COMPUTING AT SCHOOL SCOTLAND NEWSLETTER SPRING 2014

First Minister Alex Salmond announced in early March that Scotland’s digital technologies sector will benefit from £6.6 million to boost its reputation for cutting-edge digital expertise.

The funding will support digital skills and address actions set out in the ICT and digital technologies Skills Investment Plan (http://bit.ly/cass5-2). The plan includes actions such as:

• Responding to the immediate skills shortage by developing an industry led talent academy model

• Offering more opportunities to increase female participation in the digital sector

• Supporting employer engagement with schools and aligning courses to their needs

• Increasing uptake and capacity for digital qualifications in schools

According to the Scottish Government, “Scotland’s ICT and digital technologies sectors deliver £3 billion

to the Scottish economy and currently employs 73,000 digital technology professionals. ... The Skills Investment Plan (SIP) found that there is an increased global demand for high level digital technology skills.”

Officially opening CodeBase, the First Minister said: “ICT and digital technologies are a key driver of economic growth. However, despite growing demand for skills the number of young people within the sector has not kept pace.

“The Scottish Government believes there is even further untapped potential in our digital sector and we want Scotland to become a world-leading digital nation by 2020.”

CAS Scotland are named as key partners in the Skills Investment Plan when it comes to improving the uptake of relevant courses in schools, and we are looking forward to taking the identified actions forward, key to which must be an increased prominence of Computing Science in our schools!

The “Computing At School” working group (CAS) is a membership association in partnership with BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT and supported by Microsoft, Google and others. It aims to support and promote the teaching of computing in UK schools.

£6.6 MILLION FUNDING FOR DIGITAL SCOTLAND

In collaboration with BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT

With the launch of the £6.6 million pound Skills Investment Plan detailed in the main article the importance of students developing an understanding of digital technology has never been clearer. Professional Learning and Networking for Computing is a 2 year national programme funded by the Scottish Government and overseen by the BCS Academy of Computing and CAS Scotland to support and strengthen the teaching of Computing in Scottish Schools.

One of the main strands of the programme focuses on new pedagogy and supporting activities for National 4, 5, and Higher Computing Science that CS Education research has shown help a wider range of students understand and apply the core ideas.

With the training of 32 PLAN C lead teachers now complete in local authorities across the South and Central Scotland many local hub groups will be starting in late April/May and regularly meeting to share experience, new activities and mutual support throughout session 2014/15.

Registering to participate in a local group near you has a number of benefits that include access to:

• professional learning specifically targeted at why beginners find some concepts and skills more difficult and how we can change our teaching

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The first of two morning keynotes was delivered by Professor Sally Fincher from the University of Kent. She talked about pedagogical content knowledge being situated and not easily transferable. She discussed the setting of farms, where farmers come together to bare all and get honest feedback on their crops and farm management. Sally then talked about kitchens and how difficult it is to transfer your knowledge about how to cook a particular meal. Different recipe formats have tried, including Jamie Oliver’s 30 minute meals and an ‘engineers’ recipe, expressed as a table. Lastly she related this to difficulties in explaining to others how you teach a particular Computing lesson or topic but the importance of having a dialogue with other teachers about pedagogy.

Next up was Quintin Cutts from Glasgow University. Currently seconded to one of the project officer roles for the PLAN C programme, he gave delegates an overview of the program and the progress so far. The link to Sally Fincher’s talk was certainly obvious: professional learning communities are a big part of the programme.

A series of practical workshops and seminars followed the keynotes with a wide variety of topics: Raspberry Pi; Touch Develop; Lego Mindstorms; Programming with LiveCode, Kodu & Python; there was a choice of 25 sessions in total.

For the first time there was also a focus on Computing Science education in the Primary sector, and we were delighted to be joined by speakers focussing on this: Primary teachers Bianca Ní Grógain flew in from Ireland to discuss flipped learning in the primary setting and Karl Barrs from Fife demonstrated his use of Scratch in the primary classroom.

The afternoon sessions finished with two further keynotes. In the first, Alistair O’Brien from the Amor Group gave us his view of ‘what industry really wants’. The answer was clear: students who have computational thinking skills! In the second keynote, Yen Yau and Hugh MacDonald demonstrated the need for Computing Science in the creative industry. Hugh’s demonstration of 3D rendering techniques in blockbuster movies might just have contributed to the CS teacher shortage in Scotland, judging by the comments on twitter!

The day was wrapped up with a wine reception and a chance to chat, with thanks to NESTA for sponsoring the wet stuff. Thanks are also due to the CAS Scotland committee who organised such a large event on top of their regular jobs. Here’s looking forward to the 2014 Conference!

