This post has been reproduced from the Social Science Space Blog published in January 2018: https://www.socialsciencespace.com/2018/01/coding-school-research-needed-computing-accessible-children/ Coding. It's the new ‘must have’ skill - there are opportunities for us to learn this everywhere, with online courses, workshops, books and magazines abounding. In school, coding has also become a focus. When computing replaced ICT as part of… Continue reading ‘Coding’ in School? Research Needed to make Computing Accessible to All Children
IT and Computing education in Guyana
Guyana is a small country (size of UK) in the north of South America bordering Venezuela, Brazil and Suriname. However in many ways it associates itself with the Caribbean - for example, students take Caribbean GCSEs - called the CSEC. In terms of computing in school, students can take the CSEC in IT and this… Continue reading IT and Computing education in Guyana
Identifying Exploratory Procedures of Visually Impaired Learners in Programming
At King’s College London we are conducting research around making computing education inclusive of all learners. Alex Hadwen-Bennett is currently carrying out research looking into the use of physical programming languages to teach visually impaired children to program. Physical programming languages use physical blocks or pods to represent commands. These blocks or pods can be… Continue reading Identifying Exploratory Procedures of Visually Impaired Learners in Programming
Physical computing and visually impaired learners
For many children, programming is challenging to learn and for visually impaired learners there are a number of additional barriers which need to be overcome. Block-based languages are a popular choice for introductory programming courses, however their visual nature makes them inaccessible to learners with visual impairments. Physical programming languages, that use physical blocks or… Continue reading Physical computing and visually impaired learners
A continuum of scaffolding: from copying code to tinkering
Jane Waite, of King's College London & Queen Mary University of London, is researching ways of teaching programming, with the ultimate goal of supporting primary teachers teaching programming. In this post Jane describes a continuum of programming that she uses in training with primary teachers (CAS London run a number of Diving Deep courses in… Continue reading A continuum of scaffolding: from copying code to tinkering
Threshold concepts and non-cognitive dimensions of learning
At King's College London we are involved in research to better understand the teaching and learning of programming in school. In particular, our research project about threshold concepts in programming has entered its second phase and Maria is now looking for students and teachers to take part in the next phase of her research. If… Continue reading Threshold concepts and non-cognitive dimensions of learning
Bebras Cards
The Bebras Computing Challenge introduces computational thinking to students. It is organised in 50 countries and designed to get students all over the world excited about computing. It runs online every November, is free to enter and you can enter as many students in your school as you like. See http://bebras.uk for more information. This… Continue reading Bebras Cards
Data science survey
Link to survey I am conducting a survey to canvas the opinions of Computing teachers on whether/how aspects of data science might be relevant to the school curriculum. This survey is primarily for secondary teachers but open to all. The purpose is to feed into a cross-European discussion on data science in the curriculum. It… Continue reading Data science survey
PRIMM: A structured approach to teaching programming
PRIMM is one approach that we hope can help teachers structure lessons in programming. It is based on research into the learning of programming but combines different areas. Our overall interpretation of the research is that teaching programming requires a blended approach using a range of strategies. PRIMM stands for the following: Predict Run Investigate… Continue reading PRIMM: A structured approach to teaching programming
WIPSCE 2017
The Workshop in Primary and Secondary Computing Education will be held in Nijmegen from 8-10 November 2017. Although titled a "workshop" this is now an international conference which particularly focuses on computing education research in school (which from now on I will shorten to CERS. It's a single track conference which means that everybody listens… Continue reading WIPSCE 2017
Sue Sentance 