Joint Computing at School and Digital D&T meeting | Manchester | 8th July 2013

I’m delighted to be able to say that (free) tickets for the first (of what I hope will be many) jointly run meeting between the Manchester branch of Computing at School (CAS) and the Greater Manchester Digital D&T Support Centre are now available here.

Note that the ticketing for this event is not through this site but through Eventbrite. CAS tell me that tickets for their networking events are claimed quite quickly, so if you want to come along please book a ticket now!

If you are a D&T teacher, see if you can bring along  a Computing teacher from your school; equally if you’re from ICT/Computing, please bring along a colleague from D&T.

The details of the event are on the Eventbrite site (link above), but the summary below might be helpful:

Meet other Computing/ICT and D&T teachers in the North West to share ideas and good practice and brainstorm on the best ways to cooperate to improve the teaching and learning of our subjects in our area.

In addition to open discussion about teaching Computing and D&T from KS1 to A level, the meeting will include the following exciting sessions:

 Makey Makey to Raspberry Pi – Which Board?

Torben Steeg is an education consultant with a background and interests in computing, science, D&T and related areas who runs the Greater Manchester Digital D&T network.

This session will outline how D&T teachers have been using microcontrollers to design and make programmable products over the last 15 years or so. A brief overview of the kinds of pedagogies used will be accompanied by a summary of the microcontroller systems currently in use.

 App Inventor Workshop

 Learn to create basic Android apps using App Inventor, a blocks based programming language similar to Scratch. Carl Simmons and Paula Beer, co-authors of “AppInventor Android programming for kids and the rest of us” will lead this hands on session where you will learn to make Sheep say “Baa!”, do some finger painting and perhaps find out why everything is better with Zombies. Feel free to bring your own Android devices (phones or tablets) to use in the session*.

 *If participants are bringing their own Android devices then it would speed things up if they download and install the MIT AICompanion app from here https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=edu.mit.appinventor.aicompanion2

Merseyside Science Conference 10th July 2013

I’ve been invited to run a couple of sessions at the Merseyside Science Conference  in July on Computing and the Science Curriculum.

As well as providing background and an update on the newly emerging Computing curriculum, I’ll be describing some ways in which science teachers can make use of computational tools to support the development of scientific thinking. In particular I’ll be focussing on tools that can engage pupils in exploring scientific ideas through the use of computational modelling – which sounds hard but needn’t be when highly developed and free tools such as NetLogo and StarLogo TNG are available.

If you want to find out more, please book in to to the conference.

For those unable to make the conference, I’ll post the support materials used in the session here, after the event.

A tool kit for a new D&T curriculum?

While we are all waiting with bated breath as to the outcome of the consultation with the DfE over the programme of study for D&T I’m minded to point up the existence of a very useful document from Education for Engineering (E4E). Entitled New Principles for Design & Technology in the National Curriculum the document takes the position that D&T is not a vocational subject but a general academic subject and has its own fundamental body of knowledge, principles and concepts which are not provided elsewhere in the curriculum. The document adopts a toolkit approach and the tool box is split into four groups: Design, Technology, Critique and Data. Thus the tool kit presents an overarching set of concepts and principles that can be applied to any aspect of D&T regardless of the medium in which the pupils are working. Using key concepts and principles, the intention is that this approach will create a shift in emphasis from teaching separate sub-disciplines to a more coherent curriculum for D&T. This ‘bodies of knowledge’ approach is applicable to primary and secondary schools, but the contents of this document are specifically relevant to KS3.

I have to acknowledge some bias here as I am one of the authors of the document but I think it would be well worth downloading the document and see what this approach might do for the D&T curriculum in your school.

E4E New Principles for Design & Technology in the National Curriculum

So just what is the problem with cooking and food technology?

Teaching young people to cook is important and so is teaching food technology. The problem is that they aren’t the same and shoe horning cooking into food technology does neither endeavor a favour.  By emphasizing cooking in the way required by the Minister working with food is effectively removed from design & technology. The Minister wants to divorce working with food from designing and making.  We know that food technology requires the following:

• Designing and making food products,
• Underpinned by an understanding of the science of food, cooking and nutrition
• Incorporating an exploration of both existing and new and emerging food technologies
• In the context of sustainable development of food supplies locally, nationally and globally.
• Including an appreciation of the roles of the consumer, the food industry and government agencies in influencing, monitoring, regulating and developing the food we eat

This is a tall order for food technology when it is already part of the wider subject design & technology but from a general education point of view it is very important that young people learn about this area if they are to have an informed voice about the food related issues that will face us in the future.

