Tag Archives: Computing

Group work – give them all a pen!

Pedagogy, , ,

Group work is often seen as something we do not do in ICT and Computing. Computers themselves are seen as machines that isolate people, remove them from the real world to instead engage with bit and bytes rather than people and conversations. Yes there is the social side but this is still a little disengaging from the world around us, we can put on a new persona and hide behind the blinking lights. For a teacher this can cause some stress, there is a lot of theory that needs to be covered and we really want students discussing and coming up with their own ideas. Collaborative working can be easily achieved over the Internet but getting students together in the same room can appear much harder, they actively want to be at their machine working and we cannot move desks like many other subjects can. When ICT students do work in groups, you tend to have the dominant one at the machine or writing on the paper you have given out. There is not much room for the rest of the group so they sit behind, physically and mentally pushed out.

Students worked in groups of three with different coloured pens to analyse leaflets
Students worked in groups of three with different coloured pens to analyse leaflets

Recently, working as part of a Teacher Learning Community (TLC) looking at collaborative working, I hit upon a great idea. It is so simple and has probably be done so many times before in so many other lessons. Sometimes I think ICT is so different to other subjects that we forget the basics, or maybe that is just me. The idea is a simple as giving groups more than one different coloured pen, in fact give everyone in the group a different coloured pen. From there make each coloured pen represent a different focus, each individual can discuss points with their group but can only write with their coloured pen. This means that all group members need to be involved and it is easy for the teacher to see who has written what. We can assess the success of the group work quickly, analyse the contribution of each member and move thinking forward. I tried this with my Year 12 Cambridge Technicals group and it worked a treat. Students who often sat back were required to engage their brain and at the very least write something down. I quickly scanned the room to see all on task and what is more, discussion had improved. The task was centred around leaflet design and groups needed to look at good features of a leaflet, how features affect communication and how leaflets could be improved. It was as simple to set up as gathering screenshots of a few different leaflets, printing them on A3 paper and having a selection of green, black and blue pens. After the group activity I took feedback and we came up with a list of success criteria that students could take forward when designing their own leaflets. It was most definitely a success and something I will try to embed in group work throughout each year group I teach.

Get them off the computers!

Pedagogy, , , , ,

Every time I give my students paper based tasks, particularly completing storyboards, they complain that, “this is ICT,” and, “we should be using the computer.” It gives an interesting insight into how students’ minds work. Many seem not to have the ability to step back and see that an underpinning of theory will help them to understand how computers and systems actually work. In the media rich society we live in, young people are constantly bombarded with images, videos and sounds. ICT and Computing students tend to go straight for these forms of information over the written word and it concerns me that this may mean they are missing vital details. Laptops, tablets, mobile devices and the trusty desktop may enable our students to gather information from many places and at any time but how much do they understand? Words, numbers and pictures without meaning is the definition of data, does this therefore mean that students are simply data depositories and thus no more than glorified databases? The times when I have found students gaining deeper understanding of theory is when they are working away from the computer. Card sorts, crosswords, Venn diagrams, matching exercises and spider diagrams on sugar paper are all used successfully in other subject areas so why shy away from them in ICT and Computing? Recently I had some Year 7s matching titles, pictures and images from components inside the computer. One student asked me, “why are we doing this? It is a bit babyish isn’t it?” By the end of the task the student had failed to get many right but a whole class discussion had enabled her to progress and now she understands what different components do and exactly what is inside that magical box sitting in front of her. Yes I could have made them do this on the computer but I am afraid they may have looked up the answers on Wikipedia and no real thinking would have taken place. I did extend the task by getting them to write up the definitions on a word processor then expand on these using web searches, but only by writing in their own words! In other lessons I have got students to do some internet research then physically write in a Venn diagram the differences and similarities of vector and bitmap images. I have also printed out grids with different cards that have images of electronic devices on them so groups can sort them into those they think are computers and those that are not. This extra stage of learning, away from the computer, gets the students thinking and they no longer seem to repeat parrot fashion the first thing they see on the first website they find.

