p 2-4

Preparing for the BBC

micro:bit and launching
new hubs. The ten new
CAS Regional Centres
are already making a big impact.

p 5-9
Debunking the myth of
In the influential Royal Society report, Shut Down or Restart?, published in
the digital native and an
2012, biologist Sir Paul Nurse wrote; Computing is of enormous importance to
in depth look at what
the economy, and the role of Computer Science as a discipline itself and as an
computing looks like in
underpinning subject across science and engineering is growing rapidly. He
the EYFS.
continued, It is becoming increasingly clear that studying Computer Science
provides a way of thinking in the same way that mathematics does... there are
p 10-15
strong educational arguments for looking at how we introduce the subject.
A special feature
2016 heralds the implementation of key changes to school performance indices.
exploring ways in which
More than any other reforms, they are exercising the minds of headteachers.
Computing can make
Like it or not, league tables are here for the foreseeable future. Schools would
maths real and improve
do well to reflect on past lessons. Teaching to the test does not equip students
performance.
well for the next stage of their education, or life. Short term attempts to game
the system to boost league table standing devalue the purpose of education.
p 16-20
Four years on
CPD opportunities,
from the report,
utilities for creating
Computer Sci-
classroom resources,
ence is now an
girls computing clubs
EBacc subject,
and much more.
contributing to either an EBacc or Open pillar in the
new progress measures. But in forward thinking
p 21-23
schools, its value as an enabling discipline is also
In his regular series
widely recognised. Forged in the crucible of maths, it
Greg Michaelson looks
can help make concrete the thinking skills required for
at the state we are in,
success. This issue explores the close links between
plus an introduction to
the two subjects, and the role Computing can play in
Karnaugh Maps.
developing fertile soil for sustained educational growth.

The Computing At School group (CAS) is a membership association in partnership with BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT
and supported by Microsoft, Google and others. It aims to support and promote the teaching of computing in UK schools.

ISSN: 2050 -1277 (online) 2050 -1269 (print)

 #caschat is a weekly Twitter chat, hosted
every Tuesday at 8pm, dedicated to the
teaching of Computing and Computer Sci-
ence. It came about as a result of the buzz
on Twitter surrounding the CAS Annual
Conference back in July. For those new to
the concept, a Twitter chat is a live event
where Twitter users meet at a pre-
determined time to discuss a particular
topic, using a designated hashtag; in this
case #caschat. Aside from being a fun way
to connect and engage with likeminded
professionals, Twitter chats are great for
reflection and a perfect medium for sharing
resources and best practice.
For those new to twitter chats, here are
some handy tips to get you started:
Use the Hashtag: The hashtag (#)
symbol is used to mark keywords or topics
in a tweet. It was created by Twitter users
as a way to categorise messages. All twit-
ter chats use a designated hashtag. Make
sure you use it at the end of your tweets;
this will help others locate your responses.
Use the hashtag too to search for ques-
tions you may have missed, for example,
search #caschat Q1, Q2 etc.
Join in the conversation: Theres
nothing wrong with lurking but to truly feel
the benefits of a chat, its best to partici-
pate. The most effective form of engage-
ment is responding to questions however,
if youre feeling a little nervous, the easiest
way to get involved is to retweet things you
find helpful. Retweeting help build relation-
ships with the original poster as well as
providing value to your own followers.
Label your responses: Most chat ses-
sions use the Q1, A1, Q2, A2, (question /
answer) format. When replying to a ques-
tion, always label your answers with the
question number.
Take your time: Some chat sessions,
particularly popular fast paced sessions,
can appear daunting at first. The trick is to
go at your own pace. Equally, its OK to dip
in and out of chat sessions dont feel
guilty if you have to leave a chat session
early or join a chat late.
If you are interested in hosting #caschat
we are always looking for volunteers.
Check out the official #caschat thread on
the CAS Community and register your
interest. Simon Johnson
SWITCHEDON: www.computingatschool.org.uk
Although they only launched in the summer,
the new CAS Regional Centres are already
making a big difference. CAS National Co-
ordinator Simon Humphreys reports.
Many teachers first point of contact with CAS is the online Community
a highly visible beacon where colleagues can share resources and swap
ideas and opinions. But rather like the proverbial iceberg, the majority of
the work that CAS members do goes on under the surface. The
Network of Excellence in Computer Science, or NoE as we tend to
know it, is the DfE funded initiative launched some two and half years
ago to help facilitate the introduction of Computing.in schools.
The NoE builds on the grass roots ethos which is central to CAS in-
spiring, leading, training, and supporting an active community of prac-
tice. It recognises the importance of local, face-to-face, peer-to-peer
support, strengthening professional relationships and building the confi-
dence of the people involved. It helps bring together many of the com-
munity-building strands of CAS to maximise their impact and quality. It
aims to inspire, motivate and support teachers by building a high-quality,
low-cost, sustainable CPD infrastructure that nurtures long-term collabo-
ration between teachers, schools, and universities. It is rapidly establish-
ing a national reputation as a model for subject development through
building local communities of practice.
Last summer an independent evaluation of the NoE was carried out by
the Centre for Education and Inclusion Research at Sheffield Hallam
University. They reported that CAS is making a significant difference to
the implementation of the new computing curriculum. A variety of organ-
isations are working together to provide a coordinated national approach
that supports local need. These include ten new CAS Regional Centres,
the CAS Master Teachers, local Hubs, University Partners and Lead
Schools. Even in the context of increasing time poverty, we maintain that
professional development is a very human process. So the support pro-
vided by the NoE is predicated on it being local, face to face and peer
led. Up and down the country myriad events take place, bringing people
together and forging that sense of common purpose. In terms of impact,
teachers who have received CPD from the NoE report their confidence
in teaching computing has increased on average by 88%.
Managing, overseeing and communicating such activity to all mem-
bers is something of a challenge! The ten new university-based CAS
Regional Centres (CRCs) are fast becoming pivotal. Their role is
very much about nurturing and supporting local communities of prac-
tice. Already they are extending the support available to Master
Teachers and other CAS champions. The NoE has doubled the level
of activity during the autumn term compared to the same period last
year. As CRCs become established we hope we can build a sustain-
able structure that allows our Community to continue to grow. If you
havent heard from your CRC, it is likely that you havent specified a
location or place of work on your CAS profile. Please make sure your
details are up to date so you can be kept informed of all the initia-
tives in your locality.
2
Local CAS Hubs are the bedrock on which our thriving community
of practice is built. Remi Gauvain (Chase Terrace Technology Col-
lege, Burntwood) reflects on what you can contribute. Theresa
Russell (Morecambe High) urges you to build a local network.
Teachers, we are full of contradic-
tions. We expect our students to par-
ticipate in lessons and know it will help
their learning. But when the tables are
turned, when we are asked to partici-
pate, do we behave like our most en-
gaged students? The contrast be-
tween our expectations and behaviour
was tangible during my first Derby
University CAS meeting. The audi-
ence was mostly primary school
teachers, and they all had great sto-
ries of student participation and cross
curricular activities. The presenter had
a Makey Makey cardboard guitar! We
could imagine the little ones running to
the front of her classroom to try this or
other play-doh instruments, but would
we adults be seen playing air guitar
with a piece of cardboard? The Master
Teacher, Matthew, was doing a great
job to keep the session going, cajoling
the audience into having a go and
eventually we all did.
A couple of weeks later was the Not-
tingham Trent University CAS meet-
ing. When Helen and Rachael asked
for volunteer presenters for the next
session there was that same reluc-
tance to step forward. So let me share
my experience of presenting at the
East Midland Hub and how it gave me
a chance to learn more about my
craft: teaching Computer Science. I
hope it will inspire you to step up and
participate in your local Hub.
I had a resource that seemed to work
well in the classroom, so when Helen
and Rachael asked for volunteers I
stepped forward. As the deadline
loomed, I arranged to teach it to an-
other class just to refine it a bit.
Already, presenting has given me the
incentive to sharpen my teaching. And
then I need to think about presenting it
to other teachers. This makes me
3 SWITCHEDON: www.computingatschool.org.uk
reflect on the purpose, to be able to
explain the underlying concepts. Pre-
senting to my peers is a chance to
deepen my understanding of the sub-
ject and the pedagogy Im trying to
develop in my classroom.
Presentation day has become a bit of
a routine now. A bit less mingling with
the other members, as I need to set-
up my session. Someone else walks
into the room, they too look a bit
stressed. They'll be presenting after
me. If you stay and watch my presen-
tation, Ill stay and watch yours. Deal!
And so another benefit: the connec-
tion made with another presenter
shows me different ideas to those my
own interests would push me towards
choosing from the workshop list.
What we get from CAS is related to
how much we put in, and presenting
to other members is a great buzz. So
go for it. Ask questions even just to
thank the presenter, or ask how to
adapt their resource to your type of
lessons. Present your own resources
and ideas. The Hub and your own
practice will benefit from the energy
and enthusiasm generated by more
people stepping up to the challenge.
Human logic gates
at the launch of the
Morecambe Bay Hub.
Hubs are the place to
share your good ideas .
If there isnt a CAS Hub close to
you .but you really could do with
some help and support, why not
set one up? This is what we did
and its a lot easier than you think!
There is support available from
CAS with ideas for your first meet-
ing; someone may even offer to
come and help with an opening
speech. You will be given a CAS
email address and login to Event-
brite to handle tickets plus a small
budget for refreshments (so you
can have cake and tea too!). Aim
to arrange 3 meetings per year.
Its a great opportunity to get in-
volved with other establishments
such as local universities or col-
leges who may be able to help.
We have been really lucky to have
Dr Joe Finney (Lancaster Univer-
sity) and Debbie Simpson
(University of Cumbria) offer sup-
port, contributing and providing
venues for sessions. We cater for
both primary/secondary teachers
and it is jointly run by Tom Clarke
(ICT Coordinator) Westgate Pri-
mary School and myself, Theresa
Russell (Head of KS3 Computing).
To discuss getting started contact
claire.davenport or yvonne.walker
@computingatschool.org.uk. De-
tails of other hubs in your region
are available on the CAS website.
Lots of teachers have skills which
they are willing to share with oth-
ers. You can also contact us we
are more than willing to help sup-
port new hubs get established.
You can also follow us
@MorecambeBayCAS
 Early last November, the 4th annual Com-
puting at Schools Scotland conference
took place in Dundee. The University of
Dundee kindly offered to host the event
which attracted over 200 attendees. For
the first time the conference included
seminars, workshops and discussions
that covered all levels of Computing edu-
cation from Primary through Secondary
into Further and Higher Education. The
programme included a wide diversity of
topics including the latest developments
in Eye Tracking research, Biometrics in
Scratch, Minecraft, the BBC micro:bit,
Cyber Security and even some Home-
sick Aliens!
A short opening talk was followed by a
range of hands-on practical workshops
available throughout the busy Saturday.
These included a chance to work with e-
Textiles, get a hands-on with the latest
version of Greenfoot and many others.
Alongside these ran a Broad General
Education track with sessions on teach-
ing Computing to Primary and lower
Secondary pupils. A senior phase track
hosted sessions useful to those teaching
National 4 to Advanced Higher Compu-
ting Science and equivalent NPAs whilst
a Vocational and Industry track focused
around the connection between Compu-
ting education in HE and FE and work
within the ICT industry. A Research and
Academic track shared a range of recent
CS Education findings as well as looking
at how to get involved or make use of
research in your own teaching. Finally, a
drop-in area allowed attendees to find
out about the extra-curricular opportuni-
ties that Coder Dojo, Lambda Jam, Code
Club and others provide. There was also
an exhibition space for various providers
of computing resources and equipment.
One comment from the day captured the
feeling: Excellent event considering it's
done by volunteers, better than many pro-
fessional Holyrood type events. Looking
forward to next year! The conference
would not have happened without the sup-
port of university staff, university student
and school helpers alongside a dedicated
group of CASS Board members, who suc-
cessfully created the best attended confer-
ence so far. Claire Griffiths
SWITCHEDON: www.computingatschool.org.uk
This term, Year 7 students should get to own
their own micro:bits. Yvonne Walker outlines
some of the work done last term to help
teachers prepare for this exciting initiative.
The unfortunate delay in micro:bit production presented an opportunity
for the newly formed CAS Regional Centres (CRCs) to get involved in
organising a series of micro:bit roadshows last term. The aim was sim-
ple; to ensure that teachers had the opportunity to use the micro:bit and
explore how they could be used in the classroom. In spite of having to
deal with a quick turnaround in terms of sorting out dates, finding venues
and inviting teachers, all ten CRCs were able to host at least one road-
show (some managed more!). All delegates were given access to the
micro:bit website (https://www.microbit.co.uk/) and enjoyed hands on
training with a real micro:bit, though unfortunately we couldnt let them
take one home!
The uptake for the roadshows was phenomenal, indicating the level of
interest in this initiative. Across the ten CRCs we introduced around 560
teachers to its capabilities and many cascade events have since started
to appear on the CAS website. What was really lovely to see was how
easy the teachers found the micro:bit to use and how creative they be-
came! There was a genuine feeling that the micro:bit will provide a sim-
ple to use device to introduce physical computing to young pupils. The
photo shows two delegates feeling the love at the CAS North West mi-
cro:bit roadshow. Attendees were asked to program their micro:bits into
a love meter that would work with all delegates forming a ring and the
micro:bit giving an output of how compatible they all were. Did it work?
Of course! Were they compatible? Of course not!
You can find a short but useful micro:bit how to video created by two
Master Teachers at the CAS South East Event at http://bit.ly/1LH44cx.
The Block and TouchDevelop editors (two of currently four program-
ming interfaces available via the micro:bit website) provide a transition
between graphical and text based programming. Pupils can create a
script in the Block editor and see the textual equivalent by converting it
to TouchDevelop. If your school hasnt yet registered to receive your
micro:bits you can do that at http://bit.ly/1PwkUlF.
4
 Phil Bagge, from the Hampshire Inspection and
Advisory Service, takes issue with the notion of a Being well over a full
Digital Native. He argues there are intrinsic prob- half term into the new
lems with the idea and teachers responses to it. school year (at the time
In all the groups of primary teachers I The problem for teachers is that if you of writing) we are now
work with I hear comments that dont believe that you have anything actually beginning to
Pupils know more about computers valuable to teach (because pupils think of ourselves as
than us. Often this idea stems from know it all already) this affects what having technology.
the theory of the "Digital Native"; that you teach and the time you spend
people who were bought up with tech- resourcing and planning it. Teachers Our Chromebooks have
nology are implicitly better at under- and school leaders who believe the been an overwhelming success and
standing and using it than those who myth of the digital native often find in constant demand more are
didn't. When said it is often accompa- excuses to leave computing out of being ordered as I type. I must
nied by the statement that I am just their timetables. When they do teach praise staff for their continued en-
learning alongside the children. computing they tend to rely very heav- thusiasm with the new resources,
ily on unplanned exploration and justi- both the physical and online, de-
At first glance this sounds very noble. fy this by recourse to the shared jour- spite the requirement of us all to
It recognizes that we are all learning ney narrative. I wonder if they would step (if not occasionally leap) out of
and that information exchange can go be happy to learn Maths or Literacy our comfort zone. Similarly, many
both ways. The problem is that it is at alongside their pupils in this same of our parents have been encour-
best a half-truth. Pupil access to tech- woolly way? aged and delighted with the more
visible advances.

