Tuesday 9 December 2014

Feedback lesson and revision

Today's work
I have marked your Blogs and written feedback comments on your last post.  

Many of you had not published blog posts, some of you had not shared work correctly from Private to Anyone with the Link.  If you are one of those students, you need to sort this out so I can give you a mark for the unit later on.

If I was able to mark your work, I have given you a mark and told you how to improve your work.  You now need to do as I have suggested to improve your work and comment back to me (click in the comment box under my comment) to tell me you've done it.

When you've done the improvements to your blog posts, you need to revise all the work we've done this unit for a test next lesson (7x1 Fri 12th Dec, 7y1 Tues 16th Dec)!
To revise, you need to go through all your work and the teacher's presentations for all the lessons in Problem Solving.
You will be expected to be able to explain what the different ways to problem solve are (group work, individual and divide & conquer), how to draw a flow chart and a definition of subroutines, when they're used and why they're useful.

Tuesday 2 December 2014

Problem solving lesson - group work

Problem solving group work lesson

When you have solved the three problems you've been given, and they've been checked by me, you need to write the following work on today's Blog post..

1.  Describe, in detail, each problem you had to solve.
2. What was your answer to the Suspicious Death and how was it done?  What clues drew you to this conclusion?
3.  Describe how your group worked: was there one person taking charge, did you all play your part and contribute ideas, was it quicker to work in a group or do you think you'd have solved them faster on your own?

Publish!

Friday 28 November 2014

Lesson 4 - Subroutines

Today's work

1.  In Google Draw, draw your flow chart for the song of your choice, using subroutines for repeated verses or chorus.

2.  Share your flow chart (click Share - Advanced - Anyone with the link - and copy the hyperlink.

3.  Paste the hyperlink to a new Blog post for today's lesson.

4.  Title your Blog post the same as this one.

5.  On your post, write a definition of what a subroutine is (check the teacher's presentation on Lesson 4)

6.  Explain why subroutines are useful in programming.

7.  Publish!

Tuesday 18 November 2014

Flow charts lesson


Today's work

1. Start a new Blog post titled the same as this one.

2. Write this on your post for this lesson....

Lots of problems can be solved by describing the solution as a sequence of instructions.   Computers can follow a sequence of instructions which makes them very useful for solving problems.

3. Explain what the word 'algorithm' means.

4. In Google Draw, draw your flow chart for a making a jam sandwich.

5. Share your drawing (Anyone at Cooper School with the link) and copy the hyperlink.

6. Paste the hyperlink to your Blog post.

7. Click Publish

If you don't finish this in the lesson, make sure it's finished for homework ready for the next lesson

Sunday 9 November 2014

Problem solving - Lesson 2 - Divide and Conquer

Before you start the task detailed below, you must read through the teacher's presentation for this lesson (I may go through this with you in the lesson).  This explains what 'Divide and Conquer' means.

The problem

Earth is dying.  In order to survive, the population of the Earth needs to find somewhere else to live.  A group of 150 people from around the World are going to be sent to the Moon to see if they can colonise the Moon and make it habitable for other people.

Your task
1.  Organise yourselves into groups of 3 or 4 and get a piece of A3 paper.

2.  In your group, write down at the top of the paper, all the problems that will need to be solved in order for Man to be able to move to the Moon and live there.  Hint: think about all the things humans need to be able to live.

3.  Individually, each take one of the problems and write down on your group's paper your ideas of how these problems could be solved.  You can include drawings if they help explain your ideas.  Spread the ideas around the page.

4.  When you're all finished, talk to each other about the ideas and discuss whether they'd work, whether they need altering, improvements, etc.  Have you missed anything out that is needed for survival?  Plus, do you think working in this way has helped you tackle the problem more easily?

5.  Blog post for the lesson - summarise what you did this lesson; the problem, what's needed for survival, all your solutions.
     Explain how using the 'Divide and Conquer' method helped you to tackle this      task.

6.  Publish your Blog post at the end of the lesson.  If you haven't finished it, finish it for homework ready for the next lesson.



