Outlined below are some recent activities which prove that life isn’t boring in ICT@Highcliffe.
With recent announcements at the BETT show in January that schools will be asked to look at moving away from teaching Office Applications and more towards Computer Science.
We are pleased to announce that yet again, Highcliffe is at the forefront of this move – in fact Highcliffe staff have attended many conferences focused on getting the Department for Education to revisit the ICT Curriculum.
Mr Gove announced that schools should look at new courses such as GCSE Computing (which we are already offering) and also at several pieces of software to help students learn to program. We are pleased to say we are using much of the software mentioned in his speech. We are also one of very few schools that offer A-Level Computing in the Sixth Form with a growing number of students choosing to take this subject.
Key Stage 4
GCSE ICT students are busy planning a trip for a teacher from Oxfordshire who in his sabbatical year is travelling through Thailand, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. As part of the planning process the class participated in a 1 hour video link with Mr Wade to ask questions and give ideas about where he should visit before he left for his travels. Throughout the unit students will continue to plan events and they will have the opportunity to speak to Mr Wade again via a video link whilst he is on his travels and hopefully get to see the places they planned for him to visit.
GCSE Computing students have been involved in a range of practical and theoretical activities this term based around dismantling computers in their lessons with Mr Mortell. This has involved them working in groups to take apart various parts of computers whilst at the same time keeping track of what they did by taking photos and inserting these images into a PowerPoint presentation. The presentation has been thoroughly annotated to ensure they have understand the functions of the various part so the machines and these will form the basis of their revision notes on Computer Hardware.
On the programming side with Mr Downs they have been learning to use ‘Proganimate’. This is an online, block-based programming tool that creates real live Java, Javascript and Visual Basic Code. Students have been set a variety of tasks to complete with only the basic building blocks being available. This means students must think carefully about how they will solve the ‘tasks’ with only limited functions. Several students have moved on to advanced tasks such as creating a Bubble Sort procedure using arrays! One that up until the introduction of Computing in to Year 9 was the domain of the Sixth Form students!
‘SCRATCH’-ing in Key Stage 3
SCRATCH is a game-making program which students must program using code blocks. Students in Year 7 and 8 are often found at break and lunchtime solving problems. In Year 7 students are learning how to use the software and using online videos accessible via My Highcliffe. These provide examples and instructions which teach the students how to design and create given games in class. Year 8 students then take this one stage further, designing and creating their own games, having to think about how they will program all the different characters. There is presently a competition open for all Year 8 students to create the best game with a user manual, CD case cover and testing table. Given the comments made by Mr Gove recently it is good to see that all students at Highcliffe at given a grounding in computing from the moment they begin studying ICT.
GCE Computing
GCE Computing has been run at the school for a number of years. Students follow the AQA syllabus. In their first year the students learn about the basic constructs of the hardware and software, and are instructed in good practice techniques preferred by the industry. They are encouraged to apply problem solving skills and techniques to designing computer programs. Currently the students learn to use VB.NET in their first year and in the second year the students move on to a practical challenge in their coursework. They are required to design and create a bespoke piece of software which will solve a specific problem for a client/preferred user. On the theory side they learn much more about the abstract constructs currently available to programmers and discover the limits of these. We are extremely encouraged to see that a number of our students have gone on to work in this area and many of the A2 students have gone on to study computing or related degrees at university.
Owned by: | Last Published: 10/02/2013 20:18:01 | Next Update: N/A
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