Tag: teaching
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Do you want to learn about coding? Free book offer!
Three years ago I had great fun teaching some primary school children how to use Scratch and take their first steps towards being computer programmers of the future. At the time there was a lot of optimism about changes to the English curriculum and a return to a more rigorous teaching of computing in schools. […]
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1 March 1971
Forty-three years ago this day – in Belfast – was much like this day – in York (I am in the University library as I write this) – sunny and bright, not very warm but showing signs that winter was on the way out. That morning, in school, our P1 teacher did as she always […]
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Three steps forward, but one step back?
The new English ICT/computer science curriculum promises to be a huge step forward and, in my experience, a chance to teach children something for which their enthusiasm promises to be close to unlimited. One thing puzzles me, though. Speaking about it today the education secretary, Michael Gove – who deserves some praise for listening to the arguments […]
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Code Club first session
At last managed to lead my first “Code Club” session – it had a slightly chaotic start as none of the computers we were using had Scratch installed and nor did we have access to a login that allowed us to install Scratch in the Windows “Programs” directory – but once we worked around that […]
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Shoe laces and psychopathy
When I think back to my time in the mid-1970s at Holy Child Primary School in Andersonstown in West Belfast I often conclude that the principal qualification for teaching most staff there had was either a hatred of children or a psychopathic desire to do them physical and mental harm. (I am not joking by […]
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What they didn’t teach me at ‘A’ level (or at university!)
I have always found the concept of impedance in an electrical circuit bearing an AC load something of a mystery. At ‘A’ level it was just handed out ex cathedra but explained very poorly (and certainly not in any physical sense). Even at University where in my first term (the first term of second year students […]
cartesian product ... stuff about computing mostly 