It goes so quickly you barely have time to blink and it's gone. (and now at time of posting another two weeks have gone by!!!)
So what delights are install for the next five weeks? (That's right just five weeks and another holiday will blink by!)
Last year I switched our qualification to the TLM Ingots IT Users qualifications due to the flexibility of it, the scope of what we could teach under it and the massive amount of support we would receive as a special school. And we have benefited from all of the above. My year 9 cohort last year all gained either Bronze Level 3 (equiv. Entry 3) or the Silver Certificate (equiv. D-G GCSE with league table points). I now have a small group of five lads who are studying in Year 10 for their Gold Award and then hopefully will sit the exam next year to gain the Gold Certificate (equiv. A*-C GCSE with league table points). For a school in which when I started had Y11 doing Entry Level OCR we've come a long way.
Last year we worked through a budgeting spreadsheet for Hogwarts and also saving Hagrids "MagiZoo" (Yes, I made that up it's not a word) from bankruptcy, created animations of sports using lego figures and stop motion equipment and created websites using Google Sites. We had a carousel system last year so each class was only with me for a term which obviously limited what we could cover time-wise. However, this year I have them all year and thank God because we needed to accommodate a new curriculum with the word everyone seems to fear.. PROGRAMMING and the other one... "COMPUTER SCIENCE" (cue dramatic music). 
So what have we done and how have I stopped myself going insane? My first move was to get my backside to a Raspberry Pi Jam - I'm extra lucky as my local one is CamJam in Cambridge where Pi Towers are also based and the first one I attended happened to be a focus on education. From there I applied for Picademy - do it! It will change how you think about Computing AND teaching!! A fantastic two days but I won't lie it was hard going - however this was simply down to the amount that Carrie Anne Philbin and the team had packed in to this amazing FREE CPD course. We covered GPIO and Scratch, Sonic Pi, Minecraft Pi (which can be controlled using python programming!) and GitHub.
So this term it's time to work towards our Raspberry Pi projects and knock off the Specialist Software unit for the Ingots qualification! Exciting times!
Right, Years 7 and 8 are currently using the Code.org course 1 to begin problem solving and starting to understand key concepts such as algorithm, program, bug and debug. These courses are aimed at younger children but are pitched just perfectly for the children I teach in my school (SEN school don't forget! And we do work through three activities that they recommend as one lesson in one of our 1 hour 20 lessons). The kids had never heard the words bug, debug, loop... And so on. I did manage to drill in the word algorithm last year but it was all a bit rushed and for those who, in September, hadn't seen me since last CHRISTMAS... Well, I don't think I need to finish that sentence!!
At this point I feel a bit of a school profile might help put into perspective why I'm pitching the content and teaching at the level I am, so...
We're a small special school (170ish cohort) for children with moderate learning difficulties. Our students have very low literacy and numeracy levels, and we have kids with autism, ADHD, Down's syndrome, aspergers, dyslexia as well as some physically disabled, VI/HI, dyspraxic students. And
they are all amazing. They also have no idea that through programming I'm sneakily teaching them literacy and numeracy.. Just like they don't realise that "that zombie game" they all love is teaching them to type.. Mwahahahahaha *evil laugh*
they are all amazing. They also have no idea that through programming I'm sneakily teaching them literacy and numeracy.. Just like they don't realise that "that zombie game" they all love is teaching them to type.. Mwahahahahaha *evil laugh*
Seriously though, my main two challenges are recall and accessing the curriculum for students who's reading and writing in secondary school is more what you would expect from early/middle years primary. Logical reasoning and problem solving are also a huge issue although when they don't realise they're doing it they are much better at it (they're all really good at the "rabbit in headlights" pose!!)
Back to the point- the code.org course is going great - they particularly enjoyed planting cress, although pretty much every form tutor wanted to know what the hell that had to do with ICT (they are weirdly resistant in some cases to the idea that ICT isn't the same as Computing and ICT doesn't exist anymore!)... After being asked ten times the eleventh person who asked I just smiled sweetly at and said "algorithms of course!?" And carried on my raid of the chocolate cupboard then had a giggle to myself when I returned to my classroom.
Year 9- Oh we've had some crazy fun... I say with a smile that anyone looking closely will see for the rictus of pain it is... One group doing Google Sites - relatively painless except for my class consists of students for whom reading the information, putting information into their own words and typing are all HUGE challenges for them. They're doing well though and I'm immensely proud of their refusal to give up - some of this is because they've seen how good child x'a website is (child x is high functioning autistic and absolutely LOVES computing to the point his form tutor always shakes her fist at me because he behaves for me haha- his website last year was a five page Minecraft how-to which all the information was directly typed from his head to the page, it was pretty impressive and is a great motivator for others!)
