It was during
this ‘thinking period’ that I tried to enter my kitchen at home, to be met with
"what's the password?" My seven year old daughter does this quite
often: she loves the idea of passwords. Soon after, I was allowed in when I
guessed one of the usuals (the word 'purple') and I thought of the idea for our
new task.
With so
many login details that we as adults even struggle to remember, creating strong
yet memorable passwords is important for us as well. Bob and his family were
created - a family of four who struggle to remember passwords, so Bob, the
father, creates an easy-to-use algorithm for his family which they can all use,
yet it produces different passwords depending on what's in each 'variable'.
It’s a
‘current’ topic and a problem of many, but also a simple and effective way of
explaining how an algorithm works. It also made for a mystery which adds to the
digital literacy section of the curriculum – keeping personal information
private!
I
personally use an algorithm for creating passwords, and it's worked great for
me so far, so what's good for me is good for Bob! The main thing is it creates
a memorable and strong password for any website based on a combination of input
variables and some rules. These are simple inputs such as their names, a secret
number and a website name. It will help with explaining a number of concepts in
one go.
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| One of the slips |
By
introducing all this through a story about a person coming up with a way to
help his wife and kids generate and remember passwords, it is possible to
include all these ideas into a nice story thread that will not intimidate KS2
students. This can also be used to explain how the same algorithm generates
different outputs based on different initialization values and input variables.
It can also challenge students to come up with their own password generation
algorithms.
Students
need to understand that algorithms are not limited to computer programs and
this task provides a good example of one that they can use any time – such as
to stop unauthorized people going into kitchens.
You can
find out more about this mystery by clicking here. To try it (£1.49), search 'Digital Mysteries Algorithm' on the App Store or click here. To download a trial of the Windows PC/laptop software click here.