As expected the pupils have contin-

nology can be very varied. Without
formative assessment you won't know
what digital skills they are capable of.
The wider truth is there are large
swathes of computing they won't know
anything about. Very few have any
idea how networks, the Internet and
Web function or how devices are pro-
grammed. They are unlikely to under-
stand the fundamental computational
thinking skills of algorithms and algo-
rithm evaluation, decomposition, ab-
straction and generalization. They
dont appreciate sequence, repetition,
selection or variable use, nor the resil-
ience and logical thinking that come
from computational doing. Even if they
are keen users of the web few will
have inculcated the knowledge to de-
velop into safe digital citizens or to
question the veracity of information.
5 SWITCHEDON: www.computingatschool.org.uk
Please dont think I am attacking ex-
ploration, its a fundamental part of a
good computing lesson but it needs to
go alongside instruction in some form.
Instruction assumes that there is
knowledge and skills worth teaching to
pupils. By way of balance though, too
much instruction without any explora-
tion leads to shallow learning in which
concepts may be grasped at but not
internalised fully. This fundamental
balance is summarised in the graphic.
In conclusion, as leaders in computing
in our schools it is important to chal-
lenge the debilitating myth of the digi-
tal native and promote curricula that
includes instruction and exploration.
To read more, youll find a good re-
search paper on the myth of the digital
native at goo.gl/tBgfKB.
ued to absorb the full range of com-
puting resources now available.
However, we have not forgotten our
very humble journey into compu-
ting. The much relied upon un-
plugged resources have remained
a very good basis for understanding
the principles of algorithms and
programming commands.
Having worked with many of the
younger pupils recently, it was ini-
tially surprising to discover their
lack of keyboard savviness. I won-
der if this is a reflection of the avail-
ability of tablets and smart phones?
I still struggle with the image of a
floppy disc (what are those) as a
save icon Despite this, with ease
they have mastered complex
settings requirements; demonstrat-
ed responsibility for logging on and
managing passwords; whilst being
real ambassadors with their parents
for how to use the resources at
home. Our decision to have the
children lead the way is certainly
being justified.
Computing co-ordinators often wonder what to encourage in the
nursery or reception class. The easy answer is, not computing! However, there is a lot of learning
in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) that provides a foundation for computational thinking.
Miles Berry (University of Roehampton) and Emma Goto (University of Winchester) explore the issues.
Computing may not be part of the times through chatting to one another,
In the Statutory Framework for
EYFS Statutory Framework. But there or asking a grown-up, but more often
EYFS, the early learning goal from
is much that goes on in the EYFS that just through play. Note the reference
the technology strand in the
provides a foundation for computation- here to select its not enough for
understanding the world area of
al thinking - the golden thread that children to use the tech theyre given:
learning, requires that, children
runs through Computing in the Nation- theyve got to have some say in what
recognise that a range of technol-
al Curriculum. they use. Are these things stored
ogy is used in places such as
somewhere children can access
homes and schools. This is about
Although the EYFS technology re- them? How are these things kept
helping children to understand
quirement doesnt explicitly state digi- charged? Do children know the basics
their place in a world that seems
tal technology, it would be hard to of how to keep themselves and the
increasingly dominated by tech-
address this properly without giving equipment safe? How will they be
nology. We need to help them
children an experience of the digital shared fairly?
make sense of this world, as well
as well as the analogue here. That
as planting the seeds for their un-
said, many of us would worry about an The use of technology can support
derstanding of
environment, whether at home or children across other areas of learn-
the implications
school, in which young children are ing, providing children with new ways
of technology
spending too much time plugged in to communicate and share their ideas.
in their lives
to screens, narrowing communication
and society.
and the range of practical experiences Further up the primary school, we
from which children learn. recognise that there is much more to
This is the start
computing than learning to use digital
of digital litera-
An analogue only education seems of technology. Computational thinking,
cy and it ex-
diminishing relevance to the modern understood, after Jeanette Wing, as
tends into Key
world; a digital only education seems taking an approach to solving prob-
Stage 1, where
a hugely impoverished early childhood lems, designing systems and under-
children are
experience. Irrespective of access to standing human behaviour that draws
taught to
Bee-Bots, iPads or other digital tech- on concepts fundamental to compu-
recognise
nology, young children should also be ting, is the golden thread running
common uses
learning outside, making mud pies, through the computing curriculum.
of information technology beyond
climbing trees, playing with puppets, But computational thinking doesnt
school. Early Years practitioners
sharing books, making models and begin in Key Stage 1: the foundations
provide a rich environment in
chatting with their friends. are laid in EYFS.
which children can build up an
understanding of the world
The technology early learning goal
through play. They help children to
states that children should select and
be curious about technology in
use technology for particular purpos-
real world contexts: what happens
es. There are a wide range of digital
inside a microwave? or a photo-
technologies that young children can
copier? what happens when Mum-
use playfully and collaboratively, such
my puts her card in the machine
as digital cameras, audio recorders,
outside the bank? what is the ma-
tablet computers, phones (smart or
chine called? why does she have
otherwise) and simple, programmable
to type a number in? why does
robots such as Bee-Bot.
she keep it secret? Through role-
play and natural discussions like
As they play with these devices, chil-
these the children make sense of
dren will form their own mental model
their world.
(schema) of how these work, some-
SWITCHEDON: www.computingatschool.org.uk 6
In the being imaginative strand of the expressive arts and design area of
learning, the early learning goal states the expectation that children use what
they have learnt about media and materials in original ways, thinking about us-
es and purposes. They represent their own ideas, thoughts and feelings
through design and technology, art, music, dance, role-play and stories.
The requirement doesnt specify digital media or information technolo-
gy, but nor does it preclude it. Alongside working with crayons, pencils,
paints and craft materials, theres ample opportunity for children to
use photography, record music they make, video one another and
paint with fingers, trackpad or mouse on screen.