Monday 6 October 2014

History of Computers - Lesson 3 Hyperlinks and Alan Turing

For this lesson, you need to read the help sheet on how to hyperlink your Charles Babbage Google presentation to your Blog and add the link to a new post called 'Charles Babbage Lesson 2'.  You'll need to highlight the text on the post page and click on the blue Link button to make it active when someone reads your Blog post.

Next, read through the Alan Turing section of the Prezi for this unit.

Make a new Google presentation all about Alan Turing and what he did.  Add some images in, if you can.  Make sure you give the presentation a title.

Share the presentation - click Share and then Advanced and click on Anyone with the link.  Click Done and then copy the blue URL (hyperlink address).

On a new post called 'Alan Turing Lesson 3', paste the copied hyperlink address.  Highlight it and click on the blue Link button in your Blog post toolbar.

Click Publish on your Blog when you're finished.

If you don't finish this in the lesson, please finish it for homework (write this in your planner!).  S1 Computer room is open on Monday lunchtimes for Computing club.
L2L is open every lunchtime for Homework Club, except Wednesdays.

No excuses!  :-)


Saturday 4 October 2014

History of Computers Lesson 2

For this lesson, you'll need to look at and read through the Prezi for Charles Babbage.

Go to your Google Drive, Create a folder called Yr7 Computer Science and then in it Create another folder called History of Computers.

In this folder, Create a presentation and write all the information you can find on Charles Babbage; when he was born, what he made that was so important in the development of computers, etc.

Finish this for homework if you don'g get it all done in the lesson.  You could try and insert an image of Charles Babbage from the internet.

This presentation will need to be finished for our next lesson on Monday 6th Oct, session 5 (7y1) or Wed 8th Oct, session 1 (7x1)- this means you have time to get it done in Computer Science homework club in S1 on Monday lunchtime, if you can't get it done at home!

Friday 26 September 2014

History of Computers Lesson 1

Hello Yr 7s!  This my Blog where I put the work for each lesson so, if you don't finish, you can carry on with the work after the lesson.

I also put homework on this Blog.

So for lesson 1 on the History of Computing, after watching the Prezi about all the different civilisations and famous people who made computers, I need you to write on your lesson blog post the following information:

1.  Why do people think Stonehenge was built?  what did it do?
2.  What were the first adding machines called?
3.  What did Charles Babbage do?
4.  How did computers improve over the years - what could they do that they couldn't do before?

When you've answered these questions as well as you can on your Blog post, click Publish at the top right of the screen.

Monday 31 March 2014

Robotics assessment - practical and evaluation

While you are doing the practical you need to keep a record of successes, failures, problems, reasons for problems/failures, and how you solved, or could solve, them.

Remember you are not writing a new post, just continuing with the previous one!

You should already have on your Robotics assessment post the first planning write-up from the planning lesson. 

At the end of this lesson your Robotics assessment post should have the following things on it:

1.  A photo of the course.

2.  A correctly shared diagram of your programming flow chart (remember extra marks are available for using decision diamonds and/or sub routines).

3.  A description of your successes and failures in the practical, how well your team worked together and any problems with the teamwork (no names, please!).

4.  A description of how you could improve your success by improving the programming to compensate for any robot inaccuracies, robot problems, how the team worked, etc.

5.  If I was able to video your group's robot, you will need to make a copy of the video to your Google drive, shared it and add a link to that video as well.

The greater the detail - the greater the marks!!  Impress me!

Once this is all done to the best standard to you can, publish!

Tuesday 18 March 2014

Robotics Assessment - Planning

Here are some hints for what you need to do to plan for your assessment for the Robotics unit.

Here is a photo of the course/arena that you have to program your Wall-E to go round.


The rulers are in the photo to act as a guide to how far apart some of the walls are and how far your Wall-E will have to travel.  Each wheel rotation is approximately 15cm so you can see from the photo where there are whole 30cm rulers and some half rulers showing.  This is a rough guide to the number of wheel rotations you'll need to program.

You'll be using the ultra-sonic sensor on your Wall-E (which is his eyes) and you must make sure the cable from his eyes goes into port 4 on the control box.

Think carefully about the programming and whether you need to include a loop (repetition or subroutine) to help make your program run smoothly.  You want him to go round the course without you having to press any buttons!