The other group are doing animation and it is CRAZY!!!! Equipment, lego, operating equipment (alert: fine motor skills required!), set building! It's a completely manic first few lessons but they love the project and we get some really nice films, which they can then take home too. This is the one and only project I kept from the OCR entry level the kids were doing when I first started (the rest of the qualification was atrocious - required silly amounts of paperwork and the kids HATED the tasks! Except this one!). I turned it from a visual to a multimedia unit- so we now have soundtracks and commentary's and we have titles and credits. It's great for getting them to pay attention to detail and think in logical "storylines". I've also found that some of my more artistic students who aren't necessarily great with computers (I do have arty kids who ARE great with computers of course) were really hooked by this project, they were pretty hot at it too! It gives them success in a lesson they perhaps find frustrating most of the time and that engagement carries through with them into the next project, they go in with a positive attitude on the back of that success and find that maybe this isn't as frustrating as they thought!
That leaves just my Year 10's- love this class- on a phased return from illness my senior leadership took the decision that on the day that I'd been having off they would trial a new KS4 pathway in Computing (they'd taken it off the timetable in Sept 2013). YEY!!! I thought instantly! So I was allowed to approach the five lads I'd eyeballed for KS4 (there are very few girls in that year, my current year 9's however I have my eyes on a few girls!). I was told I could give them the choice of staying where they were or trying out some new computing stuff with me. They all said yes instantly which was fantastic and hopefully sent a strong message to SLT about what our students want to be doing!! They're a great group- they're a lively bunch, and there were a few raised eyebrows (is she crazy?!) when I issued my list but they spend four lessons with me on a Thursday morning and they then inhale their lunch as fast as they can and leg it back to my room until afternoon registration, they're also in most other lunch times and I can honestly say, Thursday is my absolute favourite day of the week.
So far we've been using Minecraft EDU to complete a drawing unit so we've done pixel art, building houses for specific places/people and now we're onto building and defending a fortress in teams (PVP enabled!)
That leaves just my Year 10's- love this class- on a phased return from illness my senior leadership took the decision that on the day that I'd been having off they would trial a new KS4 pathway in Computing (they'd taken it off the timetable in Sept 2013). YEY!!! I thought instantly! So I was allowed to approach the five lads I'd eyeballed for KS4 (there are very few girls in that year, my current year 9's however I have my eyes on a few girls!). I was told I could give them the choice of staying where they were or trying out some new computing stuff with me. They all said yes instantly which was fantastic and hopefully sent a strong message to SLT about what our students want to be doing!! They're a great group- they're a lively bunch, and there were a few raised eyebrows (is she crazy?!) when I issued my list but they spend four lessons with me on a Thursday morning and they then inhale their lunch as fast as they can and leg it back to my room until afternoon registration, they're also in most other lunch times and I can honestly say, Thursday is my absolute favourite day of the week.
So far we've been using Minecraft EDU to complete a drawing unit so we've done pixel art, building houses for specific places/people and now we're onto building and defending a fortress in teams (PVP enabled!)
We've also used Code.org to introduce coding (pre-Pi work!! exciting!) and we've used the awesome (and incredibly cheap to schools) GameStar Mechanic to learn about how to design computer games (note: This is not programming it is the designing and iteration processes) and their games are now published on Game Alley on the Gamestar website!
We had some fun with spreadsheets (I know those two words should never be in a sentence together but hang in there with me for this one!) - they had to budget for Gru to undertake four "dastardly plots" to take over the world. This involved which minions to use, which helpers (the girls and Lucy) and which weapons (fart gun, squid launcher etc.) and extras (antidote-jam, inflatable pyramid) to hire for the days the plot took and also to take into account each lesson a randomiser generated amount of money for Cookie Sales by the girls. If this is making no sense to you then you really need to watch Despicable Me 1 & 2!! The lads loved it - one ended up with £6k ish and another £5k in the red to their great amusement. Comment if you'd like a copy of the resource!
And that's us! The awesome Raspberry Pi folks are coming in on Friday to assist with setting up our Pi's as we're having issues so look out for Raspberry Pi projects on here which I'm hoping to start in the next two weeks!!!!!
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