The Statutory Framework expects encourage them to tinker, play and

practitioners to consider how children
learn and develop in relation to three
characteristics of effective learning:
playing and exploring - investigate,
experience things, and have a go;
active learning - concentrate, keep
on trying if encountering difficulties,
and enjoy achievements; and
creating and thinking critically -
have their own ideas, make links be-
tween them, and develop strategies
for doing things.
explore. Opportunities to take things
apart, to build and make models help
Barefoot Computing, developed
children to be creative. Getting chil-
by CAS, offers a model of compu-
dren to do a jigsaw, recreate a pattern
tational thinking as being made up
or draw a picture can all encourage
of both concepts and approaches.
them to debug. We provide activities
Its widely used in primary
that require longer periods of engage-
schools. All these concepts and
ment, concentration and persever-
approaches can be applied, at
ance. Sharing books and toys, playing
least to some extent with four and
with puppets or taking part in a nativity
five year olds. Indeed, some begin
play or harvest festival all help devel-
earlier still.
op collaboration.

The nursery or reception class-

There are very close connections here
with the approaches to computational
thinking that Barefoot Computing uses
(right). Playing and exploring links
closely with tinkering and collaborat-
ing, as well as abstraction. Active
learning is tied to debugging and per-
severing. Creating and thinking criti-
cally connects with Barefoots creat-
ing, as well as back to the concepts of
logical reasoning and algorithms
So how do we encourage the develop-
ment of these approaches? This is
often about getting the learning envi-
ronment right. By providing open end-
ed activities that encourage children to
use all their senses to observe, dis-
cover and engage with the world, we
7 SWITCHEDON: www.computingatschool.org.uk
The non-statutory guidance in Devel-
room is full of opportunities to
opment Matters gives plenty of exam-
solve problems. Carrying the wa-
ples of how these characteristics of
ter up the hill; solving (or making)
effective learning develop, and these
jigsaws; building models; spotting
link directly with the notion of compu-
and extending a pattern. When
tational thinking. So, for example, the
children are faced with these
early stages of logical reasoning will
problems, the questions that Early
draw on making predictions - getting
Years practitioners would naturally
a child to say what will happen if they
be posing can encourage compu-
do or change something, as well as
tational thinking. Heres some ex-
developing ideas of cause and effect
amples;
- can they link their actions to the ef-
fects they produce, on screen or off?
Logical reasoning
What will happen if I do this? How
do you know?
Abstraction starts early too: repre-
sentative play captures the essence of
Algorithms
What do I need to do to solve
a thing, putting to one side much of
this? Is there a better way?
the detail: children pretend objects
are things from experience and
Decomposition
Can we break this problem up?
represent experiences as play.
Could we each do different jobs to
solve the problem?
Debugging, whilst not called that, is
common in Early Years with children
Patterns
Have you solved something like
learning by trial and error and
this before? What did you do
persisting with activities when chal-
then? Whats changed?
lenges occur.
Abstraction
Whats the most important thing
As with all learning, we need to recog-
here? Maybe we can draw a pic-
nise the importance of childrens early
ture of this?
experiences. If we can get the envi-
ronment right in these early days, we
Evaluation
What went well? Which way
can set children off on the right foot to
worked best? What would you do
develop computational thinking and
differently next time?
creativity.
 A recent CAS Hub meeting at Rushey
Mead Primary School in Leicester investi-
gated how computers can control devices Bookings are open for more free, in-
connected to them. This is an area that school workshops for primary teach-
often gets taught at KS1 using robots, ers. Louise Weisbloom reports on the
such as Beebots and Roamers, and can extension to the Barefoot Programme.
be more problematic at KS2 simply be-
cause it requires some equipment for chil- The Barefoot Programme, developed by teach-
dren to be able to control! ers for teachers, continues to help more and
more primary school educators in England to confidently deliver the
Fortunately, we had some experienced computer science element of the new computing curriculum. This in turn
educators to help us look at some of the helps young people become confident with computational thinking and
options available for control. Nick Page, aware of how technology and data lay foundations for todays society.
Primary Computing lecturer at Nottingham
Trent University has recently been investi- Signing up to Barefoot is free and gives teachers access to:
gating the Crumble controller and brought In-school CPD Workshops run by a trained local volunteer
several projects along to demonstrate how Easy to use computing and cross-curricular resources
they could be used and integrated with the Self-teach notes
Design and Technology curriculum. Partic- The CPD Workshops introduce teachers to computing approaches and
ularly fun was the ability use conductive concepts, guide them through using the Barefoot resources and demon-
thread to sew connections between lights strate how they can be used to teach pupils computer science. Its easy
to make a circuit, a lovely way to combine to book a Workshop, simply visit www.barefootcas.org.uk/register . Reg-
sewing, electronics and programming to istering also gives you access to the free resources.
make a felt Christmas Tree with a se-
quence of flashing lights! The Crumble is The Barefoot Programme has been created by CAS and BT, with sup-
cheap to buy and can use components you port from the Department for Education, and the Workshops are organ-
may already have in school. ised by the national delivery partner National Schools Partnership. More
information available via btbarefoot@nationalschoolspartnership.com or
Claire Robinson, by phoning 020 7198 8388.
from Holme Valley
Primary in North
Lincolnshire, is a
HLTA with a pas-
sion for Computing.
She demonstrated
two very cute ro-
Now in its second year, the Barefoot Programme has been a huge suc-
bots, Dot and Dash,
cess so far. Over 850 teacher workshops have been delivered, the im-
with the various
pact reaching approximately 340,000 pupils. The Barefoot Programme,
attachments they
now funded by BT, is focused on the ambition of reaching 5 million
have used from
young people over the next 5 years. The aim is to enable the resources
Lego adapters, to
and workshops to be available throughout the UK.
an iPod holder and
even a xylophone.
The Programmes vision would not be possible without the support of
dedicated volunteers. If you, a colleague, family or friends are interest-
We also had a number of attendees bring
ed in getting involved, please let us know! You dont need to have a
other equipment to play with during an
technical or computing background so taking part is really easy and
open workshop. There were Spheroes,
worthwhile. Whats more, we
Ozobot, more Crumble projects using traf-
provide full training and materi-
fic lights, a Lego Wedo toilet fan and iCon-
als and can help set you up with
trol. With 46 people at the meeting there
another volunteer to deliver the
was no shortage of ideas being shared.
Workshops together. To regis-
Opportunities abound for developing con-
ter your interest or for more
trol work at Key Stage 2 which can build
information contact the Barefoot
on that introduced earlier. Jo Badge
team using the details above.

SWITCHEDON: www.computingatschool.org.uk 8
Code Club have played a huge part in encouraging
Computing in primary schools. Director of Code
Club UK, Maria Quevedo updates us on their growth
and unique contribution to the curriculum.
When Code Club was set up in 2012,
the aim was to put professionals from
the technology industry - developers,
programmers and engineers - into
schools to help teachers run after-
school coding clubs for children aged
9-11. Three years later, and the land-
scape around Computing in schools
has shifted dramatically. With the new
computing curriculum, were seeing
that many teachers have increasing
confidence in computer science and
coding. Now around 50% of our 3000
UK Code Clubs are run by teachers.
Wed love to see this trend continue,
as we believe that schools which run
their own Code Clubs can draw bene-
fits for both teachers and pupils.
One of the teachers whose school
runs its own Code Club is Matthew
Cave, Assistant Headteacher at West
Town Lane Academy in Bristol. After
beginning with Year 5 and 6 students,
Matthew and his team decided to in-
troduce Code Clubs Scratch projects
for all 8 - 11 year old children. Now,
the school has also introduced
Pupils enjoying
the Code Club at
West Town Lane
Academy
Code Club is a nationwide, volunteer network that organise after
school coding sessions. They provide materials to use with your
pupils in the club and online training. The website seeks to
match volunteers with schools wishing to host clubs. Find out
more by visiting www.codeclub.org.uk/start-a-club.
I am a GP, currently on
a career break. Im also
a Code Club volunteer
at Firfield Primary
Scratch Junior for children aged 5 - 7,
School, Breaston. Two
and invested in new technology in-
summer ago, I was
cluding Lego WeDo and My Romo.
struggling to entertain
Weve been running our Code Club
my two eldest boys,
for over a year now, with 40 children
and look after my poorly
attending, run by three volunteers (two
baby girl. Home alone
teachers and one parent). The club is
with three children, with
in high demand, with children signing
my youngest needing a
up in large numbers.
lot of my attention, I did not want
the boys stuck in front of the TV
Code Club offers a fun approach to
so was seeking activities that
the new computing curriculum by al-
would stimulate making skills,
lowing children to create games, ani-
problem solving and persistence.
mations and websites. Matthew has
seen a number of notable benefits
I came across Computer Coding
from running the Code Club: Its
for Kids by Carol Vorderman. It
amazing to see the sense of achieve-
was a wonderful, step by step
ment the children get when they finish
guide explaining what coding ac-
their projects and we can really see
tually was ( I had always won-
the children starting to persevere with
dered) and how to get started.
the tasks in Code Club, using analyti-
Despite my lack of technical
cal thinking to troubleshoot. They
knowledge, that I was secretly
seem to be applying this in other
embarrassed about, I was able to
ways, with an increase in resilience in
get going with Scratch initially and
Maths, for example.
soon the boys and I were abso-
lutely hooked. I was then getting
For the teachers as well, running a
stuck trying to find projects for
Code Club has proved to be a useful
them at a suitable level to keep
tool. We absolutely see that Code
their interest and stop frustration.
Club can help teachers gain some
I started getting in touch with local
extra skills for the computer curricu-
schools and others to encourage
lum - we use Code Club within our
individuals to form volunteer net-
school to deliver part of the computing
works with the idea of getting chil-
curriculum.
dren coding. I came across Code
Club that way and at the Derby
What advice does Matthew have for
Xmas Meetup (2014) I met the
teachers who are looking to start a
inspiring Katharine Childs (East
club? Its dead easy, so take the
Midlands Regional Code Club Co-
plunge! The children will run with it,
ordinator). We have not looked
so dont worry about not being an ex-
back since! Together with Ian Wil-
pert. See the box below for details of
liams and Amanda Coffey we
how to get started.
formed a small parents group.
You can read about our journey at
codewordblog.wordpress.com.
Were six weeks in and I hope to
give a progress update in the next
issue. Jasjit Kaur Atwal

