PyCon UK 2015

Finally it's time for Pycon! After weeks of avidly watching the website for tickets to go on sale and then weeks of waiting for September to arrive it's finally here!

Day One...
8.45am BREAKFAST!!! Bacon and egg bap thank you very much! 

9.30am and time for the opening ceremony which involved Zeth throwing fruit at teachers and Raspberry's at the Raspberry Pi team.

10.30 and it was off to my first session  led by Alan O'Donaghue. A great discussion about what Python is and how we can use it in the classroom.

11.20 Quick cuppa and then on to Minecraft in Education with my Picademy graduatee Sarah Zaman. Using Python and Minecraft Pi Sarah let us work through some fantastic resources she's developing with Geocraft - I built a rainbow bridge!

Side note: the most fantastic thing today is that Pycon have started their "adopt a developer" initiative where they've invited developers to attend the education track  and adopt us teachers while we're working through stuff. This has been amazing for me - I've learnt so much about how to make my code more concise and organised and why we do things certain ways. Big thanks to the Luke and Natasha from The Bank of America who spent most of the women hours helping me figure out some more stuff in Minecraft!!!

16.00 - TeachMeet time! Awesome news about micro:bit, coding evening updates and a whole host of other discussions!

18:00 time for free beer and canapés before the charity function at 19:30 - a chance to hang out with other education specialists, relax and kick back!
Another aside- I won in the raffle!!! I never win!

Day Two...
10.00 a slightly later start today. It's kids day so we're all mucking in to support in various workshops. Lot's on offer here - Astro Pi, Code Club, Physical Computing with Sense Hats and of course I had to help out in the Minecraft workshop! A great workshop run by Martin O'Hanlon programming his Lava Trap game on Minecraft Pi and Python. The kids were really engaged and I found I was pretty confident helping them with their code after yesterday's sessions! Whoop Whoop! 

12.30 lunch time and then back to the mornings stations for an afternoon of free for all activities. It's been great to see the things kids are coming up with independently and how well they grasp and understand the concepts and rules of the Python language. 

Onto the evening 7.30 and we're all seated for the Conference Meal- posh grub, wine and beer and great conversation.  I was a little bit anxious about this as they separate everyone on to random tables but the guys I was sat with were lovely and we had some great chats from dating sites to programming in java to how traumatic the 80's ewok film caravan of hope was!  After the meal we all hung around finishing off more fuzzy duck brewed beer and catching up with friends/Introducing new friends to the old.

I found the conference really useful, it's given me a lot more confidence in my classroom practice and I feel ready to delve into the world of Python with my learners which before the conference I was terrified of mainly because of their special needs. It's definitely going to be an annual outing for me and part of my development plan for my department and I would recommend that those of you who haven't been do the same! 

Peterborough's First Coding Evening!

July 7th 2015.... #CodingEvening

In the year since we graduated #Picademy my fellow graduate @CatLamin has been super busy. Amongst all the amazing stuff she does in our community Cat organises the Twickenham Coding Evening. Cat's initiative was to set up a relaxed, informal environment in which educators and local community members interested in programming and the new Computing curriculum could come together for a pint and some food, support, networking and resource sharing. as you can imagine the evening was a huge hit. Cat has now organised four events since January 2015 and other members of the Coding and Education communities are starting to contact her about setting up their own (follow the link above if you're interested) including me!

Peterborough's first Coding Evening took place on July 7th 2015. I reserved out an area of a local pub and we turned it into Geekdom! Our gathering included local teachers, TA's, potential school volunteers and members of the local community.

We were also extremely lucky to have the lovely @Geeky_Tim who is one of orgaisers of @CambridgeJam and also the wonderful @WhaleyGeek who co-authored Adventures in Minecraft and had spent all day with the BBC releasing the BBCMicrobit. We were also lucky enough that he brought along a flip the egg frying pan game that used the Microbit (except I kept calling it a MicroBOT because I've been studying Big Hero 6 with my English class).

Tim brought along Raspberry Pi's and HDMI-Pi's and we had people involved in Minecraft and trying to program RGB LED's through Scratch. A couple of people went away with a lent out Pi kit on the proviso that they have to come back with it and show us something cool they have managed to do. Discussion was flowing around the new curriculum and what resources people are using and having started at 4.30 those of us that were still going strong at 8pm sat down to get some food. The evening was a great success and as a result I will be running one every two months which seemed to be a regularity that everyone agreed on. So if you're in or around the Peterborough area please contact me @digitaldivageek (Twitter) or digitaldivageek@geektools.com and come along!

"Really well organised amnd resourced - I had wondered whether we might be sitting around in a circle saying "Errrr...", but it wasfar too well planned for that to happen!....Re-inspired to play with the RPi!"

MineCon2015

MineCon 2015

On Saturday 4th July 2015 10,000 people came together from 73 countries around the world for MineCon. The official Minecraft Convention which was held at the ExCel Centre in London broke the Guinness World record for the largest convention ever for a single video game.

