• Summary
• Workshop reports and further links to resources
• Poster Display

CAS Conference 2010 - Summary Report

The Computing at School Working Group held their second annual teacher conference at the University of Birmingham on July 9th. From an initial registration of 172, 138 people attended with approximately one third also attending the pre-conference reception the night before. Secondary school teachers formed the overwhelming majority of attendees and they spent the day in a variety of plenary sessions, small group workshops and attending the poster display over lunch. The conference aims to provide a platform to celebrate the developments in schools and to encourage others by giving the clear message that computing, as a subject and discipline, is a good and right thing to be doing in their classrooms.

The event was preceded by a pre-conference reception at the university. This took the form of a 'teachmeet' style event i.e. several short presentations on a variety of topics which was streamed live to any who wished to log in and view remotely. The footage of the evening will be made available shortly. Topics included: Using Robomind (Peter Marshman), the probot (Miles Berry), using scratch for the first time (Blossom Lane), Greenfoot (Michael Kolling and Neil Brown), magic tricks as a way in to computing algorithms (Peter McOwan), extending Scratch with BYOB (John Stout), the Royal Society report (Simon Peyton Jones), the open source education disc (Peter Kemp), the Digital Schoolhouse project (Mark Dorling). Approximately 55 people attended and enjoyed both an excellent buffet and inspiring presentations.

The full conference day started with Andrew Herbert OBE (Managing Director Microsoft Research UK) and Peter Dickman (Technical Manager, Google) sharing their vision for computing education 2020. Andrew provided a fascinating insight into the historical perspective leading to the consequences of cloud computing and data at scale and how cloud computing can liberate schools from existing hardware and software constraints; he spoke about new programming paradigms e.g. F# that are being used to harness the power provided by the Cloud. Finally, he touched on the issues of 'natural user interfaces' (greater use of gesture, speech, touch, handwriting) and the growing importance of “inference” versus “algorithms”.

Peter followed with a subtitle of "How to get there from here". Using inspirational teachers and content from his own education as a starting point he took us on an exciting journey that touched on: how current technology enables arbitrary learning once basics are mastered; the contrast between skills/tasks/understanding & data vs info vs knowledge - computing vs ICT etc; the importance of clear thinking and problem solving as a taught activity, algorithmic thinking and technological rate of change. He presented the 4 R's of teaching, which was subsequently extended by Aaron Sloman to the 5 R's:

• Reading
• wRiting
• aRithmetic, and
• pRogRamming!

CAS were particularly pleased to invite Matthew MacLaurin to share his vision behind the Kodu Project. Matthew is the chief developer, based in Redmond USA, of this project. Kodu is an exciting software tool that enables children to build interactive games. Originally built for the Xbox, a PC version is now available but the input device of choice remains the gamepad. Following a plenary demonstration, an explanation of the design principles that underpin Kodu and a summary of the educational benefits of using Kodu in the classroom Matthew presented 3 workshops to smaller groups. These were very well attended and Kodu was one of the most commented upon features in the feedback forms.

Alongside the Kodu workshop were two other repeat workshops with longtime CAS partners: cs4fn and Greenfoot. Peter McOwan from cs4fn demonstrated his skills as a magician and taught how to do several magic tricks that folk could take back into their classrooms to demonstrate algorithms and the 'Magic of Computer Science'. Michael Kolling and Neil Brown from the Greenfoot project gave 3 interactive workshops on Greenfoot. Many teachers are now beginning to use Greenfoot, particularly with their KS4 classes, as a way of teaching introductory programming. It is an excellent tool for this, built on solid pedagogical foundations. Once again, many teachers commented on how useful this workshop had been.

Further workshop sessions were offered that included: 'Where are the Girls' (Rebecca George OBE), Algorithmic Problem Solving (Roland Backhouse), Running an after-school club (Allan Callaghan), Qualifications at KS4 (Thomas Ng), Developing Apps for the mobile phone (Diane Dowling), Teacher Trainee session (John Woollard, Miles Berry, Tim Tarrant, David Longman), Wedo and Scratch (Miles Berry), Computing - the science of nearly everything (Aaron Sloman) plus open forums on both A Level Computing and the new GCSE Computing pilot (Roger Davies, George Rouse).

A new event for this year was the poster display. Teachers were invited to submit a poster that celebrated one aspect of their teaching. Over 20 were submitted; CAS had them printed in A1 form and these were then displayed in the atrium of the Computing School in Birmingham and delegates could view and chat with the teachers about their poster and pick up even more ideas for developing computing in school.