9 SWITCHEDON: www.computingatschool.org.uk
 A newly published document, created by
several CAS members and co-ordinated
by John Woollard explores the notion of
computational thinking (CT). The guide, for
both primary and secondary teachers is a
contribution to developing the teaching of
CT in schools. It presents a
conceptual framework,
describes approaches for
teaching and offers
guides for assessment.
The guide is comple-
mentary to two CAS
guides (published in
late 2013, early 2014)
for Primary and Sec-
ondary schools writ-
ten to support the
implementation of the new
curriculum. It embraces more recent devel-
opments, notably the CAS Barefoot and
QuickStart Computing descriptions of com-
putational thinking. CT lies at the heart of
the computing curriculum but, as our spe-
cial feature highlights, it also supports
learning in other areas of the curriculum.
Download from bit.ly/1QukAU9.
Over 56,000 school students took part in
the annual UK Bebras Computational
Thinking Challenge in November, up from
39,000 the previous year. The challenge,
which is free to enter, caters for all ages
from Year 2 to 13. No prior knowledge is
required and the results can provide an
excellent baseline measure to use in
school, focusing as it does on the ability to
think creatively and reason about unfamil-
iar problems.
All questions have links to computer sci-
ence and past questions make excellent
exercises. Previous questions are shared
on the CAS Community at resources/1261.
If you didnt take part this year, take a look,
make a note of the date and resolve to join
the growing numbers involved next year.
SWITCHEDON: www.computingatschool.org.uk
Computational thinking isnt something
developed through programming alone.
Paul Curzon, from the cs4fn team intro-
duces a new resource due out this term.
Puzzles can be a good fun way to develop the skills involved in
computational thinking. Many puzzles are algorithmic - the aim is to
come up with an algorithm that solves it. Other logic puzzles involve
logical thinking, and to do well involve developing heuristics and algo-
rithms for solving them. Yet others, like code cracking cross references
involve computing concepts in puzzle form. With support from Googles
CS4HS programme, the cs4fn and Teaching London Computing Team,
are putting together a resource area for teachers (bit.ly/1RkOuva). We
are also creating a computational thinking puzzle book to send free to
schools in the Spring of 2016. Sign up for
future cs4fn resources at bit.ly/1UqzavU.
To support the Puzzle Book, the first in a
series of complementary booklets that
discuss specific puzzles in more detail is
already available. Puzzling Tours (see
previous SWITCHEDON for details) looks
at the computational thinking in three
graph based puzzles.
Below is a word search from the puzzle
book (a pdf version to photocopy can be
obtained from the link above). Words can
appear horizontally, vertically or diagonally, running backwards or for-
wards. Different names can cross and overlap. There are twenty six fa-
mous computer scientists names in the search grid. Their first and sec-
ond names may be in different places. Spaces, accents and hyphens
are not included. The names are listed on the pdf.
You may be able to use your natural pattern matching abilities to spot
some words. An algorithmic thinking approach may work better though.
You need an organised way that is guaranteed to find the words. Take
the first letter of the
first name and start
at the top left,
scanning along the
rows in turn look-
ing for it. When
you find it check in
all directions for
the second letter. If
its not there move
on. If it is look for
the third letter in
the same direction,
and so on. Can
you improve this
algorithm for word
searches?
10
There are some great ways to link computing with all the other
subjects on the curriculum, but there's a particularly strong ar-
gument for making connections with mathematics. Miles Berry
introduces a special feature exploring the potential benefits.
As a discipline, computing owes its
origins to mathematics. Babbage's
analytical engine was designed to
compute mathematical tables. The
word 'computer' was originally applied
to a person who performed calcula-
tions. Turing's paper 'On computable
numbers with an application to the
Entscheidungsproblem was more
about proving a mathematical theorem
than founding a new science. Cam-
bridge's computer lab started out as
'the mathematical laboratory'.
Let's look at the connections from
both perspectives: firstly, bringing
maths into computing. Given our cur-
rent focus on thinking rather than cod-
ing, there are strong parallels between
mathematical reasoning and computa-
tional thinking: logical reasoning, algo-
rithms, abstraction, generalisation,
decomposition and evaluation play a
central role in both CS and mathemat-
ical problem solving. Conrad Wolf-
ram's four steps for doing maths
shown below (define, translate, com-
pute and interpret) parallel stages of
traditional software development.
There's a fair amount of mathematical
content in computer science as taught
in schools. In primary, Bee Bots and
similar are used early on to practise
positional language and emerging
measure and children are now more
likely to meet angles and coordinates
in Scratch before these get covered in
maths lessons. Topics such as binary
conversion, binary arithmetic, Boolean
logic and functions all make demands
on pupils' mathematical understand-
ing. There's some potentially gritty
maths in computing at GCSE and A
level: graph theory, modular arithme-
tic, formal logic and measures of algo-
11
The links between computer sci-
ence and maths provide both
challenge and opportunity for cur-
riculum development. We draw on
rithmic efficiency. It's perhaps no sur-
mathematics in computing; we
prise that A level maths is often a re-
use computation (automated or
quirement for studying Computer Sci-
otherwise) in mathematics. In
ence at Russell Group universities.
much work done in the primary
phase its easy to make the con-
Going in the other direction, there are
nection between mathematical
very many opportunities to enrich
content and computing. In sec-
school mathematics through compu-
ondary schools, where subject
ting, but more than that, computer
boundaries are more firmly en-
science provides a means through
trenched, there is a greater chal-
which mathematical ideas become
lenge. Yet the potential is huge,
incarnate, tangible and executable.
particularly given the primacy put
Wolfram makes a strong case for
on progression in maths with new
'computer based mathematics' being
school accountability measures.
taught in schools - arguing that this
reflects how real maths is done, mak-
At the recent
ing the subject far more relevant than
Computer
when calculations are done by hand.
Based Maths
It's the third of Conrad's steps
summit (see
(compute) that the machines are un-
page 14),
surprisingly much better at: perhaps a
the chair of
pupil's mathematical understanding
CAS Simon
would be enhanced by spending more
Peyton-Jones
of her time on steps 1, 2 and 4 and
and Andrew
proportionately less on the easily au-
Fitzgibbon
tomatable step 3. 'Show your working'
(Microsoft
could be at least as much about
Research)
providing the source code for your
made a strong case for teaching
program as making marks on paper.
the two subjects together - with
the current curricula and exam
Working with software can be power-
specifications for the two subjects.
ful for much maths education: turtle
graphics as a tool to think geometri-
What they suggested wasnt
cally; spreadsheets as a visual intro-
maths with a nod to Computer
duction to functional programming; the
Science or Computer Science with
classes, objects and methods of dy-
a nod to maths, but rather Com-
namic geometry software; data visuali-
puter Science bringing to life the
sation through Excel, Raw or R. Pro-
abstractions of maths, and maths
gramming has many applications in
providing the foundational ab-
maths education: writing functions for
stractions that underpin Computer
fractions arithmetic, solving equations
Science. Implementing such a
numerically, simulating probability
vision at national scale isnt trivial,
experiments etc. The list is pretty inex-
but perhaps a few teachers in
haustible, and provides rich territory to
some forward thinking schools or
develop understanding in both sub-
academies might be up for trying
jects side by side.
this out? It would be phenomenal-
ly interesting experiment!
SWITCHEDON: www.computingatschool.org.uk
 Adrian Oldknow from the Cambridge Centre
For Innovation in Technological Education
(CCITE) looks at developing Scratch code
to simulate an objects flight in real-time.

Man, unlike birds and beasts of prey,
couldnt run fast enough to catch most
living creatures to provide sources of food,
so had to resort to ingenuity. One way to
catch animals is to trap them. Another is to
throw things at them. The term used for
something put into flight is a projectile.
Some objects, such as stones and spears,
might be thrown by hand. Others might be
launched by other devices. Of course you
might use projectiles for reasons other
than hunting. One might be military, where
the projectile is a weapon, another might
be sporting.
The formulae: x = S.t and y = U.t g.t2 are called the equations of
motion of a projectile. How they are derived is outlined in the box
(above right). They contain three variables g, S and U which need to be
given initial values and will then stay constant throughout the flight.
These are called parameters. The variables t, x and y change through-
out the flight. We cant keep changing the time continuously so we will
also need to use a loop which moves the clock forward by small
amounts of d seconds. The flight stops when y becomes negative.
In order to check the simulation we will store the outputs t, x and y in
lists T, X and Y. To test the model we can start with some simple values
for g, S and U. If g = 10 ms-2, S = 10 ms-1 and U = 10 ms-1, then after 1
second the upward velocity would have become 0 and the projectile will
be at its highest point in which time it will have travelled 10 metres
sideways. After another 1 second, when t = 2, y will be back to zero and
the projectile will have landed. At that time x will be 20 metres.

The theory behind the way projectiles The resulting Scratch program is shown. We can use the Data tab to
move in flight is called ballistics. If we want create and manage the variables and lists. The numerical output (white
to make our own simulations of a projectile box) is displayed in the main Scratch graphics area.
such as a rock from a siege engine (aka
trebuchet) we need to find out something
about this theory. This was extensively
developed by the Italian astronomer, Gali-
leo Galilei in 1632.

The basic concepts are speed (aka veloci-

ty), acceleration (rate of change of speed)
and force. Galileo made the simple as-
sumption that the only force acting on a
projectile in flight is the Earths attraction
downwards, which produces a constant
acceleration downwards of g (approx. 10
metres per second per second).

He also assumed that projectiles motion

could be studied by considering the verti-
cal and horizontal directions separately
so that while the vertical velocity was
changing at a constant rate, its horizontal
velocity stayed unaltered. He proved that,
under these assumptions, the shape of the
curved track (aka trajectory) of the projec-
tile would be an arc of a parabola a
curve extensively studied by the classical
Greek mathematicians such as Archime-
des and Euclid.