By limiting working with food to cooking the minister denies young people that voice.

A lesson in curriculum politics for design & technology

In December 2011 the expert panel appointed by the government to advise on a review of the National Curriculum challenged the status of design & technology in the school curriculum. The panel cited weak epistemological roots and a lack of disciplinary coherence as reasons to downgrade the subject design & technology and remove it from the National Curriculum. The Design and Technology Association mounted a robust campaign to defend the position of the subject as worthy of inclusion in the National Curriculum and the government rejected the advice of the expert panel and included the subject in the National Curriculum. The Design & Technology Association constituted a small committee of advisers to work in complete confidence with the Department of Education to produce a draft programme of study as guidance to the minister of education. After several months of close confidential consultation, the Association provided the Minister with an advisory document in November 2012. Imagine the Association’s disappointment and annoyance when the programme of study announced by the minister for consultation bore no relationship to the advice provided and was such a hotchpotch of miscellaneous and unconnected content that it seriously lacked disciplinary coherence and compounded the Expert Panel view of weak epistemology. The community of practice was incensed. Some of the anger was directed at the Association for keeping the advice given to the minister confidential to the point of secrecy. It was pointed out that the transparent approach taken by those responsible for computing science had led to a programme of study much more in line with their views. Of course there was immediately extensive lobbying for the suggested programme of study to be completely scrapped. Dick Olver, chairman of BAE Systems, one of the UKs biggest companies, has been particularly critical. Olver, who is also chair of E4E, an organisation of 36 engineering institutions, said the draft proposals for design and technology did “not meet the needs of a technologically literate society. Instead of introducing children to new design techniques , such as biomimicry (how we can emulate nature to solve human problems), we now have a focus on cookery. Instead of developing skills in computer-aided design, we have the introduction of horticulture. Instead of electronics and control, we have an emphasis on basic mechanical maintenance tasks,” he told a conference of educators in March 2013. “In short, something has gone very wrong.” The result of such outspoken and authoritative criticism was that Elizabeth Truss (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Education) invited the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Design & Technology Association to develop more advice and guidance. Time was very short and there was less than one week in which to prepare this advice. The process that took place was transparent and collegial. Some 50 members of the design & technology community were invited to a one day seminar at the Academy to develop further a working draft prepared in advance by a small working party. This group was constrained by the view of the Association that the Minister’s insistence that cooking should be included in the programme of study for design & technology should not be challenged. The presence of cooking is to a large extent the result of lobbying by the chef Henry Dimbleby and in an effort to find a place where the teaching of cooking is compulsory the minister has decided on design & technology although there is little if any logic in this position. By the end of the day the group had developed a six page document detailing a programme of study for design & technology for KS1, KS2 and KS3 along with a purpose of study statement and a set of aims. There was still significant discontent with regard to the inclusion of cooking but considerable agreement and satisfaction with the remainder of the document that concerned design & technology. The document was further developed by a smaller group from the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Design & Technology Association and then circulated to all those who had attended the seminar to gain approval that this revised document be submitted to the minister. There was still significant dissatisfaction with the inclusion of cooking but the remainder of the document was such an improvement on the programme of study suggested by the minister in February that the majority supported its submission to the minister. There are indications that the minister is taking some note of the submission in her answers given to questions in the House of Commons on Tuesday 23 April although she is still intransigent on the place of cooking. The submission is a work in progress and there are many in the design & technology community of practice who will press the minister to change her mind. Time will tell whether this pressure will be successful but the process is no longer secret and this in itself must add to the pressure.

Design and technology revised draft PoS 18-1.04.13 the working draft prepared in advance by a small working party

Design and technology revised draft PoS 19-1.04.13 the six page document detailing a programme of study for design & technology developed at the seminar

D&T Assoc and E4E Draft D&T PoS April 22 the submission to the minister

David