Mark Tennant

SWITCHED ON Scottish Edition 5

CAS SCOTLAND CONFERENCE 2013 HIGHLIGHTSGlasgow University was the place to be on 26th October as CAS Scotland held our annual conference. The event has doubled in size since last year with over 200 people now attending as well as 27 different speakers and workshop facilitators.

There has been much movement on this topic in recent months – the following should be really useful ammunition in encouraging your pupils to keep studying Computing Science. CAS Scotland has been instrumental in helping to make this happen.

All the Scottish Universities now view Computing Science Higher as a valid Higher for their general entry requirements – e.g. if they say 3 As and 2 Bs at Higher, then Computing Science can be one of those Highers.

Six of the Scottish Universities now “recommend” Computing Science Higher for entry into CS-related degree programmes: Glasgow; Strathclyde; Heriot-Watt; Dundee; Abertay and RGU. They still can’t say “require”, but it’s a big step in the right direction.

The Scottish Universities have issued a press release which can be seen at http://bit.ly/cass5-5.

In a further development, the Russell Group Universities (a prestigious group of 24 UK Universities, inc. Oxford, Cambridge, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Imperial and Manchester) now recommend advanced level Computing Science (including our Higher and Advanced Higher) as useful for study in many areas of further education, including all the sciences, maths, engineering, medicine and related areas, geology, economics, sociology, and psychology.

The Russell Group report is available to read at http://bit.ly/cass5-1

Quintin Cutts.

DO UNIVERSITIES CARE ABOUT COMPUTING?

Videos of the conference are available on the CAS YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/computingatschool

SWITCHED ON Scottish Edition 5

Moray College in Elgin hosted its first Coderdojo on Saturday.

Twelve young people, aged between 12-17 years, signed up for the free computer coding event on the Coderdojo Scotland website. Helping me organise the event was Craig Steele from Coderdojo Scotland. During the event help was provided from student volunteers from Moray College and a local Computing Teacher.

The theme of the first club was web design. Each of the coding club members was able to create their own multimedia web pages adding images, music, cartoons and Google maps. They have asked for the following in future club meetings:- Video and picture editing, Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Advanced Web Design, Game programming (e.g. Scratch, C++).

During each Coderdojo session some time is spent learning a new skill e.g learning to create a game in the Scratch programming language and then they can choose between extending their knowledge of the new skill area or doing their own coding work.

The next CoderDojo events are on 26th April at Moray College and 27th April at Glasgow Science Centre. More details are available at: http://www.coderdojoscotland.com

Claire Griffiths.

UNDERSTANDING HOW HAGGIS SHOULD BE USEDThere is much confusion over Haggis, a.k.a SQA Pseudocode which is now being used in exams for National 5 and Higher. Here, Quintin Cutts explains why it was developed, and how he would expect it to be used.

Computing science (CS) makes use of formally defined languages (e.g. programming languages) and informally defined languages (e.g. pseudocode for program planning).

Formally-defined means there is a clear distinction between sentences meeting the language definition (valid sentences) and those that don’t. Furthermore valid sentences have only one meaning.

Being able to explain code expressed in formal languages is a fundamental CS skill – now rightly a major learning objective. We need therefore to assess, under exam conditions, whether students have developed it.

Using traditional informally-defined pseudocode for this assessment, as was done in the past, is insufficient. When using pseudocode in a localised context such as a classroom, any ambiguity can be resolved in discussion. But this resolution is impossible in an exam, where candidates cannot speak to setters. We, the experts, know most likely how to interpret the ambiguous pseudocode, but we must not place such an intolerable load onto a candidate.

Instead, we need a formally defined language, whose meaning the students can have learned thoroughly. But which? No single language of instruction is specified by SQA, so we cannot simply adopt that. Hence Haggis – a formal reference language. It isn’t a pseudocode as it has a precise definition.

We expected Haggis to be incorporated into teaching as follows:

1. Pupils learn to program in a “real” language of the teacher’s choice.

2. Planning uses any informal pseudocode with which the teacher is comfortable.

3. Pupils are introduced to Haggis

and the key differences between it and the language they’ve learned, shortly before the exam. We can provide these key differences for major languages.

Crucially – pupils NEVER need to write Haggis in exams, only ever read and explain it. For writing, they should use the language they’re most comfortable with.

