Tim Ryland's blog post

Hampshire Primary ICT Conference, Winchester
July 2, 2015

Following last year’s whole day conference with the great bunch of Hampshire Computing Coordinators, it was an honour to be invited back this year , to The Holiday Inn, Winchester to carry on the exploration of digital learning in so many wonderful ways.

Big thanks to Sue Savory, County Computing Inspector/Adviser, Elearn Eteach Manager and Virtual School Inspector/Adviser, and to Caroline Cain, Workforce Development Support Officer, supporting training provision for HTLC and Children’s Services, Sue Whittaker, IT Consultant, Hampshire IT (Children & Schools) for coordinating our contribution to this superb event.

Thanks to Sue for sharing her thoughts:
It is that time again when the Hampshire Computing/ICT Conference is happening. For the second year in a row we invited Tim Rylands and Sarah Neild to inspire and motivate us when using technology as a tool for learning. For those who left with such fantastic ideas last year and are returning this year we are glad they came prepared to be further inspired and add to their collection of resources and good ideas. The format was very different from last year not least because Phil Bagge, Jon Audain and Emma Goto delivered sessions where they shared resources and lesson ideas that they find work well at KS1 and KS2. So we are glad delegates came prepared to listen and play.

Today, rather than leading the whole day, as we did last year, we shared the input with three stars from the Hampshire firmament:

Well done to Emma Goto, Senior Lecturer in Primary Education, Faculty of Education, Health and Social Care, at The University of Winchester, for leading a session asking big questions about computing:

In my session I asked the Hampshire computing co-ordinators to consider what Reception children in their schools should be learning in terms of Computing. The answer was ‘not computing’! However we consider the role of toys and technological tools in aiding children’s communication, overcoming barriers to learning, accessing expertise, enhancing engagement and providing an audience. We also discussed the need to help children understand the digital world around them and develop skills that support them to be independent learners. We went on to consider the kinds of activities that help children to think computationally. We identified a range of problems that help children to think computationally, from completing a jigsaw, to moving water from one container to another, most of these had very little to do with technology! Finally we went on to discuss the challenges when building on this learning in Key Stage One. We focused on the need to not lose the rich uses of ICT, ensure appropriate challenge and consider carefully how we develop persistent learners.
Here is the list of ideas delegates had for activities linking them to computational thinking approaches and concepts – https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5RYhuKkh3OHbGxOSmEzdUFtY3c/view?usp=sharing
Here is my Powerpoint from the day – https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5RYhuKkh3OHLTdKTnVWOXdpODQ/view?usp=sharing

Phil Bagge, (Computing Inspector/Advisor HIAS, CAS Regional Coordinator, CAS Primary Computing Master Teacher, CAS Primary Group facilitator, Computing Planning @ http://code-it.co.uk/, http://www.pythoncode.co.uk/, and http://www.ictvideohelp.co.uk/
Working at Ringwood Junior School, Calmore Junior School, and Otterbourne Primary School) ran a session entitled “Recipe for Computing Success”

Phil shared a recipe for computing success by highlighting the importance of developing algorithms into code and the benefits of increased pupil buy in at home of having a real output for their algorithms. He encouraged teachers to avoid a shotgun ICT approach to programming languages and build some depth in a language whilst dipping into others. He stressed the need to teach programming elements but provide lots of investigation time for pupils to make the learning their own through repurposing and adapting. He advised teachers to take a longer term view on training and assessing, discovering what is possible before locking in assessment. Phil was passionate about using computing to promote resilience and independence. Encouraging teachers to build learning communities that embrace failure, see it as normal and learn from it. He shared about spotting learnt helplessness, explained what it is and encouraged the conference to challenge it where they find it. He also shared practical debugging tips.
You can find Phil’s online resources at http://code-it.co.uk/csplanning.html, Primary Debugging Strategies at http://code-it.co.uk/assessment/debugging.pdf. You can sign up for notification about Phil’s book at http://code-it.co.uk/scratchbook.html. His slides from today can be found at http://code-it.co.uk/rcs.pdf His original blog post on learned helplessness can be found at http://code-it.co.uk/articles.html

Jon Audain @jonaudain, Author and Senior Lecturer in Primary Education (ICT/Computing & Music) at The University of Winchester had some more computing fun:

So who’s afraid of the Big Bad Computing Wolf now? The first session after lunch and what to do with a group of teachers who are full up with delicious food? There’s only one answer…a class story! The story told of a princess with a large and generous heart who later on through fond memories splits her heart into many pieces so the people connected with her life could remember her as she marries her prince. However she ends up empty and trying to regain the pieces to restore balance.

The same could be expressed for computer science. Have we given too much of our heart away whilst the subject of ICT is vast. We explored the range of the ICT subjects connected to the 6Cs of Education and how ICT can address all those needs.

Stories and DIY cutting and sticking were the next order of the day as within the tables we constructed a paper tree to represent the ICT involvement not only in one school but collectively in our schools from around the table. We then looked at work from the other tables and considered our future practices exploring opportunities for networking and ideas.

Category: 1) Events and Training days