SWITCHEDON: www.computingatschool.org.uk 12
If a projectile is launched from ground at time t = 0 seconds, we can
find formulae for its position at any time (t) until it hits the ground. This
can be expressed in terms of its initial horizontal velocity S, its initial
upwards velocity U, and the acceleration due to gravity of g metres
downwards. After t seconds its vertical velocity will be U g.t metres
per second, so its average vertical velocity during that time is (U + U The STOMP air rocket provides a cheap,
g.t) = U g.t metres per second. Since distance = speed x time it safe, simple and fun way to get some ex-
will have reached a height of y = (U g.t).t metres. In that time it will perimentation done outside the classroom
have travelled a horizontal distance of x = S.t metres. using simple measurement tools such as a
protractor, stop watch and tape measure.
Once we have the basic algorithm up and running, The captured data allows predictions to be
we need to turn the output from numbers into made in the same way Galileo did - and
graphics. We will use the time gap d to make a de- even to find a value for g!
lay in each pass of the loop so that we are working
in real time. We just have to turn the (x,y) coordi- Using a camera and the free video-
nate values from distances from the launch position analysis Tracker software (physlets.org/
in metres into pixels on the graphical display tracker) we also have a means to measure
screen. the launch velocity and track a moving
object in flight. Tracker provides a power-
To do this we can introduce some more variables: ful way to combine video with computer
(a, b) are the screen coordinates of the launch-pad modelling.
and c is the multiplier used to turn distance in me-
tres into screen pixels. We can also replace The data can be used with other software
Scratchs cat sprite with a more realistic projectile, too, such as the free GeoGebra
such as a ball. To tidy things up we have defined a (www.geogebra.org). Using GeoGebra
Block called `Set up which the program calls just students can go on to explore some of the
once to initialise the values of the variables and to mathematical concepts more thoroughly.
prepare the screen. The Graphics View provides `graph-paper
on which to create diagrams. It could be
The changes to the used to further understanding and interpreta-
body of the pro- tion of constant acceleration, for example.
gram are now quite
small to turn the These ideas are explained in more detail
output from num- in An Introduction To Rocket Science Us-
bers into an anima- ing STOMP, Scratch and GeoGebra.
tion. We have Links are given below.
made the time step
d much smaller so
that the curve
looks smooth. You
can vary the initial
speeds S and U to
see how they af-
fect the shape of
the balls path. Can
you edit the pro-
gram to simulate a
basketball throw
where the ball is
launched from
above the ground?
You might like to
add sound effects.

CCITE develops cross curricular STEM projects. Called the iSTEM+ approach, you can find out
more about it from the National Science Centre eLibrary: bit.ly/1RjjaMe. A key component is a set of inter-disciplinary
group projects which link aspects of the STEM subjects: Science, D&T, Computing and Mathematics. The full description
of this project can be found in the National Science Centre eLibrary at bit.ly/1R5sOn9.

13 SWITCHEDON: www.computingatschool.org.uk
Making the case for change.
Conrad Wolfram at the recent
CBM Educational Summit.
There is no shortage of topics where math-
ematical concepts can be illuminated
through computing. Back in 2012, CAS
member Neil Brown wrote a weekly blog
which sought to illustrate ways to use com-
puting to explore maths. As he wrote in the
introductory post; The ability to do numer-
ic calculations in your head is somewhat
handy, but this is the 21st century: the cal-
culator app on your phone can add and
multiply numbers more reliably than you
can. Arithmetic is dull and easily automat-
ed. Much more interesting, and more use-
ful, are the steps before you get to the cal-
culator. Understanding and using the con-
cepts and rules is the interesting part of
maths: knowing what to
calculate is key, not
the actual calculation.
Over the next six
months, the blog built
into an impressive intro-
duction to many maths
concepts. Neil is a key
part of the Greenfoot
project; a free coding
environment developed
to introduce secondary students to object
oriented programming and Java. The posts
explained the maths that lay behind a vari-
ety of computing challenges, the angle a
ball bounces, visualising calculation of a
mean, plotting the path of tyre tracks turn-
ing and so on.
The Sinepost is an excellent introduction to
the application of maths in computing. The
36 articles were supported by exemplars in
Greenfoot, but whatever your choice of
language youll find these features a mine
of information and inspiration for projects.
Check out bit.ly/1m6h0nT. Roger Davies
SWITCHEDON: www.computingatschool.org.uk
In November, the Computer Based Maths Educational Sum-
mit took place in London. Attendees spent two days debating
how to make teaching more effective and looking at ways to
further the case for computer based maths.
The importance of mathematics Free poster downloadable from bit.ly/1RY3iAv
in a knowledge based economy
is clear. The recognition of its
impact on jobs, society, and
thinking has exploded over the
last few decades. And yet,
argues Conrad Wolfram (from
Wolfram Research, a company
noted for its scientific and
technical innovation) maths edu-
cation is in worldwide crisis
diverging more and more from
what's required by countries,
industry, further education... and
students. Computers are key to
bridging this chasm: only when
they are used to do the calculating (the third stage in an iterative process
of problem solving) is maths applicable to hard questions across many
contexts. Real life maths has been transformed by computer based
calculation; now, suggests Conrad, mainstream maths education
requires a similar fundamental change. He makes his case in a powerful
and persuasive TED talk at bit.ly/1sVwWbg.
Computer Based Maths (CBM) campaigns to redefine maths education
away from an emphasis on hand calculating techniques, toward one fo-
cused on real-life problem-solving situations. Alongside lobbying, they are in
the process of developing a new curriculum which put computer based com-
putation at its centre. CBM is also building learning resources using the
Wolfram Language as a platform. Students then use the language to solve
problems. CBM itself is not about the art of coding, but coding is central to
being able to learn CBM. The case for developing a different approach to
maths education is well made by the CBM project at bit.ly/1ZnJbwO.
The Wolfram Language originated with the development of Mathematica
some 25 years ago, and has developed as a framework to allow compu-
tation to reach much higher levels of abstraction. This is perhaps best
exemplified by the development, in 2009 of the computational
knowledge engine Wolfram Alpha. Widely used in technical sectors and
higher education it is a very high level language that allows powerful
computational expressions to be created and visualised in a few lines of
code. Teachers and students can use the Wolfram Programming Lab,
part of the Wolfram Cloud which provides an online platform. This is free
to use and allows an introduction to professional tools used to explore
difficult problems. Further details can be found at bit.ly/1ZnMp39.
14

