History

The projects to be found on this web site were developed in south London classrooms, over many years. They started with the creative use of ICT tools across the curriculum, moving on to using Scratch, and then on to Python when the focus shifted from ICT to coding, under the new name Computing.

The first projects were created at a girls’ secondary modern school in south London; then at Brunel University London for MA (Education) and PGCE students; then in a West London Primary school; and, lastly, at Lambeth College, for adults with learning difficulties.

Most projects have been presented at national or international conferences including NATE, ASE, ITTE, MirandaNet, TPEA, OCCE, ICET, WCCE, and IFIP, and so are generally well-regarded. Book chapters, conference papers, and newspaper articles can be found in the Publications section of this website.

The major projects:

Science Through Arts (STAR)

Science Through Arts, was actively developed with NASA scientists and educators in Cleveland, Ohio, in 2003. It makes use of extensive NASA space science data for creative writing, art, drama, and mathematics.

Science lessons from Ohio were delivered to the London pupils by ISDN video-conferencing, email, and customised websites.

This photo captures much of the process. Behind Louise, Katie and Emily is their Art work. They are reading Katie’s word-processed science fiction story, “Mars Lost and Found”. (Click here.) The video-conference camera is on top of library books (also used). On-screen are Ruth and Joe (NASA), listening to the story. The outgoing picture of the girls is on the small “inset screen”. In Japan and in the USA, students are also listening, live, and the story is also being webcast. On the table, left, are the mouse to operate the laptop which showed JPEGs of the pupils’ work; the TV controller; and the VC camera controller. At the front of the picture is a movie camera, to record the event.

Stories for Children

Stories for Children was developed as an international bi-lingual story-writing project, with teachers in Taiwan. Stories were created in English and Mandarin.

Stories for Children 2

Stories for Children 2 extended this project into five charming animal stories, each exemplifying a computer coding concept, for use by teachers in the classroom.

Literacy from Scratch

Literacy from Scratch used Scratch 1.4 for story-telling, as well as for cross-curricular work. It was developed with support from university teachers in Prague and Torino.

Literacy from Python

Literacy from Python is a development of Literacy from Scratch, encouraging story-writing using Python, but with additional Python coding elements.

The focus is always on Constructionism, and what we have called the three Cs - Creativity, Collaboration and Cross-curricular teaching and learning.

Further details can be found on the relevant pages of this site. See the side bar.