My name is Ray Chambers. I'm a specialist in computing and have a first class honours degree in computer science. I'm currently the lead teacher of computer science at Brooke Weston Academy in Corby Northamptonshire. I have been teaching for roughly 8 years and I thoroughly enjoy my job. In 2015 I was fortunate to win the Pearson National Teaching Award for innovative use of technology. I also won the BAFTA for mentoring young coders.
My name is Ray Chambers. I'm a specialist in computing and have a first class honours degree in computer science. I'm currently the lead teacher of computer science at Brooke Weston Academy in Corby Northamptonshire. I have been teaching for roughly 8 years and I thoroughly enjoy my job. In 2015 I was fortunate to win the Pearson National Teaching Award for innovative use of technology. I also won the BAFTA for mentoring young coders.
I have given this task out to some of my sixth form students in the past. It gives them 10 days of challenges. I usually give it out on the 15th and get them to explore their OOP programming using these challenges. This includes an answer sheet.
This scheme of work covers a wide range of topics on data representation and has an assessment at the end of it which uses previous exam questions over the years. It includes step by step help and teacher notes in the presentation.
List of topics covered: -
Lesson 1: -
Students will also learn about: -
Switches
Binary
Exam questions
Binary conversion using switches
Binary conversion using division
Binary grid method
Least / Most significant bit]
Lesson 2: -
Rules for adding using binary
Showing how to add binary numbers
Diagrams to help students
Overflow information
Explanation of what overflow is
Worksheets
How hexadecimal works
Break down of how to convert into hexadecimal
Lesson 3: -
Character sets
Exam questions
worksheets
Binary to ASCII conversion
Explanation of ASCII and why 16 bit was need
Break down of why character sets are needed
Image conversion
Images and pixels - how many bits
Colour depth and formulas to work out file size
Bits per pixel
Meta data of images
Lesson 4: -
Analogue to digital compression
Sample rate - number of samples taken when converting to digital.
Bit rate - sample rate x bit depth
Estimating file size
Lossy and lossless compression: - When to use them
Check Digits - Also diagrams to show you how to convert them.
Written by Ray Chambers: - Pearson National Teaching Award winner 2015 - Innovative use of technology - Specialist in Computing
This presentation is a follow on after students have already learnt about how the Fetch Execute Decode Cycle. The idea of the presentation is that they can flow on from what they've already learnt.
This will focus on the AS Level - Von Neumann / Harvard systems and it explains the difference. Following on from this the students are taught the difference between CISC and RISC. The idea of this will be that they understand how instructions are split.
There is a task at the end with requirements for students to build a revision poster at the end.
This package includes 3 powerpoints that introduce object orientation to students.
On top of the object orientation powerpoints, there are worksheets that help students build on the skills that they have learnt. The first activity sheet shows how to set up a class in python and how to call on it.
The second shows how to pass parameters into your class using constructors. There is theory supported in the powerpoint.
The third lesson shows how to design a class and is a good introduction to class diagrams.
This lesson introduces constructors to students and talks about the need for setting up the class.
There is an example program to work through with a worksheet attached. it shows students how to initialise variables in their program and how to pass items in.
This should help students become more confident and builds on nicely from the previous task. If students have been absent they can pick it up quite easily.
This lesson introduces students to using operators such as Add, Subtract, Multiply, Divide and Exponentiation. They're also introduced to Mod (working out the remainder) and Quotient (working out the whole number). They're given a number of activities which allow them to apply some of this and will attempt working out the median and mean. After this they're given an activity which gets them to work with the OCR structure. They're required to decompose a problem, list success criteria and build a sleep calculator. They will need to list their variables and on top of this will also need to show the development of their code. The worksheet can be typed in.
All operations are explained: -
num1+num2
num1-num2
num1*num2
num1/num2
num1**num2 for exponent
% used to explain remainder
// used to explain whole number part of division
Students given extension task / independent research task for finding out the mode.
This activity sheet breaks down how you can subtract binary numbers. It comes with the entire answer sheet and also shows candidates how to subtract in a step by step walk through. It talks about how you flip the bits and work out your answer.
The answer sheet is clear and coloured so that you can spot the answers.
This set of slides is over 45 slides long. It introduces the basic logic gates and basic boolean algebra. It shows how to simplify boolean.
There are over 45 slides showing K-Maps / Karnaugh Maps and they show how you can spot the patterns and show what the answers should be.
At the end of the slide there are two links to YouTube videos I have made of these slides showing it being taught. It should have a break down of some computing problems which should help you.