Mathematica, powerful software for developing
mathematical investigations, comes free as part of
the NOOBS Raspberry Pi distribution. We look at
how busy teachers can start investigating its potential.
Mathematica has been continuously developed for over twenty five
years. It is powerful software, used in many technical fields. With over
5,000 built-in functions it allows users to easily develop code to process
and visualise complex mathematical ideas. Many of these functions
have direct value for teachers and students of Computer Science and
Maths in the upper secondary school stages. For example, there are
built-in functions for finite state machines, graph traversals, Turing ma-
chines and Fourier Transforms, amongst many others. Being part of the
software bundled free with NOOBS, the de-facto distribution for the
Raspberry Pi, even children at Key Stage 3 can benefit from a little play-
ful investigation. Putting software this powerful into the hands of mathe-
matically curious children is an exciting prospect.
Despite the complexity under the hood, it is easy to get started. For that,
we must thank the generosity of three communities. Firstly those won-
derful people at the Raspberry Pi Foundation. Justifiably proud of being
only the second computer on which Mathematica has been distributed
as standard for free (the first was Steve Jobs NeXT back in 1988!) they
have produced an excellent Getting Started Guide: bit.ly/1QFMoGM.
Written with a clarity and brevity that makes it accessible to students, it
steps through writing simple scripts in the Notebook, manipulating matri-
ces, plots and accessing the GPIO pins on the Pi.
You can always rely on members of the CAS Community to chip in with
help. Nick James has used Mathematica with his maths classes at Ash-
ford School, Kent. He notes, The built in access to genuine data, the
symbolic capabilities, and the ease with which it can produce graphical
outputs make it immediately useful to pupils in many subjects. To help
others get started he has shared a series of fifteen lessons on the CAS
Community (resources/1810) which allow teachers to jump right in.
Once started, youll inevitably get drawn in and
need to know more. Step forward the Wolfram
Community (bit.ly/1lyloXM) who provide further
project exemplars, utilising GPS, a weather
station module and other GPIO oriented activ-
ities. The Wolfram Programming Lab also
allows access to a series of workbooks. Soon
youll need a self standing reference work.
Stephen Wolframs Elementary Introduction
to the Wolfram Language can be viewed at
bit.ly/1m6jbI4. As he states in his blog, an-
nouncing the distribution, What will be
done with the millions of instances of the
Wolfram Language that are bundled on Rasp-
berry Pi computers around the world? Maybe some amazing and
incredibly important invention will be made with them. Maybe some
kid somewhere will be inspired, and will go on to change the world.
15
Two specially augmented Astro Pis are
now on the International Space Station
(ISS) as part of astronaut Tim Peakes
mission. The Raspberry Pi Foundation had
to certify the hardware with the European
Space Agency (ESA). To be allowed on
the rocket, you need a
flight safety certificate,
obtained by presenting a
whole host of measure-
ments and test results to a
panel of experts at ESA
ESTEC in Holland.
Last year Raspberry Pi
joined forces with the UK
Space Agency, ESA and
the UK Space Trade Asso-
ciation to run a competition that gave UK
school-age students the chance to devise
computer science experiments based
around the popular Sense HAT board. The
seven winning Python programs will be run
on the ISS by Tim. They range from fun
reaction-time games to real science exper-
iments looking at the radiation environ-
ment in space. The results will be down-
loaded to Earth and made available online.
There will be opportunities to examine the
results of the competition experiments,
and a data analysis activity where you can
obtain a CSV file full of time-stamped sen-
sor readings direct from Tim. Tim has said
he wants to use some of his free time on
Saturday afternoons to do educational
outreach. While we cant confirm anything
at this stage we are hopeful that some kind
of interactive Astro Pi activities will take
place. There could yet be more opportuni-
ties to get your Sense HAT code running
on the ISS! Keep an eye on astro-pi.org for
further news. Dave Honess
ScratchMaths is a national project which
is aiming to establish the impact of compu-
ting on the mathematics performance of
pupils at Key Stage 2. As part of the project
over 100 schools will trial a new
Y5/6 computing curriculum based around
Scratch. The project is based at the London
Knowledge Lab and concludes in 2017.
SWITCHEDON: www.computingatschool.org.uk
 When 5 Raspberry Pi devices arrived in
school, courtesy of Google, little did
Markethill High School realise the impact
they would have on the future develop-
ment of computing in the school. Pupils
were already familiar with the concept of
coding. Scratch had been used in Year 8
classes to create games. Terms such as
algorithm, sequence and debugging were
part of our computer language and prob-
lem solving skills were already embedded
in many subject areas. We needed to build
on this foundation, using the Raspberry
Pis to take coding a step further.
Turtle Graphics was chosen as a means
to introduce all Year 8 pupils to the Rasp-
berry Pi. Tutorials were created for pupils
to follow, but open ended tasks were also
included for those pupils who liked a chal-
lenge. Many pupils just couldnt wait to
see what they would be learning about the
next week.
As some pupils were keen to learn more
about the Raspberry Pi, we now have a
Coding Club after school. Jumper wires,
resistors, LEDs and GPIO were terms that
the ICT staff had never had reason to use
before, but they went back to school
themselves as Ulster University and Stran-
millis College were running courses for
teachers. Now we have pupils who are
able to create programs for a simple traffic
light system.
We are committed to promoting computer
programming within our own school as
well as in our local primary schools. On a
recent visit (above), P6 pupils were given
the opportunity to learn how to create a
programme, using Scratch GPIO, which
would allow two lights to flash in se-
quence. We hope this will inspire some of
the pupils to develop their computer skills
further. Dawn McMaster
SWITCHEDON: www.computingatschool.org.uk
The first steps with a Raspberry Pi can
sometimes be a daunting process, for the
inexperienced teacher. Picademy@Google
is a great way to start says Marc Scott.
You buy your first Raspberry Pi, open the box, and then sitting in front of
you is a delicate looking single-board computer, a forest of pins jutting
from its surface and a plethora of ports protruding from the sides. There
are cables and peripherals that all need plugging in, an SD card that
needs something called Raspbian writing to it, and then there's the en-
tirely alien Linux Operating System that needs to be tackled. The barrier
to getting things done with a Raspberry Pi rarely has anything to do with
technical proficiency or programming know-how. More often than not,
the barrier is one of confidence. You need to realise that it's just a com-
puter after all, that it's not going to break when you touch it or type in an
incorrect command, and know that once you're up and running, the only
limits to what can be achieved are your imagination and willingness to
ask the right questions.
Picademy aims to smash through that barrier and give teachers the skills
and knowledge they need to get hacking on a Raspberry Pi, no matter
what their level of experience with computing. It's a two day course,
completely funded by Google, that gives educators a chance to experi-
ence just some of what can be achieved with a little help and a lot imagi-
nation. I attended a recent event in Birmingham, and was blown away by
what I saw. On day one the teachers got stuck right in, running through a
series of workshops that introduced them to physical computing using
the GPIO pins to control LEDs and motors and respond to button push-
es. Then there were sessions using the camera module, making music
with Sonic Pi and terraforming the world with Python and Minecraft.
On day two, the real fun began. The teachers, either individually or in
small groups, let their creativity take control as they came up with pro-
jects ideas that ranged from the delightful to the diabolical. With a little
assistance from the mentors, I watched in amazement as art, program-
ming and science collided and from the remnants were born wonderful
projects such as the "Demon Duck Baby Monitor", "The Minecraft Dance
Mat" and "The Staff-room Tea Temperature Detector".
By the end of the two days, every attendee that had managed to achieve
something amazing, and had thoroughly dismantled that barrier to get-
ting started with the Raspberry Pi. What's more, having completed the
two days, each teacher became a Raspberry Pi Certified Educator,
ready to go on and spread their new found enthusiasm to other educa-
tors and of course to a whole generation of children.
Picademy@Google courses ware hosted at
Googles Digital Garage. Launched last year in
Leeds, they provide spaces in major cities de-
voted to developing digital skills. The courses
will run alongside the definitive Picademy events previously featured in
SwitchedON. All courses are free. Future venues will be announced
soon, so keep checking at raspberrypi.org/picademy/google/.
16
 All Year 9 girls at Fakenham Academy, Norfolk
took part in the international Programming Chal- RoboGirls, a team of year 10/11
lenge 4 Girls (pc4g.org.nz). Sue Gray reports on girls at Morecambe High School
a full day of coding and fun. have worked together for 2 years.
They have been involved in sever-
Girls need a lot of persuading that Judging took place at lunch before
al competitions such as First
computing and coding are useful skills meeting up again. Dr Pam Mayhew
LEGO League and Technovation
that offer interesting, challenging and from UEAs School of Computer Sci-
Challenge. We have been lucky
potentially lucrative jobs. PC4G sets ence gave a short speech on how
enough to be sponsored by both
out to show girls that they can code! software is all around us, stressing
the school and EDF (Heysham
that we really can change the world by
Power Station) which has helped
Before half-term, in class, we had just being able to code. From phone apps
us purchase equipment and pay
one hour learning a little about the to navigation systems to assistive
for entry into competitions.
Alice programming environment. On technologies, everything depends on
the day the girls then had another one software. A fantastic TED Talk by Ru-
They visited
and half hours to re-familiarise them- pal Patel (bit.ly/1fYUtlS) showed how
EDF to meet
selves and learn new skills before scientists have been able to custom-
female STEM
being set an unseen challenge. In just ise the synthetic voices for people like
staff and
two hours they had to follow a story- Dr Stephen Hawking who rely on tech-
demonstrate
board to create an animation to match nology to give them a voice. It is now
their robotics
as closely as possible to the example possible to take some tiny sound from
skills. Suzanne
not an easy task as it turned out! the person and create a unique
Porter said Its
voice; a voice of their own. All this is
fantastic to see
The first part, three girls speaking was possible because of software. Our
how support
easy enough but getting an orca to girls were genuinely moved and fasci-
has allowed
jump out of the sea and plunge back nated and I hope that for some a small
these girls to
again, head first was tricky. To get the seed of interest has been planted.
get so much experience and learn
orca to reappear and do a back flip led
new skills. Hopefully theyll think
to some very hilarious results with The lovely people at PC4G in New
about working with us one day.
orca turning themselves into balls and Zealand kindly provided medals and
belly-flopping back into the sea. Lots we were able to award 6 Bronze, 5
Mia Hargreaves (year 10) explains
of laughter, lots of helping each other, Silver and 4 Gold. A brilliant day, full
what she has gained from being
lots of fun. of fun and laughter and smiles!
involved in the after school group
so far : I really enjoy the social
aspects of the group. It isn't the
Last autumn an enthusiastic group of young female coders descended upon stereotypical code, code, code.
Moray College in Elgin, Morayshire in Northern Scotland. They came from every My friends and I have taken part
corner of the county and beyond with a shared enthusiasm for computing and in lots of workshops and competi-
coding. During the three hour workshop the girls took the opportunity to extend tions, and we even won the pro-
their coding skills using Scratch. They ject category in the Lego First
used Stop Motion software and a range of League. Ive been to robotic work-
creative materials to make a series of short shops at Manchester University
films. Later they added sound effects or a too. If it wasn't for the Computing
musical soundtrack. Film themes ranged group, I would have completely
from the clich of cute animals to a raging crossed out engineering as an
pig which ate every toy it met, eventually option. Now Im looking at focus-
eating the camera accompanied by the ing my studies on a career in bio-
sound effects of voracious munching! A engineering. Follow them
borrowed set of Lego Mindstorms from a @MCHSRoboGirls and read more
local Tech Firm were put to use. We also about the RoboGirls visit to Hey-
set up a Raspberry Pi computer and had a sham 2 on the EDF Website at
go at Python coding. Claire Griffiths bit.ly/1QR598l. Theresa Russell

17 SWITCHEDON: www.computingatschool.org.uk
 When I first learned about the new compu-
ting curriculum my first instinct was to be
excited by the challenge and chance to
learn something new. I had Code Club
recommended to me by a parent and, hav-
ing heard of Raspberry Pi on twitter was
lucky enough to earn a place on Picademy,
their free CPD training in Cambridge. Both
gave me a good start in understanding
what was needed. Whilst I stumbled and
tripped a few times, I began to really enjoy
exploring new topics and thinking of fun
ways to teach coding. But I soon realised
most of my teaching friends seemed nerv-
ous and afraid to get started. With this in
mind I invited teachers, interested pro-
grammers, Code Club and Coder Dojo
volunteers to an evening meet up. Unlike
typical CPD, I was keen for an informal,
relaxed atmosphere so found a local pub
who let us use a function room for free.
The key thing about Coding Evenings is
they allow teachers a much needed oppor-
tunity to play. Too often we are expected
to teach things we only have a basic un-
derstanding of ourselves. Coding Evenings
mean we can relax, play and take ideas
home with us. As word has spread Ive
been joined by many helpful people in
Twickenham who are eager to offer sup-
port. Ive even managed to gain sponsor-
ship from companies such as Pimoroni
who allow me to offer the first drink free to
encourage more teachers to give up their
evenings and learn to code.
My first Coding Evening was in January
2015. By the end of the year we had host-
ed seven events in Twickenham as well as
three in Peterborough, another in South-
end and a special event for Code Week
EU in Mozilla, London. Between these var-
ious locations we have been able to help
numerous teachers to feel more confident,
comfortable and willing to give coding a
go. A group in West Berkshire is planned. I
hope that we can continue to grow as
more teachers host their own evenings.
Please take a look at our website
www.codingevening.org and see if there
are any events being planned near you. If
there isnt, do get in touch to discuss
running your own. Cat Lamin
SWITCHEDON: www.computingatschool.org.uk
September brings a new school year and
PyCon UK - the volunteer led conference for
all users of the Python programming lan-
guage. Co-organiser Nick Tollervey reports.
As in previous years there was an education track generously sponsored
by Bank of America. Nearly 50 teachers attended and qualified for the
200 bursary to cover supply teaching costs. The Raspberry Pi Founda-
tion, Code Club, Alan 'Teknoteacher' O'Donohoe and Martin 'Minecraft'
O'Hanlon as well as many professional Python programmers volun-
teered their time and expertise.
Friday focussed on learning Python, learning how to teach Python and
learning of others successes with Python. We also ran several ice-
breaker activities to get teachers and developers engaged with each
other. For example, teachers were able to learn, use and write games
with the new PyGameZero library. They were also able to meet
PyGameZero's author, world champion game developer, Dan Pope.
Minecraft made an
appearance - it's
always a pleasure to
see people learn
Python through the
medium of such play-
ful digital "lego" - and
the Raspberry Pi
Foundation gave an
inspiring series of
workshops about
teaching with Python and the Raspberry Pi (and weather balloons, and
space, and the sense hat, and the camera, and... you get the idea).
Code Club explained their amazing work engaging the wider program-
ming community in after-school clubs. It was especially good to hear
how both teaching colleagues and programming colleagues could buddy
up to make this happen (it's remarkably simple, you should try it).
The BBC's micro:bit made an appearance. It has a full reimplementation
of Python 3 running on the device. We learned how to program the mi-
cro:bit "live" by typing Python commands (in much the same way you
used to do with the original BBC micro - a very compelling experience
that encourages exploration and experimentation). We also saw an early
version of the Python editor that will live within Microsoft's TouchDevel-
op. Importantly, we learned that the Python solution does not rely on
TouchDevelop - you can create your Python scripts in any editor you
choose. Simply run a command to turn your code into a hex file that's
flashed onto the device.
Next year PyCon UK will return and the education track can only but
grow from strength to strength. Why not go? Many teachers come back
year after year and it's an invaluable window into the practices of
programmers. It's also famously fun. :-)
18
 One way to inject some fun into your coding les-
sons is to gamify them! Simon Johnson, who
teaches at St-Matthias School in Wolverhamp-
ton invites you to a game of code golf.
For those new to the concept, gamifi- Students can use a combination of Every Child Can Code is a new
cation is the process of introducing features such as loops or sub-routines interactive educational initiative,
game-like elements into traditionally to achieve their optimised code but encouraging children from age 7
non-gaming contexts to make them readability and usability must not be to code. The first stage of the
more fun and engaging. Strategies sacrificed at the expense of code scheme, BASIC Coding for Be-
include elements such as gamifying efficiency, therefore white space and ginners, includes 10 lessons
grading, incentivizing students with comments do not count as lines. We teaching BASIC, one of the most
rewards and adding competitive still want to encourage students to popular coding languages for be-
elements such as leader boards. One break up and comment their code so ginners. Each lesson teaches five
strategy that exemplifies the approach that it is comprehensible to others, BASIC commands and presents
is a game called 'Code Golf'. easier to debug and easy for others an example program with explan-
to re-use. atory comments for the pupil.
I came across Code Golf at the annual
CAS Teacher Conference. The idea is There are two main ways to play Code A key component is a unique child
simple, participants are given a prob- Golf. The first way requires students -friendly software coding teacher,
lem (or working solution) and are to solve a given problem using the which runs on Windows PCs and
challenged to solve it using the fewest fewest lines of code. The second monitors a child as they code. It
lines of code. The term is derived from method, which requires a little more warns when they have made a
the similarity of its scoring system preparation from the teacher, requires coding error, assists in under-
to that of conventional golf, where the students to optimise a given standing what they have done
participants aim to achieve the lowest working solution. The teacher can add wrong, and tells them how to put
score possible. It aims to encourage a little extra challenge by setting a Par things right. The coding teacher
efficient use of code. At GCSE and value, this being the optimal number allows a child to watch their pro-
A-Level, students are required to of lines of code. This Par value can be grams run in slow motion, step by
make efficient use of code in order to altered for different levels of ability step, so they can see each line in
access the higher mark bands. (similar to the handicap system in action and follow its effect on the
Efficient code compiles quicker and conventional golf) thus allowing the operation of the program.
uses less storage space. teacher to differentiate the lesson.