The overwhelming feeling from those who came was that the day was very worthwhile, one comment received through email after the event sums it up for them:

"The effects of the CAS conference has made me feel so "heady" with excitement that I have still not come down to earth. It was so enjoyable and I got so much out of it. On reflection it was not so much what was said, but all the many helpful and interesting colleagues I met and chatted to. Hence a huge "thank you" for enabling this event to happen. I would love to join the CAS group."

CAS are particularly grateful for the ongoing support of BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, Microsoft Research Cambridge, Vital and Google.

Simon Humphreys

Coordinator Computing at School

Workshop Resources

1. Running an after school club
2. Where are the girls?
3. Teacher Trainee Workshop
4. cs4fn
5. Greenfoot
6. Algorithmics Problem Solving
7. Qualifications at KS4
8. Apps for mobile phones
9. A Level Forum
10. The Science of Nearly Everything

Running an After School Club - Allan Callaghan

Allan looked at how to run after school clubs, illustrating a range of activity ideas and responses to quickly get young people programming with examples of how to get students experimenting with programming games and curiously fiddling with Linux. Various issues associated with hardware, software, finding time, seniour management and progression to qualifications were also covered.

Further information can be found here

Where are the girls? - Rebecca George

I asked everyone to tell me where they came from and about their experiences with the participation of girls. They all told me that they had almost no participation of girls in their classes, in several cases they had none at all.

I then summarised the situation, provided some facts and figures:

• 23% of the IT workforce are women versus 45% national average
• 15% of university applicants/accepts are women for computer science and related subjects
• There is 9% participation of women at A level, an 8% drop since 2003
• However there is 44% participation of girls at GCSE, possibly because Technical Academies mandate at least the short form GCSE IT

I talked about what I have done to increase the participation of women in IT over the last 13 years, including activities at schools, pre-university, university careers offices, graduate recruitment, early career, maternity returners, mid career and retaining senior women. I said that now my focus is on collaboration and the wider agenda of diversity and inclusivity. This is on the basis that many fragmented initiatives, run by women for women, and with funding that inevitably runs out, weren’t working. So instead I had turned my attention to improving the profession and industry for everyone on the basis that more women would also then come along and stay.

I am responsible for Diversity and Inclusivity for the BCS and we are working on a very small number of initiatives in collaboration with universities, professional organisations, the government, universities etc. They are Technocamps with the universities in Wales, marketing IT to schools, and running W-Tech, an event for women in IT which attracted 1200 women the first time we ran it last year. We also maintain the IT Scorecard which is the definitive place to go for facts and figures.

Very briefly I mentioned that women act differently from men in the workplace (in interviews, in appraisals, doing their jobs and negotiating salaries) and we all need to be aware of this at all stages in development.

I asked then what they would suggest we do and said I would take a summary of key ideas to the BCS and potentially to the Government.

We then had an open conversation for the rest of the session – about 30 minutes. The key themes emerging were:

• The content of the Computing GCSE is disappointing and needs to be revisited
• Would it be worth pooling GCSE and A level resources for an area rather than each school trying to do it for themselves – make better use of scarce resources?
• The STEM Ambassadors programme needs more work – it needs more on Technology, more sustainability, and more ways to link industry with education for role models as well as up to date information and trends. As an aside, sending young women and pregnant women out as Ambassadors has had great results to encouraging women to participate, and then to stay in the IT profession

Other points included:

• IT is like marmite – students seem either to love it or hate it; and also be good at it or really bad at it
• Most girls (and many boys) who start AS don’t progress to A2
• Senior management in schools/colleges don’t understand about IT or its requirements, and worry about losing the few qualified teachers they have
• Girls generically seem more drawn to applications and usability rather than more abstract aspects of computing – girls tend also to maths and stats but more rarely applied maths
• It is important to get computing embedded into other subjects (computing by stealth)
• Set up communities for teachers to share experiences, resources and contacts

• BCS for BCSWomen, the network for women in IT and the IT scorecard
• Access eSkills for the Big Ambition website and updated information on Computer Clubs for Girls which I understand is being revamped. eSkills are also thinking about putting together their own IT qualifications as the government’s have been disappointing.
• Access the Department for Business for the STEM Ambassador Programme.

Teacher Trainee Workshop - John Woollard, Miles Berry, Tim Tarrant, David Longman

The trainees represented the following programmes: University of Cumbria, University of Southampton and University of Exeter. Also present were other teacher trainers: Alethe Bailey and Alan Rodgers from Newman College, Richard Vickery from Liverpool John Moore and Mick Hammond from Warwick was also at the conference.