Tasks away from the computer such as matching exercises allow students to think before completing computer based work
Tasks away from the computer such as matching exercises allow students to think before completing computer based work

No longer can the students be seen as data repositories but can use their brains to move them forward rather than some online encyclopaedia entry they do not really understand. So what I would say to any ICT and Computing teachers, nay anyone teaching in an computer room, is not to just give students tasks to do but remove them from the computer and make them think. Do not give in to the constant moaning about how they are in an ICT lesson or computer room so should be on the machine in front of them. Finally, print things out, laminate them, imagine you are in Geography or English where you do not have the luxury of a computer. These colleagues in different subjects come up with creative and innovative ideas, sometimes we need to take a leaf out of their book rather than defaulting back to PowerPoint. I hope this post makes you think about your lessons and if you follow these points you may just find that when they get onto the computers the students are producing far better work.

Finally we are a ‘real’ subject

Curriculum Developments, , ,

As I wonder around school at break, lunch or between lessons I have always felt like the poor relation. Whilst I look at the faces that greet me I can quickly pick out the media kids, drama kings and queens, sporty guys and academics. However, until recently I have not been able to see those ICT buffs, the ones who love using computers to do great things on rather than just simply play games. Not that games are bad, but we should be designing and creating them not simply consuming what is already churned out.

For years this feeling of inadequacy, coupled with qualifications that I deem far too easy, has made me feel a little down. But now there is some excitement in the air, some buzz around the computer labs. Whilst other subject areas have hijacked the communication side of our subject and are using the latest web 2.0 tools and rich media technologies, they may well not be able to comprehend the changes that are happening to the ICT curriculum, or should I say Computing. As I do not understand all the different tenses in French or how different substances are combined to create others in Science, I would not expect them to understand how to set up a network, program a computer or combine multimedia applications with web content to create more than a pretty product but one that has deep functioning and performs effective tasks whilst still having a bit of lippy on.

Yes, I am talking about the introduction of the Computing curriculum from 2014. For all his flaws, and as teachers we know a lot about them, Mr. Gove may just have got this right. That is not to say that I do not have any concerns about the curriculum. In fact I can see five large ones…

  1. Cost – it costs a lot to develop a curriculum, not only in money but in time. Extra software and hardware is needed but we also need more training to make sure we can teach it effectively and stay one step ahead of the students.
  2. Ability – computer science is hard, it is as simple as that. It requires logical thought, understanding abstract concepts and scanning long sections of code to find the dreaded syntax error. At GCSE and A-level it is considered to be for stronger students, therefore how can we engage all abilities?
  3. What about older students? – students from Year 8 onwards will not have had much discrete computer science education. Do we introduce it now and give them the opportunities to move into computing knowing they may get lower grades or do we shield them from it and limit job opportunities?
  4. What about the things we taught before? – ICT (or rather Technology Enhanced Learning as it will now be called) is to be taught cross-curricular. Whilst I have seen a lot of excellent work done in other subjects, they are more focused on content rather than how it is communicated. In ICT we delve deeper into the technologies and think about how what we create impacts on other people. Who will pick all this up? Do other curriculum areas have the time to do this?
  5. The curriculum is vague – yes we want the opportunity to shape our own future but the Computing curriculum being vague is an understatement. Will this lead to different schools teaching to different levels and thus some students not being as privileged as others? Some teachers also have more business ICT or multimedia backgrounds and may not be as comfortable with computing, if these make up most of a department what does this mean for students?

We could sit and dwell on these points but that is not progress, that is just resisting change. The fact we are preparing students for jobs that do not exist means we need to enable the change and it seems that Computing is one way forward. If statistics are to be believed, the number of computing based jobs will triple in the next five to eight years so it is down to us to enthuse students and build up their knowledge of Computing. It is a great opportunity to move Computing forward to not only be what to click but to understand the processes that are happening in that magical little box. I am personally very excited that my students will no longer pass courses by simply knowing where to click (ok it is more than that but not as deep as I would like). Now I can tell them how that WYSIWIG editor works, what we need to do to make a computer game, what is actually inside that machine in front of them and what each component does. I can make them understand that when they send an email it does not magically jump from one computer to another, how computers are linked together and what to do if their machine stops working. These are things we touch on at Key Stage 3 but seem to be ignored in coursework based qualifications by Key Stage 4. These points aside, the thing I am most looking forward to is when I walk those corridors and will be able to say ‘hi’ to computing students, to see them grow and maybe even coming to talk to me about the latest project they have undertaken. That excites me more than anything, and who knows, it might even be me who teaches and inspires the next Bill Gates or Steve Jobs.