To make a start with Code Golf you can The second stage of the scheme,
download a PowerPoint and scorecard from BASIC Coding for Game Design,
Simons blog. This makes use of the turtle makes it easy for pupils to design
tutorials in an Introduction To Python booklet, and code their own games pro-
shared by fellow CAS member Mark Clarkson grams. The scheme and teaching
at bit.ly/1Nlk1Y5. A great example of how the materials are free of charge.
CAS Community can work together to develop In parallel with the scheme a new
materials. type of coding contest has been
announced the National Schools
If you wish to develop your own there are Coding Championships. There
plenty of good ideas for Code Golf themes will be one division of the champi-
and questions at bit.ly/1MR75KP. onships for primary and prep
schools, and another for second-
For more tips, advice about rules, curriculum ary and independent schools and
mapping, a sample lesson and links to other sixth-form colleges. For full details
programming challenges shared by CAS of the Every Child Can Code
scheme and the National Schools
members take a look at the more detailed
Coding Championship visit
article on Simons blog. Youll find this is at
teachwithict.weebly.com/coding-golf.html bit.ly/1NQnMnw David Levy

19 SWITCHEDON: www.computingatschool.org.uk
 Calls for applications to the 2016 CS4HS
(Computer Science for High School) and
the RISE awards programmes will both
launch in Europe in January 2016.
CS4HS provides funding to local computer
science education experts for the planning
and development of CS teacher profes-
sional development. Through carefully
planned programmes, secondary school
teachers connect with university academ-
ics, who can provide the professional de-
velopment courses and tools needed to
bring computer science and computational
thinking into the classroom. Teachers gain
the skills to develop and deliver the com-
puting curriculum, helping to inspire a new
generation of computer scientists who will
build the apps and programs of the future.
The RISE award programme provides grants
to organizations across the globe that pro-
mote computer science education and run
initiatives that reach girls, underrepresent-
ed minorities, and students facing socio-
economic barriers under the age of 18.
For full eligibility criteria and more infor-
mation, check back at the CS4HS
(cs4hs.com/) and RISE websites around
mid to late January. Obum Ekeke
As part of the Make It Digital season, the
Open University have produced a wonderful
free pack of literature exploring the develop-
ment of digital technology. It covers the histo-
ry of computers, looks at women in Maths
and Computing, the basics and limits of algo-
rithms, the development of calculating devic-
es and introduces coding. Well designed and
attractively laid up in A5 format, much of the
pack could be printed out and used for class-
room displays. See bit.ly/1GjIIq1 for more.
SWITCHEDON: www.computingatschool.org.uk
Do you want to provide activities without
the burden of error-prone software instal-
lations? Michel Wermelinger, from The
Open University, introduces trinkets.
I came across trinkets when looking for a way to complement our free
pack of leaflets (see box bottom left) for BBC's Make It Digital season. I
wanted to provide a hands-on "hour of code" activity that could be done
online, without any software installation or account creation, by the gen-
eral adult public. Trinkets fit the bill perfectly.
A Python trinket is a browser-based environment featuring a text editor
with syntax highlighting, a Run button, and a pane showing the resulting
output. Misspelled variables are spotted before running the code. Error
messages are shown in
meaningful ways, instead
of cryptic stack traces. If
students get lost making
changes, clicking the 3-
line icon reveals a reset
option that reinstates the
original program.
Each trinket is hosted on http://trinket.io, with a unique URL to share via
social media and e-mail, using the Share menu. Alternatively, you can
embed trinkets in webpages, to put explanatory text round activities and
run the code automati-
cally. That's the route I
took. You can see the
result at bit.ly/1jTRpws.
Again, trinkets make it
easy: a Share option
shows the HTML snippet
to paste into the page.
Although you can create a trinket by just going on the website, changing
the example given there, and then sharing the link with your students, I
recommend you create an account or log in with a Google or Edmodo
account. With an account you can easily duplicate and change existing
trinkets (which I found convenient for building a progression of activities)
and you can see how often your trinkets were viewed, interacted with,
and shared. You should give each trinket a memorable name to quickly
find the code you're looking for. There is a 'gallery' view of trinkets but
unfortunately it doesn't show the code, only the output, which means that
trinkets requiring user input are, unhelpfully, blank in the gallery view.
To sum up, trinkets are easy to use, well designed, and a good option to
avoid software installation or account creation, if you don't mind depend-
ing on the continued existence of the website. Only some Python
modules are currently available, including part of the turtle module, but
they're enough for most exercises or projects you can think of. There are
also trinkets for teaching a Scratch-like language, HTML, CSS, and even
music notation.
20
 Everyone who grapples with A Level grows to love
simplifying Boolean algebra. Senior Lecturer at
Birmingham City University, Stuart Davison out-
lines a method to confirm you are right (or wrong)!
Start with an expression:
take a handful of distributive law, a
pinch of idempotent law and a sprin-
kling of annulment law and, like mag-
ic, you end up with the simplified Bool-
ean expression A. Wouldnt it be
handy if there was a nice visual way of
checking a simplification? Well youre
in luck. Karnaugh maps can be used
to help simplify complex expressions if
you apply a few
easy-to-follow
rules and draw
lots of pretty ta-
bles, the most
basic of which
looks like this.
Each side of the map represents the
values of different Boolean variables.
In an expression we need to mark all
the occurrences where the expression
is true. For example, the expression
should be
marked with
three ones to
represent the
true parts of the
expression.
Next, group all
the ones that you can in as large a
group as possible. On a two variable
map this could be either groups of 4, 2
or 1. You should aim to capture all the
ones with as few groups as possible.
Once this is done
we can summa-
rise each group
as a small ex-
pression. In this
example we have
two expressions
A and B.
Combining the smaller expressions
with an OR operator gives us the sim-
plified expression A + B.
21
Karnaugh maps become more useful
as we introduce more variables. Con-
sider now a map for three variables. In
order for the grouping method to work,
the order of the BC combination must
only change one bit at a time. Note
this is different to how counting in bi-
nary works.
Again we take an expression,
and identify where the parts of the
expression are true.
The groups to identify can now be
bigger so we should try to capture
adjacent groups of 8, 4, 2 or 1. You
might think that there are two groups
of 2 in the example, however, the fact
that the BC combination is changing
by only one bit allows us to create a
larger group that wraps around the
table.
Within the group, identify inputs that
have a constant state. In the example
above, the one variable that does this
is
The 2nd November 2015 marked
two hundred years since the birth
of the mathematical genius
George Boole (1815-1864). Born
in Lincoln and largely self taught,
Boole was appointed the first Pro-
fessor of Mathematics, at Queens
College, now University College
Cork (UCC). It was here that he
developed his most important
work, An Investigation Into The
Laws Of
Thought in
1854.
As part of their
bicentenary
celebrations
UCC produced
teaching materials for their Boole
2 School initiative. These free
resources provide a wealth of
information, contemporary exam-
ples, exercises and puzzles for
introducing logic to secondary
aged students. More details about
all the resources, including videos
and an introductory PowerPoint
can be found at bit.ly/1P9TMZy.
Its certainly a lot quicker than a
proof using laws of Boolean algebra
and something that is useful when
you want to quickly check for a
simplified expression.
A word of caution however. Applying
this technique in an exam situation
might not be an appropriate solution.
Some A-level specifications allow the
use of Karnaugh Maps but others
might not. The way the solution is
arrived at should be based on the
how the question is written. It may be
that simplification should be per-
formed using Boolean laws to gain
full marks. That said, a Karnaugh
Map can certainly help you check
that the answer you get is in its mini-
mal form. To quote Boolean logic fan
Paul Daniels: Now thats magic!
SWITCHEDON: www.computingatschool.org.uk
State diagrams are an important way
of describing what computer systems
can do. The last issue of
SWITCHEDON highlighted a great
way to introduce the concept;
exploring the curious properties of a
multi-sided hexahexaflexagon. A
booklet describing the activity, by
Teaching London Computing, can be
downloaded from bit.ly/1mdPFAi. A
diagram of the transitions is a
special kind of graph that can be
thought of as a machine a finite
state machine. The nodes of the
graph are different states the
flexagon can be in and the edges
show the actions that can be
taken to move between states. It
describes the computations
involved in flexing the flexagon.
Finite state machines (FSM) can
serve as a vehicle to illustrate one of
the core ideas of algorithms. Ma-
chines initiate actions based on their
current state and on received inputs.
As such, they offer another way to
introduce programming. Rather than
writing code, or assembling blocks of
commands, simple programs can be
expressed as diagrams.
Developed at
ETH Zurich,
Kara the lady-
bird lives in a
world of trees,
leaves and
mushrooms.
Children work
in an easy-to-
use environ-
ment without
having to deal with the complexities
of modern programming interfaces.
One goal of the project was to
ensure they could have a working
program expressed through a FSM
within an hour. A free download
from bit.ly/1JDS0cG Kara comes with
exercises that range from simple to
very challenging. An excellent way
for children to begin to appreciate
that programming is but part of a much
deeper science. Roger Davies
SWITCHEDON: www.computingatschool.org.uk
In the second of a new regular series, Greg
Michaelson, Professor of Computer Science at
Herriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, illustrates
the value of state diagrams.
Suppose we want to design an inter-
active text editor. To begin with, lets
concentrate on the functionality, so
were not concerned quite yet with
how to use or implement it. Looking at
lots of existing text editors to tease out
their common features, we observe
that they all provide the abilities to:
open a new empty file;
open an existing file;
close a file;
save a file;
edit a file;
exit the editor.
We also observe that:
a file that isnt open cant be closed;
a file that isnt open cant be saved;
a closed file cant be changed;
a changed file cant be closed be-
fore its been saved;
the editor cant be exited so long as
a changed file hasnt been saved.
So a text editor can go through the
following stages or states:
ready waiting for a file to be
opened, or to exit the editor;
open waiting for an open file to
be changed or closed;
changed waiting for a changed
file to be altered further or to be
saved.
And then the editor will change from
one state to another depending on
what the user wants to do next.
A very useful way to capture the tran-
sitions between the states of a sys-
tem, without focussing on the low level
details of what happens between each
state, is with a state diagram. State
diagrams, which are closely related to
finite state machines, are also used
in many engineering disciplines, for
example to design control systems. In
Computing, state diagrams are a key
part of the Unified Modelling Lan-
guage (UML), and are also used to
design both Graphicall User Interfaces
and concurrent systems. Here, well
use the UML notation where a state is
represented as a labelled box and a
transition between two states is a di-
rected arc labelled with the cause of
the transition (the event) and what hap-
pens during the transition (the action).
For example, a state machine for a
light switch might look like the diagram
below:
We can see that the light is in either a
state where its ON or a state where
its OFF. If the light is ON and the
switch is set to off, the bulb goes out
and the light enters the OFF state. If
the light is OFF and the switch set to
on, then the bulb goes on and the light
is in the ON state.
You could imagine turning this into a
GUI. The event of switching the light
on or off might involve toggling a but-
ton and the associated action might
be to change a label from, say, black
(off) to white (on) and vice versa.
If we abstract away from this diagram
we could use it as an outline design
for any system with two states and
transitions from each to the other.
So, lets now consider our text editor.
The state diagram, showing the three
states, ready, open and changed is
shown in the box above right. Notice
that weve named each event with a
word. For example, we can consider
the event EDIT to be a short hand for
any change to the file.
22

