638/