Promoting coding/ programming

[shanahmi]

Hi all,

Just looking for some thoughts and opinions. If you were to promote coding and computing in a secondary school, (assuming hypothetically a significant budget) where would you start, what would you purchase? Would you introduce it as a club or as a junior cert short course? Any thought welcome. Thanks in advance

Michael

[John Hegarty]

I'd say it is easier to make things happen when you have a slot on the timetable. I'd go for the Junior Cert. short course.

jh

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[Ivo Brett]

Hi Michael,

Firstly I would say that its a misconception that you need a significant budget to run coding in schools. Coding can be done on very inexpensive hardware. Possibly you'll need to consider wifi and broadband but most schools nowadays have a pretty good network.

Other people may have a view but I would recommend volunteering for a while in a local coderdojo and then think about setting up your own after-school club. This is a really great way to get to know what works well and can help improve your own confidence.

Finally, if and when you are ready to take the plunge and start a short course, there is some really useful information in the Coding short course specification:

http://www.curriculumonline.ie/getmedia/cc254b82-1114-496e-bc4a-11f5b14a557f/NCCA-JC-Short-Course-Coding.pdf

The JCT ran an excellent pilot in the last recent past with 22 schools that started offering Coding as a short couse. We were one of the schools and the pilot was a really great way to meet other teachers and share knowledge and practices. I would recommend you look at their report:

http://www.jct.ie/perch/resources/shortcourses/interim-report-exploring-coding-181016.pdf

Hope this helps

Ivo

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[Shanahan Michael]

Thanks a million all

[Thomas Boyle]

Hi Michael,

I have just gone through this process at school in the last 12 months with zero budget and it hasn't stopped us, from my experience these are my top tips:

• Plan/Aims/Objectives - Have a clear plan and objectives (Coding & CS on the timetable)
• School Management Buy in - Get management on-board straight away, have a few meetings about the long term plan (Before you put a lot of your free time into it) 
• Student & Parent interest - There has to be a starting point of interest (In our case it was an after school Code Club ran by past CS students one day a week for an hour)
• Contact local IT's and universities - They are full of knowledge and head straight for the Computing department (They are full of talented, interesting people passionate about their subject, I have found my local LYIT to be a great help to us)
• Make links with companies - Get out there and ask for help from them large multi-national companies, sure aren't they the ones that what the students to have the skills so they can employ them in the future... cough cough Donation for local school please :) They also are a great source of role models for students, get them to come out and give a talk in school. 
• School PR - Careful now, the reason for PR is to get the message out in the community that the school is interested and starting to look at this new area of learning ( I have received calls to the school offering support to the school from a small news story or a tweet @JC_Coding
• School Events - Mini school events like Codeweek.EU and Hour of Code ( Off timetable and gather interested students! Note: Gender balance) Physical Computing workshops with Raspberry Pi's etc)
• Avoid burn out - Get other teachers and students on board, when the word gets out there you'll be amazed by the teachers that will be interested ( We are up to 5 staff, with several staff taking CPD for Coding/CS courses on the own time)
• Promote the new skills not Coding - I know what the word Coding means but that will not promote or help in getting the subject on the timetable!! New JC key skills, digital competences and computational thinking are developed by students in this new subject learning area and can be applied through life and in other subjects. Making these links and by taking a whole school approach will help other teachers and management see the importance of a subject of Coding on the timetable.
• Budget - No... we have no budget, we use PC's in our old DCG lab (8-10 years old), we have converted two PC labs to Chrome machines, we are a G Suite for Education school so we make use of the Cloud and our excellent wifi, so we can do all our work on old or low powered machines. What we cant do on a Chromebook, we use Raspberry Pis and the students love messing around and the freedom they bring for physical computing workshops. Also with cloud basing everything the students can work at home very easily.
• Junior Cycle for teachers and PDST are running CPD for schools around this area, I def think 2017-2018 school year will even be more exciting in this area

I know I have left loads out, if you look through our Twitter account that records our last school year in the JCT Explore Coding pilot, hope this helps Michael.

Regards

Thomas Boyle

Crana College

Buncrana,

Co.Donegal

[Shanahan Michael]

Thanks Thomas really helpful

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[Peadar Harvey]

Michael,

I teach coding as a short course and it is hugely popular with the students. I also really enjoy teaching it as it is a great break from the norm. We have just been accepted into the pilot for next year. 

In regards equipment and this hypothetical budget. All you really need is some sort of PC (ideally Windows / Linux / Mac OS based). Most schools already have these in computer rooms. 

If you have budget allocated I would highly recommend the Raspberry Pi! It will be your best friend in the classroom you can use them for basically everything from looking at how NAND gates work to building computer clusters or even intranet servers to explain how the internet works. The board itself is 30euro which is a great value, but you will also need a range of accessories depending on the set up of your PC room.

It's a great subject. Every student should have the opportunity to try it.

Le meas,

Peadar

  

On Wednesday, June 7, 2017 at 2:59:35 PM UTC+1, shanahmi wrote:

[Keith Michael Gregg]

Short course, no major budget needed, depends what your skillset with code is, if you are doing the scratch thing, or looking at something like JavaScript, which is lightweight enough, doesn't require as many resources, and can have instant results (when paired with HTML and CSS) but it all falls back to your own skillset and what you like. Kids will pick anything up, and will definitely know more than you do by the end of it, so have fun with it. Remember too its for everyone, and can bring through a range of skills from art, design, language, problem solving etc...

Regards,

Keith Michael Gregg

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[Frank Kelly]

Hi guys,

Have a look at  codeucate.org  it might suit your needs. Yes I have a vested interest but we are designing and developing this product with all our Irish students in mind.

Frank Kelly

[Mike Carter]

Hi Michael

My name is Mike Carter I am the Managing Director of Tyncan Learning. I joined this forum after seeing Mags and Leanne from CESI present at the Tech on the Tyne event in Newcastle upon Tyne UK. I would like to declare an interest as we offer a Raspberry Pi kit called the Build IT kit. The kit is being well received in UK schools as it comes with Breadboard,platform Raspberry Pi Model 3 motor jumper wires resistors, switches, SD Card with scratch Minecraft and Python LEDs ULN chip and a booklet which contains 11 activities which utilise all the components. Goto http://www.tyncan.com/buildit-kit for more information.

Kind regards

 Mike

Mike Carter

Managing Director

Greenesfield Business Centre

Mulgrave Terrace

Gateshead

NE8 1PQ

tel: +441914787976

mob:+447949293995

www.tyncan.com

skype: TyncanLtd

Twitter: @tyncanLearning

DataLoggers BuildIt Kit Roamer 2Simple Phiro

Rabbit Learning Language App

   

http://www.tyncan.com/labdisc-bett-2017-award

On 20 June 2017 at 21:06, Peadar Harvey <mr.harve...@gmail.com> wrote:

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[Mike Carter]

Hi Michael

Just as a folow up, Leanne Lynch has a BuildIT Kit for evaluation. You coukd contact her for more information.

Kind regards

Mike

[David Leahy]

The School page is down and schoolsites.ie is down along with other associated sites.

Any help appreciated.

David

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