You need to write the following on your Blog post:
1.  A description of the task 
2.  A copy of the photo of the course
3.  Draw a flowchart showing your program for this course.
4.  A link to your flowchart.

You are going to write up just one Blog post for this whole assessment! 

This means you have to Save at the end of each lesson - 
DO NOT PUBLISH YET!!!



Tuesday 4 March 2014

Robotics lesson 2 - Selection

Selection lesson notes

For your Post for this lesson you need to:

1.  Explain what Selection means and give an example of how it can be useful (I used logging on to the network as my example)

2.  In Google Draw - draw your flow chart for the lesson's challenge (move forward 1 rotation if not touching anything, turn around if touching something).

3.  When this is finished, share (Anyone with the link) and copy/paste the link to your Blog post (don't forget to highlight the link text and click on the blue Link button).

4.  Say whether you managed to get your Wall-E to follow the program and work correctly.  Any problems?  Say what they were and how you overcame them.  Can you link this selection task to another lesson or other work we've done before? (jam sandwich!)  if so, say how it links up (Level 6!) 

5.  Find your group's photo of your Mindstorm program and copy/paste it to your blog post.

5.  When all this is done - Publish your post!

Thursday 27 February 2014

Robotics - Lesson 1

Hi Everyone

Here is a list of things I need you to write about today's lesson.  To recap, you wrote a flow chart showing the instructions for a robot to move in a square and then you had to program your Lego Mindstorm (Wall-E) to move in a square.

I need you to:

1.  Explain what you had to do
2.  Describe the success you had
3.  Describe any problems you had
4.  Describe the improvements you'd like to make if could have another go
5.  Describe how you'd like to extend that activity if you could have another go.
6. Link this lesson with lessons you have done before, eg problem-solving; did you use any of those skills to help the group complete today's task

This write up needs to be completed ready for next lesson!

If you have any problems with this come and see me BEFORE next lesson!

Below are the links to the photos for this lesson.  Make sure you choose the correct class link!

7It3

7It5

7It1

 Ms W  :-)

Wednesday 22 January 2014

Divide and Conquer - Bomb disposal robot requirements and practical

Here is the link to a drawing I have started for you breaking down the bomb disposal robot into it's component parts - the parts it needs to do its job.

https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1o2unvg4UKA-TKXUkE3NftQR2kbcyxSabmR8UaYy3PFs/edit?usp=sharing

You need to open up the drawing and go to File - Make a copy.  This copy is the one you now work on!!!!!. Close the original one so you don't get confused and write on the wrong one!

You need to fill in the empty text boxes with the parts that the robot needs and add in extra boxes below showing what it needs to do with those parts.

When you've finished, share the drawing (anyone with the link), save and copy/paste the blue link address on to a new Blog Post called Bomb Disposal Robot parts. Remember to highlight the link text and click on the blue Link button

Save this post - DO NOT PUBLISH YET!!!!!

After you have had a go at making your own bomb disposal robot with the kit, you need to write up a description of how this went on your Blog post - the successes (what did you make it do - what worked!), the failures (what didn't work), how you solved any problems, etc.  The more detail the better!

When you have finished writing up how building your kit robot went, you can then PUBLISH!!

Wednesday 15 January 2014

Sub routines lesson

For this lesson, you need to do the following things on your Post:

1.  Give your new post the same title as this one

2.  Explain what a sub-routine is and why it is useful (think of at least 2 ways in which it is useful).

3.  Explain how using sub-routines in a program for a computer to sing 'Old MacDonald had a farm' is useful and how it shortens the program.  

4.  What parts of the song did you put into sub-routines?  

5.  How many sub-routines and process boxes did you end up with in your final program?

When you've done that, click Publish!     :-)

Tuesday 7 January 2014

How to post a link to a shared Google doc on your Blog

Hi Everyone

Here is a link to a help sheet explaining how you put a link to a shared Google doc on your Blog so I can see your work

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7RJC33jflZyYXZoWW9DXzI3WWM/edit?usp=sharing

If you still don't understand how to do it or are unable to do it - COME AND SEE ME!!  I don't bite!

Ms W   :-)