New curriculum, new software?

[Dos_Box]

Well, if you haven't heard by now, the new 'hard' computer science curriculum is on its way (BBC News - ICT teachers welcome new computer programming lessons) with a whole raft of courses that will teach real world IT skills (when are going to drop the 'ICT' I wonder?). What we at Edugeek would like to know is what changes, plans and purchases - both hardware and software - are you having to make, or has your school not even considered this yet?
Anyway, please fill out the poll and reply with any helpful information you might have as I suspect many here will be needing whatever advice and research you have done to assist them in theirs, and as with miost things, crunch time comes around sooner than many expect and it's good to start planning early.

[LosOjos]

Well I'm not officially involved in our school's plans (I'm a data manager, not a NM) but I do know that we are starting a computer club this week to teach students Python with a view to them programming some Raspberry Pi's when we can get them; I can only imagine the curriculum lessons will follow suite.

[nickbro]

Doesn't affect schools in Wales yet. Mind you, our school is actually already doing some of the new curriculum. We do programming via Scratch and VBA in powerpoint, and anything extra is a lunchtime class with me.

My boss (Head of IT) uses the OCR Nationals Award, so it's more than just Word and Excel, theres mail merging, macro recording, VBA programming, movie editing (using Serif), stop gap animations (using Serif again), as well as website creating (frontpage ), using advanced features of emails (creating groups, and formatting emails professionally) and I think there's a bit of access use to tie some things together (mail merge).

Got a network upgrade coming in April (starts in Feb with the servers), where 1/2 the network will get Win7, new pc's, additional laptops, and additional storage. First part of the upgrade was WAG/Powys installing the PSBA (public sector broadband access) link, so we now get a 100mb link to county hall, and get about 1/2 that to the internet during the day. I think WAG are trying to push it to 1gb for high schools, so it could be quicker.


Still have the old 2mb BT learning stream link located in school, we don't use it, but 2 LA premisses still use it (it's a ISDN loop to them from our comms cab, but they will be moved to the PSBA when county can get the funds for BT to dig the roads up)

[saundersmatt]

Our Head of IT seems to be totally embracing these changes (out of desire rather than fear!)

We're trying to integrate more advanced topic all the way up from year 7, so in age order we have as follows:
Lego Wedo - Simple robotics kits controlled via PC from a GUI (that is intuitive to a child but I cannot get my head around.)
Scratch - Drag/Drop programming - teaches functions/subroutines
PICAXE - specifically microbots and small project kits - using Logicator for pic to program via flowchart
GCSE Computing will be taught using Python - I just have to teach the teachers now.
And yes, we want to get some RaspberryPis to 'evaluate'.

Matt

[nephilim]

My old place do not have anyone competent enough to teach programming as the new IT teacher struggles to teach office according to my sources in the school, and as they have contracted out ICT support, they can't get the ICT guy to teach it either.

On the brighter side, the HT is switched on enough to keep up with the curriculum updates, and was always on the ball when there were changes to other subject areas so she should be on the ball for this too.

[chazzy2501]

Dreamspark might be a good one to roll out to pupils. Robotics, programming, games creation, webdesign....

EDIT: Dreamspark is no longer free

[nickbro]

Dreamspark might be a good one to roll out to pupils. Robotics, programming, games creation, webdesign....

EDIT: Dreamspark is no longer free

When did dreamspark stop being free?!?!?! Ouch. $99 pa for the basic sub, ouchie.

[LosOjos]

Dreamspark might be a good one to roll out to pupils. Robotics, programming, games creation, webdesign....

EDIT: Dreamspark is no longer free

When did dreamspark stop being free?!?!?! Ouch. $99 pa for the basic sub, ouchie.

As far as I'm aware, that's just for additional software above and beyond the basic that's always been available. You just need to verify yourself with an educational email address... (it's still free for me as an OU student anyway)

[nickbro]

We registered a while ago (2 years ago I think), yet our school doesn't show up in the list anymore. Thankfully we still have the codes, hopefully they are still vaild

[SimpleSi]

I do Scratch programming teaching in my primaries (either in Classes and/or after school ICT Clubs) generally in Y5/6.

I did do a few weeks with a Year 3/4 class where I used Scratch instead of Logo to achieve the normal outcomes you get with Logo.

Si

[Soulfish]

We're a brand new Academy and we've been planning to change the way IT is taught here since we first opened in September. For us though we're very lucky as we already have all the things we need (top of the range CAD/CAM, tv studio, radio studio, post-production facilities, recording studio etc) to teach a very varied IT curriculum. From discussions here we'd like to do a 2 or 3 pronged assault on IT teaching, getting basic IT skills out the way (assessed possibly with office qualifications or similar) in the first term of year 7 and then looking at offering courses around a creative media aspect (our specialism) and a computer science aspect (IT is our second specialism) for those wanting a more academic/traditional programming background.

We're already looking at App design as being a part of our IT/Media courses.

[enjay]

getting basic IT skills out the way (assessed possibly with office qualifications or similar) in the first term of year 7

Did you consider dropping them from the IT curriculum all together, and leave Maths to teach spreadsheets?