If you went to school around the same time as me, you may have been lucky enough to play, I mean learn, with the amazing bigtrak robot. I can clearly remember this trundling across the carpet as we used its control panel to issue instructions. Happy days. It’s fantastic that students nowadays are doing so much coding. Free programs like Scratch make it so easy for children to learn core concepts, such as selection, repetition and the use of variables, but if we don’t also provide opportunities for students to work with external hardware, they’re missing out. Whilst BeeB... (Read More)

It would be fair to say that I have been looking for a really great control technology solution pretty much since I started my teaching career. I’ve tried out lots of devices, each with their own set of pros and cons:   Pros Cons Lego Mindstorms Very capable Includes a range of sensors Latest versions can be controlled by mobile devices Expensive. As a result, students would have limited access. Lego Wedo Simple device that is easy to learn Includes a range of sensors Can be integrated with Scratch Supports a... (Read More)

This Saturday we joined thousands of other coders around the world as we hosted our first ever World Scratch Day 2015 event in Canterbury. It was an excellent day which saw over 35 children and adults working together to solve problems, debug and collaborate. We kick started the day with a robotics enabled registration system, of course built in Scratch and with Lego Wedo equipment, where the attendees had to wave their hand in front of a sensor before entering their name. Names were then picked at random by the program, giving everyone a chance to introduce themselves to the group. We h... (Read More)

2014 was a great year for Studyzone.tv. The number of active users on the site increased significantly with registered users answering over 2.5 million questions in our games. We also expanded our curriculum resources to include videos and worksheets to support the delivery of computer coding, in line with the new Curriculum for computing. It's now time to look ahead to 2015 and beyond. Having made the move from full time to part time teaching to free me up to develop the site, the time has now come to monetise Studyzone.tv through subscriptions for some resources. I have thought long a... (Read More)

As a year 6 teacher and ICT Subject Leader, I am all too aware of how the term 'ICT' has become muddled over the years. Some use it to refer to an extension of a lesson: 'Let's type our stories up in ICT'. Others use it to refer to equipment: 'How are you using ICT in your lesson?'. Some use it to refer to an explicit subject: 'This afternoon we're doing ICT'. However, even as an isolated subject, the muddying of the term has resulted in less and less explicit teaching of computing skills. By replacing ICT with Computing, a clear message is be... (Read More)