Following on from the post I made a while back about writing resources, I thought a post about things to consider when running a workshop for beginner coders might be handy too. This post is primarily aimed at those lovely people who have no training in education but who give up their time to teachContinue reading “Do you want to run a workshop?”
Tag Archives: teaching
gui zero – making Python GUIs really simple
The code in this post has been updated to reflect the changes in guizero version 0.4. When I was a teacher, I found it frustrating that it was not at all easy for students to create GUIs using Python. I used tkinter a little bit with my GCSE class and they instantly loved creating GUIs,Continue reading “gui zero – making Python GUIs really simple”
Computing – the cake is a lie
I’m nearly at the end of my first time round teaching GCSE Computing and something has been bothering me. I decided to leave the topic of networking until the end, because I think it’s one of the hardest and also because I thought it would be beneficial to do it in Year 11 when myContinue reading “Computing – the cake is a lie”
How do you actually teach programming?
This is a question which has been bugging me for some time now – how do you actually teach someone to program? I don’t mean which language, or what resources should I use, or what time of the day is optimal. I mean what is it in your teaching which switches on the little lightbulbContinue reading “How do you actually teach programming?”
Computing – A beautiful dream
I didn’t believe the hype on the news about bad teachers. I mean, nobody I worked with was rubbish at their job so I put it down to teacher bashing media nonsense and got on with my life. I was happy to share my resources here and on CAS and to help people who asked for my help,Continue reading “Computing – A beautiful dream”
Javascript Binary to Denary
I wrote this but I am not sure I can use it for the purpose I wanted. Feel free to use if it’s useful to you! <html> <head> <style> input[type=’text’] { font-size: 24px; } </style> <script type=”text/javascript”> // A quick and dirty binary to denary converter in Javascript // I wrote it to use withContinue reading “Javascript Binary to Denary”
Being a 21st Century Teacher
So I’m applying for the Picademy – two days of visiting Raspberry Pi towers, meeting cool people and fiddling around with a tiny computer – sounds good to me! One of the requirements for the application is to write a blog post about “Being a 21st Century Teacher”…which is actually quite a tricky topic to writeContinue reading “Being a 21st Century Teacher”
The real Computing in an Hour
OK, so the week before half term I had another of those moments where I found my mouth saying “ooh, let me volunteer to do all the things” while my head was screaming “IDIOT! You’ve already got too much to do!”. I’m pretty sure I have shoulder angels and demons. (And maybe a theme tune.)Continue reading “The real Computing in an Hour”
Who’s teaching our kids to code?
So I just saw this article tweeted by @ukiekim and written by @calflyn. Admittedly having been written in October 2012 it’s a little bit old but still relevant. The first picture caption I spotted was: Computer programming: It has fallen to the industry itself to step into the breach, and provide support for those keenContinue reading “Who’s teaching our kids to code?”
Four ways to kick start zombie coders
So… you’ve gone through if statements, for loops, recursion or whatever else you happen to be covering and everyone has completed the exercises, written the notes and smiled and nodded in all the right places. “Great!” you think, “I’ll set a programming task involving the thing I’ve just taught to consolidate this work”. You handContinue reading “Four ways to kick start zombie coders”
Code? Boom. 