How to teach programming logic with an app bundle

In recent times, there has been a large interest in helping children across the world develop skills related to programming. While some countries refer to it slightly differently, the concept and content remains very similar.

Computing has made its way into national curriculums, brought about lots of initiatives across the world and has also had a lot of attention in the media – it is now seen as a vital skill for young people to be learning.

While there are many great apps across different technologies for introducing students to actually writing code themselves, the question is, what is the best way to learn the ‘computational thinking’ and 'programming logic' side of coding?

For this very reason, we created some unique apps to help deliver this. They have been out for a while as individual apps but we have now made them into bundles; so you get three for the price of two.

There is one for age 8-11 year olds and one for age 11-14 year olds:

8-11 year olds: www.bit.ly/DMcomputing1

11-14 year olds: www.bit.ly/DMcomputing2

Let us know how you've approached this topic in your class with a comment, we're really interested in hearing your ideas.

What’s the password?!

It can be tricky thinking of engaging ways to help explain some topics on the new computing curriculum. One idea is to find a 'real life' problem and reflect it in that; so when it came to designing a task for the topic of ‘using logic reasoning to explain algorithms’, I was debating what would be best to use.

Click here to try our app (£1.49): Bob's Algorithm

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.

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.

Teaching the computing curriculum with a 'whodunit'

Fire of Faydale is a unique app (FREE for limited time) in allowing pairs to work simultaneously on one iPad with a task designed to help students understand Boolean logic (KS3 computing curriculum). Try it now.

It is a ‘whodunit’ style mystery about Detective Jim who uses ‘AND’, ‘OR’ and ‘NOT’ Boolean logic operators to help him solve crimes. Students are given illustrated slips of information on the case he's currently working on and asked ‘Who do you think started the fire and why?’ They must read these, sort them into groups and then lay them out on screen to show how they came to their answer.

The task can be used to discuss the use of simple logical operators or as an assessment tool for students’ understanding of how to apply such logic. Users play the role of the detective by reading witness statements to narrow down suspects from
lots of information (just as they would use these operators to narrow down search results from a very large set of input data). Although there's no one right answer, if students combine the clues and apply simple Boolean logic, they can work out who might've been involved in different activities the night of the Faydale fire and make their own arguments.

Afterwards, students can generate a PDF report of the session which can be shared or printed, plus they can move to a Reflection Stage. This involves sitting as a group, with their teacher, or as a whole class, and playing back the app session to help them reflect on what they’ve understood, discussed or learned. While students do this, it will also help develop their problem-solving, communication and collaboration skills.

Who is this app for?
This app works well with those aged 11-14 (KS3). By having 3 difficulty levels, it supports differentiation in class and can be suited to varying abilities/levels of knowledge.

On easy, there are 16 slips; 1 witness statement for each activity (e.g. having a BBQ) is provided.

On medium, an extra 3 statements are added; 1 for each activity. These don’t actually add new information but give a different logical presentation, e.g. ‘not light hair AND not tall’ is the same as ‘dark hair AND small’. This helps students understand how the same statement can be represented differently with the ‘NOT’ operator.

On hard, 2 more witnesses are added as well as the purchasing of matches. This adds complexity to the story.

Only by considering all the information and applying the logic provided, can students form a theory as to what happened.

What is different about Digital Mysteries?
• Truly collaborative: It is unique in that more than one student can interact with it at once

• Curriculum-mapped: Tasks are directly mapped to the National Curriculum for England

• Retention: Working with information slips from two different perspectives (grouping, then fitting them into a sequence) ensures students remember more

• Higher-level thinking: The multiple discussion points, combined with the task’s open-ended nature, leads to students developing these skills

• Record of learning: Students can interact and have fun with exciting technology then generate a printable PDF report of their session which shows what they’ve done

What does a mystery consist of?
• Illustrated slips of information: Including facts on the topic alongside story-based snippets about a particular character and their experiences

• Open question: To maximise the potential of collaboration, discussion, and expression of ideas, the nature of the task is usually open ended

• Extras: Most tasks come with personalised hints for those who need them (suggestions for grouping or sequencing their slips)

• Description: This gives teachers the information they need to plan their session including the curriculum point each task links to, the advised age range and possible learning outcomes

To find out more about this mystery, click here.

What is the world's weakest password?

In an article today on The Guardian's website, they've shared security firm SplashData's findings on the worst passwords used.

Password '123456' has been named as the worst one for 2014, and is joined in the top 10 by various other number-only passwords.

While SplashData do make password management software, they claim its "worst passwords" are based on a list of 3.3m leaked passwords last year specific to North America and western Europe.

The company do argue that evidence shows that people are still using favourite sports teams, birth years and their children's names as passwords. The article explains that this information could be found out relatively easily by cybercriminals and weak passwords are a particular security mishap when we use the same ones for multiple services.

Click here to read the full article.

With the goal of providing interesting, relevant and useful tasks for the new computing curriculum, we created a mystery called Bob's Algorithm. While the task helps students learn about how an algorithm works, they are also helped to create unique, safe and memorable passwords for all of their favourite websites. It's a concept that can be tweaked in lots of different ways to make it as secure as possible.

If you'd like to try this task free on Windows, please contact info@reflectivethinking.com with your name, role, school name and the number of computers you'd like to try it on.

To try on the iPad, click here.

Thanks,

Natalie Taylor

How can KS3 use the logic behind coding without coding?

There are many useful coding tools which are doing wonders in classrooms. The question is though, what’s the best way for KS3 to learn the ‘computational thinking’ side of coding; part of the new computing curriculum?

It could be argued it’s to introduce students by using ‘real-life’ topics which they can relate to and get excited by. Small groups of students can discuss and debate certain situations, exploring what they may or may not do. The important thing to note is that these topics don’t even need to be directly coding-related.

Take, for example, each group being asked to ‘help’ a team of game developers decide whether they should make their new athletics game browser-based or for a console. They’re given short snippets of information on the dilemma such as how certain languages don’t allow for amazing 3D graphics, whereas others may make multiplayer easier.

Much of the decision depends on what features they see as most important, but also facts on actual programming languages. Students become engaged because they’ll be discussing their own personal opinions, imagining themselves ‘in’ the position of the gamer but also the developer too. While doing this, they’re being introduced to the kind of real-life decisions coders make every day.

This mystery in particular introduces programming languages at a higher level than specific details of languages, but gets across the point that in many cases, as a coder, compromises must be made.

There are two other computing mysteries for KS3 students to solve, and all come with three levels of difficulty. As a summary, one is a ‘whodunit’ which introduces students to Boolean Logic and the other asks groups to think of a solution to sorting out lots of new books.

If you’d like to try these tasks out at your school (plus have access to a Mystery Creator), we have a special Christmas offer.

Buy Digital Mysteries before Christmas and we’ll give you 50% off our usual price (12 month subscription). You and your students can get started shortly after you order, yet your official 12 months won’t begin until the New Year.

For £200, have your whole class using these tasks, as well as access to over 30 other KS3/4 mysteries in various subjects. To find out more, click here.