Many ICT teachers have faced the new computing curriculum with limited or no knowledge of programming. Attempts have been made to make computer science more accessible in the classroom for both teachers and students with the introduction of devices like the Raspberry Pi.
Despite being massively successful as a hobbyist project board, the Raspberry Pi has only been adopted in the classroom by a small percentage of ICT teachers. Perhaps one reason it hasn’t been more successful was the lack of support material and lesson plans in the early stages of release.
However, the BBC are providing a Micro:bit programmable project computer to every Year 7 in the UK. The key difference from similar projects in the past is that the Micro:bit has been released with over thirty step-by-step activities on the Micro:bit website, from absolute beginner to advanced. This will save a lot of research, and writing lesson plans meaning the Micro:bit will be more accessible to teachers and students who may not be familiar with programming as soon as they are delivered around April of this year, and will hopefully mean they’re not sat in the bottom of a drawer come next September.
This ‘In Brief…’ article was originally printed in the June 2016 edition of UKEdMagazine.
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@kieronmiddleton ICT Technician – Scarborough
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