Presentation

cs4fn - Peter McOwan

Computer Science For Fun (cs4fn) is the UK’s biggest campaign enthusing young people about computer science. We engage with students and teachers from primary school to sixth form, from varying backgrounds and with diverse academic interests. We publish magazines, magic books, teacher resources and more, promoting the idea that computing is exciting, multidisciplinary and, most of all, fun.

Most people are surprised to learn that card tricks can help teach computer science, but there are strong links between them that your students can have fun exploring:

The Leading Aces The four aces travel from four separate piles of cards joining together in a single pile...except not to the pile where they should have gone! This is a good trick to teach algorithms and Graphical User Interfaces.

The Remote Control Brain Experiment In this trick, it looks like you can control the random distribution of red and black cards using the power of your mind, but really it’s just algebra! The science behind this trick relates to verification and proof – the same kind of maths that you might want to use to test a computer program.

The Torn Card Trick Any magician can force someone to choose a particular card – it takes real talent to make a whole crowd of people choose the same one. You can use this trick to introduce the concepts of human-computer interaction, artificial intelligence, and even show how humans process visual information, and how mp3 works.

The 16th Card In this trick you show the audience a mysterious way to choose a random card from the pack, only to reveal that you predicted the card you’d end up with at the very beginning. It all depends on binary numbers.

…and there are more magic tricks, downloads and teacher resources at www.cs4fn.org.

Also see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/science_and_environment/10284925.stm and here a link to the vanishing person effect with a full description and the animated gifs I use also covered in Magic of Computer Science Book 2 and the telepoting robot with instructions to make your own!

Greenfoot - Michael Kolling

The Greenfoot workshop was run three times during the CAS conference, and was intended to introduce participants to Greenfoot: a beginner's programming environment for teaching Java and Object-Oriented Programming to those aged 13+. We showed what could be achieved in Greenfoot: we demonstrated finished examples of scientific simulations (ants wandering around, finding food and dropping pheromone markers), games (an asteroids clone), and other systems (a playable on-screen piano). We took attendees through the basics of the Greenfoot system, and demonstrated building a simple playable game from scratch, with only around 20 lines of code in the finished game. We finished the workshop by showing the support materials for Greenfoot: the textbook, the Greenfoot Gallery website (where users can upload their scenarios for everyone to see) and the Greenroom website where teachers can discuss teaching with Greenfoot and share teaching materials.

Links to resources and follow through material:

• the slides and the example project from the presentation.
• Greenfoot website, with links to download the software
• The website for the Greenfoot book, all links to all the scenarios used in the workshop
• The website for users/pupils to upload and share their Greenfoot scenarios
• The website for teachers to join and share material for teaching with Greenfoot

Apps for mobile phones - Diane Dowling

The workshop covered:

• installing and configuring the necessary software for Android development
• developing a very basic "Hello World" app
• developing the user interface by adding a button!

Links to all worksheets to follow

Qualifications at KS4 - Thomas Ng

The focus of the session was to offer a framework for Heads of Department to choose a course for students in KS4.

Please find a copy of the slides and also an exercise I prepared for the participants.

Algorithmic Problem solving - Roland Backhouse

Algorithmic Problem Solving is a compulsory 1st-year, 1st-semester module offered by the School of Computer Science at the University of Nottingham, which has been running for the last seven years. As the name suggests, it is a module about problem solving but with a focus on problems whose solution involves the development of an algorithm. The module is problem-driven and several of the problems are well-known puzzles from the literature on mathematical recreation. A book to be published by John Wiley is in preparation.

This workshop explored via examples how much of the material might be suitable for introducing the science of computing to sixth-form students. Several problems were presented and their solutions derived in interaction with the participants. The session ended with a preliminary discussion of the suitability of the material.

See here for Roland's website

A Level forum - Roger Davies

The meeting aimed to provide an open forum for colleagues to discuss issues arising from the delivery of current AS/A2 courses in Computing. Twenty six people attended, the vast majority teaching the AQA syllabus, with a few delivering WJEC and OCR.

This was the second year we have held an informal discussion along these lines. It was pleasing to note that, unlike last year, technical issues did not feature in the discussion suggesting that many teachers have resolved the issues of making programming environments available to their students.

It was inevitable, given the make up of the meeting that some of the issues with AQA were dominant. Kevin Bond, author of the recommended textbooks and chief examiner for AQA Computing was in attendance and answered some of the queries raised.

There was a broad measure of support for the new specification, many feeling it was a worthwhile change. Despite the difficulties and workload involved for staff familiarising themselves with new material it was felt that the specification provided a coherent introduction to Computing for students and provided good grounding for those going on to further study.