State Diagram Outlining the
Behaviour for a Text Editor
Think about the state diagram shown
above. Does it manage to capture
our intuitions about how our text edi-
tor should function?
Now, if we used this diagram as the
basis for the development of a
Graphical User Interface, we could
consider putting the labels NEW /
OPEN / CLOSE / SAVE / EXIT on
buttons or pull down menus.
We could also restrict the display
and only make an event option visi-
ble or enabled when its use is appro-
priate for the current state, that is
only when theres an arc leading
from a state labelled with the word
for the event. Used in this fashion,
the state diagram is also telling us
how to control what the user can
legally do.
The MVC design pattern provides
a way of cleanly separating out
interface and behavioural con-
cerns. The Model consists of the
underlying data structures for the
problem domain, typically manipu-
lated via methods. The View is the
A very nice thing about this ap- user interface. The Control medi-
proach is that we have separated out ates and keeps track of the inter-
three things: actions between the View and the
the legal sequences of transitions Model. For example, for our editor:
the state diagram;
how each event is triggered by the
user the interface;
how each action is realised the
implementation.
If we stick to our state diagram, we
can make changes to the interface
or the implementation independently
of each other, making the realisation
of the application much simpler
This is reminiscent of the Model-
View-Control (MVC) design pattern,
articulated in the diagram (top right):
the state diagram is the control, the
interface is the view and the imple-
mentation is the model.

As an exercise, realise the text editor state diagram using your own choice of
interface, say a command line or a GUI. Choose something simple to indicate
the actions, for example displaying a message or changing a label when a state As the user interacts with the View,
changes, but without actually implementing any of the actions. Once the inter- the View interacts with the Control
face behaves as you expect it to, implement the actions by developing appropri- (a), which in turn interacts with the
ate procedures or methods that can be called as a result of selecting each Model (b). The Model uses its
event. Developing applications in this fashion allows the programmer to sepa- methods, manipulates information
rate the implementation of the interface from the processing required for each in the data structures and returns
action. results via the Control (c) to the
View (d) for the user to see.
As another exercise, construct a state diagram that explains the operation of a
media player, with controls to open, play, pause and stop media, and to exit. MVC was originally developed for
Then use the diagram to build an interface for the player. the early Object Oriented language
Smalltalk. Note there are lots of dif-
Finally use your state diagram to construct an implementation of a slide show ferent and not necessarily consistent
player for images. Here, because the image sequence continues to play until takes on MVC. More about design
the user pauses or stops it, its helpful to think about MVC and how to introduce patterns in Java, including MVC in
interacting threads for each component. the tutorial at bit.ly/1P6mCtx.

23 SWITCHEDON: www.computingatschool.org.uk
 A crop of books in recent years
give advice about interviews for
tech jobs. The demand for such
books is a measure of the compe-
December 2015 was the 200th anniversary of Ada Love-
tition for positions in sought after
laces birth. To celebrate, the cs4fn team at Queen Mary,
companies. A personal favourite is
University of London joined with Oxford University, support-
Are You Smart Enough To Work
ed by EPSRC, to explore Victorian computer science in
At Google?, written by the Ameri-
their normal offbeat way. Issue 20 explores Adas work,
can author and columnist William
looking at where modern computing research has taken
Poundstone. Whether books like
her ideas, and how her work linked to the very modern idea of com-
this offer practical help is debata-
putational thinking. Rather than focus just on Ada, they also look at the work of
ble but, being full of interesting
her friends and influences, the people she influenced, and how their collective
puzzles, they are a great source
ideas and inventions both foresaw and provided the foundation for the age of
of classroom ideas. Take, for ex-
the computer a century later.
ample, the hundred doors problem.

We see, for example, how Adas friend Charles Dickens included computing
A row of 100 doors are all initially
ideas in one of his novels, how Ada foresaw the challenges ahead in writing
closed. You make 100 passes of
programs, how Braille was a precursor to the way we represent characters in
all the doors. The first time
binary, how Adas ideas about computational modelling of the way the human
through you visit every door and
body works is becoming a reality, and how she also saw the benefits of citizen
toggle it (the door is closed so
science and crowdsourcing. Ada was friends with a whole host of important
open it). The second pass only
intellectuals. These Victorian pioneers, friends and colleagues together had a
visits every 2nd door (doors 2, 4,
vision of computer science that is still only just being realised. Download your
6...), so even numbered doors
copy from bit.ly/1YOoKMp.
are closed. The third time, every
3rd door (3, 6, 9..) etc., until you
only visit the 100th door. Which
doors are open after the last pass? QuickStart Computing, the CAS Toolkit supporting the new
Computing curriculum, has been shortlisted in the Free
We could approach this problem Digital Content / Open Educational Resource (content
mathematically. After all, doors suite) category of the BETT Awards, 2016. Launched at
will be visited on passes that are BETT last year, the primary and secondary kits offer mate-
factors of their number. So door rial to colleagues develop new schemes. Funded by the DfE
28 will be visited on pass 1, pass and Microsoft they can be downloaded from bit.ly/1R88AaS.
2, pass 4, pass 7, pass 14 and
pass 28. An even number of vis-
its will return the door to its origi-
nal closed state. Given this in-
sight, we could, of course, labori-
ously calculate the state for every
door. As all divisors come in pairs
(1 x 28, 2 x 14 and 4 x 7) stu- Computing At School was born out of our excitement with the discipline, combined with a
dents may think all doors will fin- serious concern that students are being turned off computing by a combination of factors.
SWITCHEDON is published each term. We welcome comments, suggestions and items for
ish in their original state, but this inclusion in future issues. Our goal is to put the fun back into computing at school. Will you
isnt the case. help us? Send contributions to newsletter@computingatschool.org.uk

A better approach might be to write
a short program (using just 2 loops
and an array) and investigate the
output pattern. Most will spot the
doors remaining open are square
numbers since only one toggle is
used for two divisors e.g 3 x 3.
Computing At School
are supported and
endorsed by:
Many thanks to the following for help and information in this issue: Richard Asher, Jo
Badge, Phil Bagge, Irene Bell, Miles Berry, Paul Curzon, Claire Davenport, Roger Davies, Stuart
Davison, Lorna Elkes, Remi Gauvain, Emma Goto, Sue Gray, Jonathon Hocker, Dave Honess,
Lyndsay Hope, Simon Humphreys, Simon Johnson, Cat Lamin, David Levy, Dawn McMaster,
Greg Michaelson, Emma Norton, Adrian Oldknow, Carrie-Anne Philbin, Maria Quevedo, Siobhan
Ramsey, Theresa Russell, Marc Scott, Andrew Shields, Sue Sentance, John Stout, Alec Titterton,
Nicholas Tollervey, Yvonne Walker, Jane Watkivs, Louise Weisbloom. and Michel Wermelinger.
www.computingatschool.org.uk