Monthly Archives: September 2010

Teaching Check Digit Validation with AS #ICT

Posted on by

check digit.xlsm
Download this file
For those of you who are teaching AS ICT on the OCR spec I hope the following spreadsheet I built may be of use.  The spec requires students to know how check digit validation works and they use the example of ISBN-10 numbers.  Irritatingly ISB-10 is no longer the defacto standard for ISBN numbers (ISBN-13 now is) so we are stuck with a system which may not appear on some books.

However I did decide to build the following spreadsheet to demonstrate using formulae how a check digit is calculated.  The benefit is for those who dont want to do the maths in class with their students is that they can enter the first 9 digits of an ISBN-10 number in and they should get the corresponding check-digit spat back out at them.

This was something I cobbled together in about half an hour so I am pretty sure it functions fine – if anyone spots any issues let me know.  I put a nice macro in to clear the numbers so you have to accept that and the file format is therefore Office 2007 macro enabled xls.

cheers
brian

The small things about being a dad

Posted on by

Last night I was about to go for a run – my boy was about to go for his bath but before I left I had a short play with him on the bathroom floor. Normally he waves some of his toys around, explores others or throws them a bit but last night he did something a little different which made me feel very special. We have an old spinning top where you have to push down to get it to spin. Ben decided to clearly hand it to me and with a ‘Da’ I knew he wanted me to spin the toy for him. This was the first occasion where my boy asked me to help him out with something and I tell you this it felt brilliant. He did it again this afternoon with a little windup toy and I clearly feel something has changed in him which can only improve from now on. One very happy daddy

Sent from my iPhone

Getting #ICT #Homework right – some thoughts [Scanned]

Posted on by

I’ll make no secret of it – I hate setting pointless and dreary homework.  For years now the sort of homework which involves either completing a worksheet or answering several questions I have found to be a waste of time when it comes to improving understanding within pupils and is mostly a waste of time for them as well.  As a result I have generally avoiding setting homework where possible.

However times have changed.  Whereas up until a few years ago the only time pupils would have been on a computer would have been chatting on MSN now pupils are on their pc’s on a regular basis playing games, social networking and other stuff as well.  In fact with the rise of smart phones which are essentially portable computers as well as the eventual arrival of a mature tablet market this year pupils now have a myriad of options when it comes to accessing ICT hardware and software.

So with this change in how ICT is used by pupils how can I use this to get ICT Homework right?  The possible answer to this is that ICT homework should not consist of weekly grind tasks which pupils hate getting and teachers hate marking.  It should consist of a series of projects or challenges set throughout the year which involve either creation of content or problem solving.  These projects should run over a period of time and should if possible relate to what is being taught in class or if not could be different completely in scope.

Possible ideas for projects could include:

1.       Designing and building a game level in either Atmosphir or Jumala

2.       Complete a model of your house in Sketchup

3.       Create a basic app in Google App Inventor

4.       Design and build a website/wiki

All work which pupils produce should be submitted (either through files or links) to a class or year blog to allow other pupils to access their work.  Through creating this content and then sharing it in a manner which allows for peer assessment is I think the best way for students to be working on something outside of classroom hours.

Lets see how this goes …

Our school will be joining the #classblogs revolution this year

Posted on by
Posterous

I’ve been thinking that this should be the year our school finally joins the growing number of #classblogs out there.  This is how we are going to do it.

1.  As the above image hints we will be using Posterous as our blogging platform.  We are familiar with it and although I wouldn’t be able to manage all other teachers class blogs (like edublogs could do) I still think the basic management tools for each blog are sufficiently powerful to make it worthwhile as our main tool.
2.  Come up with a common naming strategy for classblogs around the school.  This will help when students need to know what posterous email address to use when submitting a blogpost.
3.  Setup a common clearing house (preferably a masterblog) containing links to all the other classblogs.
4.  Establish guidelines for students (no surnames mentioned on blogs – esafety and all that)
5.  Link all blogs to twitter accounts and follow them from the school account
6.  Have fun!

As soon as we are up and running I will begin posting links to #classblogs.

:-)