A case study: A collaborative conference
What was it?
A joint day conference attended by around 30 primary teachers delivered by Jon Chippindall of Barefoot, Liz Smart of CodeClub NW and Sarah Zaman and Carol Murray of CAS Manchester. The confrenece was kindly hosted at The University of Manchester where CAS Manchester are based.
What was the content?
The title of the day: ‘From unplugged to plugged and beyond’ reflects the content of the conference. The day started with Jon delivering a Barefoot Workshop illustrating the range of computational thinking skills that can be taught through unplugged activities. Jon explained the fit between computational thinking and coding which fed forward into Liz’s session.
Liz provided delegates the opportunity to get hands-on with a number of coding challenges using Scratch (Plugged). Liz made links back to Jon’s first workshop reinforcing links between computational thinking and coding.
The afternoon’s ‘Beyond’ session was led by Sarah and Carol who focused on using the Codebug as a way of introducing physical computing projects into the primary classroom. Delegates made a ‘shaky hand’ game combining computing, DT and science.
What was the response and feedback?
We were very pleased to be sold out in the run up to the conference, unfortunately a few cancellations meant we were quite a full-house on the day. Many teachers commented positively on how the sessions complemented each other. A selection of teachers’ feedback appears below
“Useful with fun practical activities I can use.”
“Great session demonstrating just how important computational thinking is!”
What is next?
Following the success of this event keep your eyes for further such events in the North West.