A Powerpoint presentation explaining Big O Notation. There are some examples of code and some graphs which help students visualise what is meant by exponential and the complexity of algorithms.
This was useful to my year 13 students and hopefully it will help yours.
Objective: - We’re learning to identify the hardware and classification linked with networks.
This lesson includes notes in the teacher slides to help teachers understand the content they're delivering with links to videos and also embedded videos.
During this lesson students will learn about:
Client server models
Client-Server
Servers available
Peer to peer networks
Advantages and disadvantages
Network hardware
NIC
Wireless access points
Routers
Switches
Draw your own network diagram
These video tutorials will help you deliver the MicroBit lessons and will also leave some of the tasks open ended. I have uploaded one of the videos for free so that you can see what they're like.
The videos in this bank include: -
* Spirit Level
* Simple Maze Game
* Simple LED Lights
* Calculator - Add two numbers together using variables
* Random number generator
* Controlling how an LED moves around the screen
* A + B buttons (selection)
* How to make crossy roads on the screen
* Iteration and moving lights
All include some explanation of what has been taught and the key terms needed for programming. This has been done using the blockly editor.
This Network Layering task breaks down the need for it and includes a complementary worksheet which requires students to answer a series of 4 questions.
Diagrams are included to support sayings and keywords are highlighted. It talks about rules, protocols, TCP/IP and it also explains what happens at each layer. This includes application, transport, internet and network and they also need to consider the different communication rules.
It includes some teacher notes to help the teacher and the diagrams can be printed from the slides and stuck into the students books.
This resources breaks down to students how to think abstractly. It includes answers to the questions discussed on the PowerPoint slides. It also includes a step by step guide to breaking down problems.
The students will have a number of activities which require them to solve problems. There are attached videos which have been taken from YouTube resources which should help students understand how to think abstractly in more depth.
I have attached a link to the OCR PDF specimen paper and I have pointed to questions relevant to this discussion.
The lesson plan helps break the task up and includes answers to the PowerPoint.
This is a project sheet which will help students plan and make a project. It is a tick sheet that will help you deliver a project over a number of days. Students can come up with their own project and the requirements are mapped against the OCR requirements.
This means that they will have a run through of what is expected before completing a task.
This is a series of 3 activities which introduce the user interface library tkinter to students. It helps them build a simple user interface that looks at a text file. The first worksheet introduces them to text boxes and buttons. This is fairly straight forward.
The second activity starts building a simple database using a text file that will read and write information.
The third activity builds on task two and shows how to navigate back through the records and it allows the student to delete a record from the text file.
It allows people to add more records to the file but it also allows people to read information from a file. This the basis for building on and using an actual database later on.
There are some final solutions attached through the zip files which will help you on your computer.
This is a pack of resources which are available to purchase individually. In this pack are some worksheets which break down data types in the OCR A-Level computer science. This is for section 1.4.1 of the Data types, data structures and algorithms.
Included in this pack is:
* Binary addition
* Binary subtraction
* Fixed point binary
* Floating point binary
* Normalisation of floating point binary
* Bitwise operators
All sheets come with answers for your own ease of use
I have used the last 4-5 years of A-Level computing questions to find questions on floating point binary. I have compiled them in a 50 mark test which will test the students on their ability to do the following: -
- convert from denary to binary
- convert from denary to floating point binary
- convert from floating point binary to denary
- normalise floating point binary
- compare floating point binary numbers to check accuracy
Answer sheet has been provided against the spec so that you can see where it's possible to gain marks.
I used this against the current grade boundaries to assess where they're currently at.
When planning a curriculum you might want to use this sheet to help you when planning a curriculum for your school this is an example that I used for my department to help think about the curriculum.
Objective: - We’re learning to explain the benefits of using networks and to identify the different transmission media available.
This scheme of work includes notes to help teachers understand the content and includes diagrams.
Key things learnt throughout this lesson include: -
What is the internet
What is the world wide web
What is a network with youtube clips to explain
Different network types with videos
Difference between a wan and a lan
Other forms including PAN / MAN / SAN and VPN
Transmission media such as UTP, FIbre optic, wireless
Two worksheets with answers
This lesson does require some prior knowledge of Kodu but it gives you structure to start delivering the curriculum and it will allow you to break down each lesson and to start teaching the students different items step by step.
There are opportunities for students to think about what is needed for a game.
There is a worksheet to help them to start thinking about what they're going to need to include in their own game.
Once you've introduced this, teach the students how to create characters, worlds, objects and how to write a simple piece of code.
Students are required to use the worksheet as they work through this PowerPoint with the teacher. This is a sample lesson to get you started and can be used for KS2 or KS3.