The opening ceremony kicked off with a bang and a 10,000 strong audience of VERY excited Minecraft lovers were clearly very excited and impressed. Stampy was there to set out the rules for us and then it was on to demoing some new and upcoming products…

The Hololens

This piece of kit is just unbelievable - you basically put on the headset and you can view the your Minecraft world in 3D on a tabletop or a wall.

The Hololens allows the gamer to view a 3D augmented reality version of their Minecraft world. Players can move the world around, zoom in and out and even put their heads inside the buildings to see the interior or lightning strike the floor and even zoom in to look around inside the mines! The scrolling and zooming features are controlled by voice or by arm motions and the view can be set to “follow player.” Pretty awesome!

Stop-motion animation

Another upcoming release is the stop motion animation kit. This lovely little set includes a little film set and mini characters (you can then buy more of the different creatures, blocks and characters) and you then just need a tablet or iPhone and you can create your own animations! The example we were shown in the opening ceremony was a really nice little film that could easily be created at home or in the classroom - there's a strong possibility I will be replacing my Lego animation unit with a Minecraft animation unit!!!

So on to my own experience....

Obviously I was mega excited to be able to attend MineCon, it's in a different country each year so it was a once in a long time opportunity. However, I had no idea what to expect..maybe 300-400 people geeking out and gaming? Maybe some merchandise stalls? Hopefully an abundance of stickers!?

What I got was 10,000 people from age 5 to 75 and the entire Expo hall of London ExCel Centre literally turned into Minecraft! The centre point was a giant big Ben built from blocks with an immense Ender Dragon encircling it. There were trees and pens with animals in and the aforementioned merchandise stalls. There were also display stands featuring the animation kits, the card game and the Gameband amongst others. Everyone in my group
bought a super cool diamond limited edition Gameband which is a neat bit of wearable tech - the band itself is a digital watch, with date and time plus an animation of your choice (the animations can be hacked so for example mine now has my twitter handle scrolling round it). But that's not the main aim of the Gameband; to unclip it you pull it apart at the diamond block and it's actually a high speed USB stick which has Minecraft on it. You can then plug this into any PC or Mac and open up your saved worlds. The band has Minecraft installed so you don't need to be on a machine that has Minecraft on it either! If you do play a lot at home every time you plug the band in it will update the worlds saved on your band. So what if you lose your band?! Easy! You just ring them up and they will send you a new band at a reduced price, everything you've saved is backed up to a cloud so as long as you know your account login and password you can just plug in the new band and login and it will download everything up to your last update!!! Amazingness!!!!

Fun could also be had in the huge tournament area where players were involved in all different kinds of tournaments, in the indie gaming section where there were some really cool little games (and badges!) (I got thrashed at a Tron style football game) and in MinePark Row where there were lots of free arcade games that you could win velcro character rings on - I was great at this!!

My weekend then ended with two 90 minute teacher training sessions led by the education team - we started of with a basic day one how to led by @ImmersiveMind- I got excited that I had lots of pigs but then died almost instantly at night as I was immediately attacked by about seven zombies!

The second section was on STEM projects using Minecraft - We were given examples and a great intro by @sarahguthals we then looked at Redstone and how it can be used and were given the task of building something with Redstone... I started off with my pig catcher (after having fun blowing holes in the floor and then deciding I should probably build something a bit more sensible) however, my pigs kept jumping out so I had to then modify it adding a roof....

Pig Catcher #1

Pig Catcher #2

Both sessions were incredibly useful and I am now confident I'm going to be hooked... once I finally have a chance to sit down an play it...role on the holidays!!! 

Now all I need is for Microsoft to run an official CPD for a couple of days that ends with us being Minecraft Certified Educators!! 

Raspberry Pi 3rd Birthday Bash!

Happy Birthday Raspberry Pi!!!!!! 

@Raspberry_Pi

I've been looking forward to this weekend for a good two months and it's finally here! Yesterday I travelled down to Cambridge for a big CamJam/Raspberry Pi birthday bash... And as expected it was an amazing day. 

The Education Team Panel

Eben Upton (Raspberry Pi Foundation foundering CEO) kicked us off with the journey so far, what he has learned travelling it and a few reminders of recent announcements (Raspberry Pi 2!!!!) following on from him were a series of talks in two lecture theatres from members of the Pi community. The Education Team from the foundation were on hand to answer questions from educators and parents alike, along with us Certified Educators doing our best to share our experiences and offer support where needed/wanted. David Honess was there sharing the amazing Astro Pi project/competition- check out the link! 

And in between talks there was the foyer of the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory jam packed with awesomeness! There was the talking throne... Fill your board with the three words of who you want to be and take a seat: 

David Whale and Martin O'Hanlon were on hand to promote their new book Adventures in Minecraft Pi. Pimoroni and The PiHut were amongst the vendors there offering bargains on all sorts of cool stuff. And Pimoroni were packaging there wares in an exceptionally cool bag. 