Nonetheless, several concerns were raised by those present. Foremost was a feeling that the specification was inadequate in outlining the breadth and depth required in many areas. This point was acknowledged, as was the difficulties arising from not having any past papers from which to garner the type of questions likely to be asked of students. Over time this situation will improve, but it is clearly a concern for many teachers, not knowing what level to pitch their teaching. Further exemplification of topic areas would be made available via the AQA Teacher Resource Bank. It was requested that AQA implement an RSS feed on the website or some other system for notifying staff when new material becomes available.

Some colleagues commented that the AQA supporting inset had been very useful but the issue remained for many of what balance they should accord in teaching different topics. This was felt to be the biggest area of uncertainty for most present, and some indication of the relative weight of different topics would be appreciated.

A question was raised about future AQA plans to continue to support the current languages available for tasks at AS level. It was noted that support for two languages had been dropped and it was hoped that no further changes would be made in the near future. Teachers pointed to the considerable work involved in developing their own material to support the teaching of their chosen language.

The other main area of discussion centred on problems colleagues had in supporting students in the practical project (Comp4). The guidance regarding the complexity of projects was felt to be very confusing. Further guidance will be made available in the new term. Teachers had made a big shift in encouraging students to develop programming solutions but not without considerable difficulties. Suggestions for project areas other than databases were requested and it is hoped that some exemplars may become available from the submissions this year. The uncertainty involved in embarking on a ‘non standard’ project were aired particularly as the mark scheme seemed to be written specifically for a database type project. One positive suggestion was to use CAS hub meetings early in the autumn term for sharing and discussing projects once the moderation process was complete and marks awarded.

Many present reported that their students had not enjoyed the coursework element, a recurrent theme from the previous year. There was a general feeling that far too much work is involved and presenting students with a ‘software engineering’ task was expecting too much at this stage, resulting in students jumping hoops to gain marks, rather than having a rounded feel for a development process. It was stressed that the clarity of the analysis and project specification was a key determinant in the future success of the coursework. However this raised questions for lower or middle ability students, who, having failed to clearly specify their project requirements faced an increasing uphill struggle in developing any solution.

Some colleagues questioned whether a coursework element was the best approach. Many felt the experience of the set task at AS level had been a very positive experience and wondered if a similar approach, or a series of set projects might not be preferable at A2. It was reported that it was a requirement of the QCA to include a coursework element but it wasn’t clear whether this had to account for such a significant amount of the overall marks.

There was a general view that the considerable workload involved in the current project was detrimental to students getting to grips with much unfamiliar theory for Comp3. Here, again, there was a feeling that the change in specification was very welcome but there are many areas where staff who haven’t themselves studied Computing at degree level would benefit from a rounder understanding of its place in computer science. There were specific requests (as last year) for CAS to utilise its connections with higher education to provide inset that goes beyond the particular syllabus requirements on specific areas. In particular the topics of intractable problems and what is computable, the role of regular expressions, backus naur form and reverse polish notation, the relevance of Turing machines and the halting problem, data transmission and machine architecture were suggested.

Teachers welcomed CAS as a body within which they could develop self help forums through hubs and the google group but it was felt that some inset developments, perhaps through the help of Vital would be a significant step forward. Other avenues of self help exist. Peter Kemp reported his attempts to develop a wiki book to support the new syllabus (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/A-level_Computing), the AQAComputing discussion forum (http://aqacomputing.ning.com/) was highlighted, as was the growing list of web based resources being collated within the CAS Google Group. Aline Cumming was also in attendance and reported on the aim of the BCS to make their well renowned ‘Glossary Of Computing Terms’ available on-line. The prospect of a web version of this marvellous, succinct resource was very well received. As more teachers become aware of CAS, the importance of pulling these strands together, within a web based community grows.

The Science of Nearly Everything - Aaron Sloman

The slides used during this workshop are here

Poster Display

Harvey Grammar School, Folkestone, Kent	Bay House School and Sixth Form College	Egglescliffe School, Eaglescliffe, Stockton-on-Tees
Hartsdown Technology College Margate, Kent	The Westgate School, Winchester	Royal Grammer School, High Wycombe
Rydens School	Alun School, Mold, Flintshire	Aaron Sloman, University of Birmingham
Camphill	Kodudes	Queen Elizabeth School, Kirby Lonsdale
Queen Elizabeth School, Kirby Lonsdale	The Connaught School, Aldershot	Sarah Morris Cranfield University
Linton Village College Linton, Cambs	Trainee Teachers	cs4fn
Greenfoot	University of Southampton	King George V School Stockport
Digital Schoolhouse Project