06 | PRIMARY AND SECONDARY NEWS
BAREFOOT PROJECT TO BE EXTENDED
Project brings gaming into the clas
School pupils will soon be creating their own video games in the classroom, as part of a new project to link gaming to the wider curriculum. Notingham Trent University (NTU) is
a key partner in the ‘No One Left Behind' initiative, co-funded by the EU Horizon 2020 Programme. The scheme will allow children to use
a non-leisure gaming ‘toolkit’ to develop digital games on mobile devices – with the aim of enhancing their abilities across all academic subjects, as well as their computational proficiency, creativity and social skills. Children aged eight–17 will be
responsible for programming and designing games linked to subjects such as science, maths, history and English, effectively developing and adapting the learning material themselves. The two-and-a-half-year project
Since its launch last summer, BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, has announced that the Barefoot Computing scheme is to be extended. BT has agreed to support the project
from March until the end of this school year. The project was originally funded by the Department for Education from Sept 2014 to March 2015. Led by BCS, The Chartered Institute
for IT in partnership with BT, the Barefoot project supports primary school teachers to teach the new computing curriculum which became compulsory in schools throughout England last September. The scheme provides cross-curricular
computer science resources and training for primary school teachers with no previous computer science knowledge. Pat Hughes, Project Leader for
Barefoot Computing, said: “As well as training thousands of teachers there have been 6,000 registrations to the Barefoot website with 2,500 new teacher registrations in the last two months. Barefoot helps teachers understand
ideas and concepts such as algorithms, abstraction and data structures, how they occur naturally in many other disciplines that they also teach, and how they can teach them to children starting from age five.”
Instructure, the creators of Canvas Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), has announced the winners of its 'Canvas Space Programme' celebrating its launch into UK and Ireland schools. Instructure created a competition to give
away space kits to 10 schools. To apply for a space kit and become part of the Canvas Space Programme, teachers were invited to submit a 60-second video with their class, telling Canvas why they should win.
The Programme offers pupils at
winning schools the opportunity to embark on their very own scientific explorations and to capture extraordinary footage of the earth with their miniature space capsules. Canvas is sending winning participants
everything they need to send a capsule to space, including a flight computer, a state- of-the-art camera, GPS, a parachute and a space blanket.
will involve a consortium of European educationalists, computer scientists, videogame companies and designers. It is being driven by the pressure on
schools to address the challenge of too many pupils leaving school with no meaningful job skills, and children at risk of exclusion and not reaching their full potential. Partners will adapt the mobile
programming environment ‘Pocket Code’ – which allows users to create games, animations and interactive music videos directly on their phone or tablet – for academic curricula. “Imagine students being challenged to
design a game which involves gathering evidence and building arguments to fight their own campaign for the abolition of the British slave trade in the late 1770s,” said David Brown, Professor of Interactive
UK schools get kited out for space
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74