Python Madlibs

Long time no blog! Things have been incredibly busy, especially as I’m also working on the #include hack day for 11-13 year old girls which will be held in June 2013! Anyhow, I thought I’d put up a little game I created as a revision task for my upper 6th who have their January modules

Science doesn’t put girls off Science, other girls do

(Note: This post is entirely personal opinion, I am in no way qualified to talk about Psychology… but I’m going to anyway!) Earlier on today I went to a school hockey tournament, and I started thinking about why I don’t play hockey. I realised that I’m probably the victim of some dodgy classical conditioning from

Python Gangnam Style!

Yesterday I got ridiculously excited by computers beeping. (Yeah, I know, sad!) I noticed that on the OCR F452 module spec (section 4, part j) there was the topic “Output data”. So far, outputting data has involved printing things to the console, and a bit of slightly dodgy ASCII artwork. However, I realised there must

10 Mini Programming Projects

Inspired by @mwclarkson asking for ideas yesterday on Twitter, I thought I’d put together a compilation of 10 mini programming projects I have used in the classroom. Each of them could be used with the language of your choice, although the resources I’ve linked to may contain information specific to the language I used and

One does not simply get a CS degree

Imagine an educational theory so powerful that it would allow just about anyone with no knowledge whatsoever to completely trash your degree, your experience, your expertise and everything you stand for in one swift sentence. My brother works in a coffee shop, and the other day he called me up and asked me to bring

Why hot people are good at ICT

I just got my hair cut! (I was going to entitle this post “Pat Sharp is no more!” but I realised that some people might get the wrong idea :S) I took various pictures of my new haircut, but there is a serious problem – I hate pictures of myself, especially pictures on the internet.

jQuery – zero to hero (sort of)

Just a very short post to say that I’ve finished my HTML, CSS and jQuery booklet. It is a guide to starting from scratch from knowing no HTML at all, through learning CSS, through a bit of basic jQuery. It’s aimed at Lower 6th but I am sure it would be useful to any teachers

Why CS graduates don’t teach

I read an interesting article on the BBC website this morning which quotes many recommendations from MP’s on the Commons Education Select Committee. Although this is a general article about all subjects, it explains precisely why the top Computer Science graduates are not taking up teaching jobs – or more colloquially, why geeks don’t teach! Of

PHP Love Calculator task

I’ve been meaning to write this one up for ages! This is an idea that grew to encompass more and more things that I realised fit in to it from the OCR Computing AS F452 syllabus. The premise I expect you’ve seen the TV adverts promising that if you text your name and your crush’s

Innovative use of ICT or cheap gimmicks?

Having recently had to complete a lesson observation for a colleague I was appraising in my department, I was reminded of the standard “lesson observation record form” from the glory days of PGCE. It has that wonderful little box on it usually entitled something along the lines of “Use of ICT”. Given that 9 times