There were bunnies pooping chocolate mini eggs, a stall with lots of cool retro games (I got very excited as they had Chuckie Egg which was my favourite on our old Amstrad 64 when I was a kid):

For those interested in robotics and Pi there was an obstacle course, and stalls featuring different ideas/designs/equipment. Check out PiWars for more super cool robotics stuff! 

And then at four thirty all those with party tickets mucked in setting up for some fun and games (literally!).

We were provided with Dominos pizza, some delicious cakes and free Raspberry Pi Beer from Fuzzy Duck Brewery - Check out there website for how they use Python programming and Raspberry Pi's to brew their ale! 

We played pass the parcel for a goody bag full of freebies - I still haven't forgiven Ben Nutall for making me give up a cool GitHub t-shirt but I did end up with a Drawdio Bausatz -the instructions are in German but look out for a short blog post once I've figured it out... 

I also managed to wangle a GitHub mug to ease the pain of losing the T-Shirt! 

Finally, it was time to chill with my Picademy friends and the guys from the education team... A nice relaxing end to an informative and inspiring day, I'm just gutted I couldn't make Sunday's second innings of all cool things Pi!! 

Who to follow:

Rapberry Pi & CamJam: @raspberry_pi @EbenUpton @CambridgeJam @recantha @Geeky_Tim @RachelRaynes @asbradbury

Raspberry Pi Education team: @MissPhilbin @ben_nutall @dave_spice @clivebeale @jrobinson_uk @martinohanlon @samaaron

Raspberry Pi Certified Educators: @digitaldivageek (me!) @CatLamin @Swaygrantham @Fabteachertips @monkeymademe (Look out for more in future posts as there are too many to list here!!) 

Other great Raspbians: @whaleygeek @ModMyPi @pi_weekly @RasPiTV @JarJarGeek @charwarz @pimoroni @mypifi @ThePiHut @TheMagP1 

Who am I? What is this blog?

First up, who am I?... I'm a thirty something Computing teacher in a special needs school. I have a
degree in Music and Philosophy and trained originally as a Music teacher... bit of a U-turn huh? Yep, definitely!!

After teaching Music for four years I realised I was losing my passion for it both inside and outside the classroom whilst those around me seemed to be getting more of an enrichment of what they did in their own time from being immersed in it all day? So I took a break, decided I would just have to lump being one of those statistics (you know, one in 4 leaving and all that). I was told in no uncertain terms by EVERY recruitment agency I went to that I had no employable skills or relevant experience for such a competitive job market. WHAAAAAAT?!!! I hear you screaming!! Yep, true that!

So I wound up spending the summer as a temping receptionist at the local probation offices... Not the busy, super organised, highly skilled reception/admin lady, just a receptionist who answers the phone and books in the offenders (through bullet proof glass - but I trained and taught in inner city London so apparently I DID have some relevant experience for this one!). Mostly, I twiddled my thumbs and thought of inventive ways to finish myself off if I didn't get some kind of mental stimulation and my brain turned to jelly leaving me a vegetable. Then the reality that £6.45 an hour wasn't going to pay my bills once my precious savings ran dry hit home. So I started doing supply work. Turns out I hate supply work and teaching a load of kids I don't know something I hadn't planned myself and it turns out a lot of teachers leave tests and exam practice as cover work so I had to sit and once again twiddle my thumbs (which by now were becoming quite muscular from all said twiddling) while they sat in silence. Then I did a days supply in a local special school and everything changed...

I wound up covering ICT for a couple of terms and then landed the job permanently. Suffice to say that coming from a music background this was an entirely different kettle of fish so I had to retrain with regards to my subject knowledge. I was pretty IT savy with regards to use of software but then it all changed in September to Computing and I'm not going to lie "programming" freaked me out (still does to some extent!), but not one to back down from a challenge and being someone who likes to learn I attended Picademy (which was amazing!) and got myself a load of books and some online courses. It's been a very big mountain and I'm still only about 2 meters up!

Jump to three years down the line and here I am, starting to slowly become more confident in my ability of teaching Computing as it's now called but still struggling with Python and screaming in my head that our school network won't allow me to download software or files onto my Pi's!!

She likes to help me with my marking! 

Outside work I'm a big fan of fantasy, horror and sci-fi books/films, I bake and (attempt to) do sugarcraft, I'm a bit of a gym junkie, a trained singer, addicted to Plants 'vs' Zombies and Clash of Clans and because I am such a geek I like to do courses on Coursera. I'm also mother to one crazy little blue furred fluff ball who's antics keep me sane and smiling through the most stressful of times (and as teachers we all know there are plenty of those!! Good job the rewards outweigh them!)

So that's me. What is this blog? Well, hopefully, it's not just an account of my experiences teaching computing inside and outside the classroom/school but also an account of my life as a bona fide geek and a place to share resources with readers and get feedback and ideas from like minded (possibly way more knowledgeable) people!