You will probably want to develop examples/questions using Haggis. It is never easy to write accurate code first time. Haggis is no different, and a checker and run-time system are now available:

http://bit.ly/cass5-4

There is much more to write on this subtle topic, which we address in the PLAN C programme. I will write more about it on the CAS Scotland website.

Quintin Cutts

Editor’s Note: this is a synopsis of a larger article that appeared on CompEdNet in March. You can read the full article and ensuing discussion at http://bit.ly/cass5-3.

MORAY CONTINUES THE CODERDOJO UPTAKE

so that more of them experience success rather than frustration in the new Computing Science qualifications.

• an online space with background research, presentations, templates and example N5 and Higher activities you can try out with pupils in your own classroom.

• a supportive group that meets face to face and online with a focus on effectively sharing existing and new teaching experience and how we can continue to improve the classroom experience for all learners.

• A structured programme of sessions with accreditation at the end by the BCS Academy of Computing that will also allow you to meet many of the new requirements for professional update.

Further details will be shared soon on www.planforcomputing.org.uk about how to register to take part but crucially your participation in PLAN C is an opportunity to help reinvigorate and rejuvenate CS in Scotland for a new generation of learners.

Peter Donaldson

PLAN C ARTICLE CONTINUED...

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This one day event was held at Forres Enterprise Park, Moray on Monday 18th November 2013. Fourteen teachers and three UHI lecturers attended the training day. Activities included a Raspberry Pi demonstration and an opportunity to set up one of the Pi kits. There were discussions on how the Pi kits could be used in the classroom alongside other innovative hardware and software. Later in the day there was an opportunity to see satellite tracking with a venetian blind/arduino set-up and a demonstration of the T-Exchange’s home-made 3-D printer Mk1 (Mk2 is at the planning stage).

In the afternoon the attendees were split into two groups. Each group visited the nearby Electronics firm, Scottish Electronics International Ltd. This provided the teachers with a first-hand opportunity to see Computing, Physics and Design Technology skills and knowledge in action in a competitive industrial setting. In addition to the tour, Founder and owner Mike Ramsey talked to each group about what they look for in terms of the qualifications and skills in potential employees. He would really like more local school children to study for Engineering / Software Development degrees as there is the local demand from his company and others in the area. He also encouraged the secondary teachers to send potential students to work in his company on a work experience placement.

The day was supported financially by CAS UK. T-Exchange Moray provided expert advice. Ten Google Raspberry Pis were supplemented with supporting Raspberry Pi kit from Moray College (UHI). Highlands and Enterprise allowed the use of one of their meeting rooms at no cost.

Claire Griffiths.

NEWS FROM THE NORTH-EAST

SCOTLAND WELCOMES BACK FIRST LEGO LEAGUELast Autumn, this prestigious international robotics tournament for 9 to 16 year olds was re-ignited to widespread excitement. Laura Meikle, Chief Jam Officer from non-profit organisation Lambda Jam, explains more.

The theme was Nature’s Fury, and the challenges for the teams of children included designing, engineering, and programming a robot to tackle an array of difficult missions. These ranged from launching emergency supply planes and reuniting families, to delivering water and food whilst manoeuvring around flooded rivers and blown down trees. In addition, teams had to explore how technology can be used to mitigate the impact of natural disasters and aid communities in their recovery.

The Scottish finals took place in January and saw 63 children from across the country compete, all with an eye on winning the champions’ LEGO trophy and the much sought after place in the UK finals. The results of the team’s efforts were impressive, with all teams completing several missions even though most had no prior experience with the competition or with programming. The thrilling and nail-biting final saw the Calderwood

Clan from Calderwood Primary in Rutherglen ultimately win. Photos of the event and a blog post giving more details can be found on the Lambda Jam website (www.lambdajam.org).

Looking forward, we’re planning for next season’s FLL tournament to be bigger and better. The theme will be “First Class”, looking at how technology can benefit learning in the classroom, and we want more teams from all across the country to take part. If you’re interested in building a team or finding out more, please email takepart@lambdajam.org.

www.casscotland.org.uk www.computingatschool.org.uk

ENJOYED THIS ISSUE? THERE’S LOADS MORE ONLINE!• Join in the CAS Community: http://community.computingatschool.org.uk

• PLAN C Programme website: http://www.planforcomputing.org.uk

• CAS videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/computingatschool

• Follow us on Twitter: @CASSCOTLAND / #CASSCOT13 / @COMPATSCH

Many thanks to the following for help with this issue of SWITCHEDON: Quintin Cutts, Peter Donaldson, Kate Farrell, Claire Griffiths, Laura Meikle and CASS members for their proofreading skills as always!