Each Pedagogy Quick Read is designed to help educators explore, understand, and apply one area of research evidence.

You get:

• An introduction to the topic or idea, putting it into context
• A summary of the key concepts and takeaways for educators
• Sections elaborating on each key concept and relevant research
• A diagram presenting the same ideas in visual form
• Links to referenced resources for further reading

Introducing our AI Pedagogy Quick Reads

Computational Thinking 2.0

This Quick Read explores how the concept of computational thinking is evolving, particularly in the context of AI. It offers guidance on how to teach computational thinking skills that are relevant to and enhanced by AI technologies.

“Without CT2.0, today’s learners will remain passive consumers rather than informed participants in a world increasingly shaped by data-driven AI technologies.”

Anthropomorphism

As AI becomes widely used, it’s important to consider how students understand and view these technologies. This Quick Read discusses anthropomorphism (attributing human-like qualities to AI) and provides strategies for teaching about AI in a way that avoids common misconceptions.

“If young people see this technology as innately human-like, we run the risk of impacting their…sense of agency…safety…social connection…curiosity.”

Feedback Literacy

Effective feedback is important for student learning, especially in a rapidly changing field like AI. This Quick Read examines how to develop “feedback literacy” in both educators and students, enabling them to give, receive, and use feedback more effectively.

“How do we ensure that all students get the most out of AI system-produced feedback? Feedback literacy is a theory-driven framework that can help…answer this question.”

Browse our library of pedagogy resources

The new AI-themed reads join our bank of other Pedagogy Quick Reads, which cover a wide range of topics related to computing education. You can find these resources and more on our pedagogy page, all organised around our 12 pedagogy principles for computing education.

Other resources 

As well as our Pedagogy Quick Reads, we also offer lots of other resources to support computing educators:

• The Hello World Big Book of Computing Pedagogy is an in-depth guide to research-backed computing education pedagogy, covering a wide range of topics and offering practical advice for teachers.
• The Hello World magazine and podcast feature insights from educators in computing education, exploring current research, best classroom practices, and innovative teaching strategies.
• Our AI literacy programme, Experience AI, provides teachers with cutting-edge resources on AI and machine learning, based on proven pedagogical principles to support effective learning and teaching.

The post Pedagogy Quick Reads: turning abstract ideas into classroom practice appeared first on Raspberry Pi Foundation.

Are you looking to strengthen digital literacy in your classroom? In the latest episode of the Hello World podcast, three experienced teachers from the USA and the UK share practical tips they’ve used in their classrooms to help their students build digital literacy. Whether you’re just getting started with digital literacy or looking for new ideas, the episode is full of real-world advice you can apply straight away.

The episode also marks the launch of a new mini-series on the Hello World podcast focusing on digital literacy. Throughout the series, which totals three episodes, we’ll continue conversations that feature in the latest issue of the Hello World magazine, sharing expert insights and real-world examples from educators who are integrating digital literacy into their classrooms.

So tune in this week, then stay tuned!

Who features in this episode, and what will I learn?

We’ve got tips from three teachers whose articles feature in Hello World’s newest magazine issue.

Katie Dahlman from Bloomington, MN, USA

Get ready for some top tips from Katie Dahlman, a preschool teacher and Digital Learning Specialist in Bloomington Public Schools in Minnesota, USA. With over 16 years of experience as an early childhood educator, Katie has dedicated her time to developing engaging computer science (CS) lessons for young learners.

Katie believes that digital literacy starts with building foundational skills to prepare students for their roles as digital citizens. One of the tips Katie shares in the episode emphasises the importance of integrating computational thinking into the classroom: 

“My second tip for enhancing digital literacy in your classroom is to integrate computational thinking skills and vocabulary into your existing curriculum.”

Read Katie’s article ‘Tech tinkering and teamwork’ on pages 52–53 of Hello World, issue 26.

Curt Hitchens from Rock Spring, GA, USA

We also hear from Curt Hitchens, a computer science teacher at Saddle Ridge Elementary and Middle School in Rock Spring, Georgia, USA. Since 2018, Curt has been teaching computer science and now serves as a Virtual CS Specialist for the Georgia Department of Education.

Curt explains in the podcast that digital literacy is about equipping students with the necessary skills to use technology effectively in everyday situations and the workplace. He also shares an important tip for teachers, encouraging them to give students regular chances to engage in hands-on learning:

 “Make sure that you’re providing consistent opportunities for creation and exploration within your classes.”

Read Curt’s article ‘Computer science opportunities in rural schools’ on pages 46–47 of Issue 26.

Halima Bhayat, London, UK

The episode also features Halima Bhayat, the Head of Computing and Digital T Levels at Ursuline High School in London, UK. Halima is an Asian Women of Achievement 2021 Finalist, a digit<all> ambassador, an Amazon teacher, and the Computing at School Merton lead for all schools.

With a wealth of experience, she emphasises that digital literacy is more than about using technology — it’s about understanding how the digital world functions, how technology shapes our daily lives, and how it impacts individuals and communities.

One of Halima’s top tips for enhancing digital literacy in the classroom is to focus on touch typing. She believes that students should be equipped with fast and efficient typing skills, as so many tasks today are online.

“My first tip would be to get [your students] touch typing, get them to start becoming faster with their fingers on those keyboards, because lots of things have become online.”

Read Halima’s article ‘From switches to success’ on pages 76–77 of Issue 26.

Listen now

To hear more practical tips and discover what else our guest teachers have to say, listen to or watch the full episode here. 

We hope this episode inspires you and helps you to engage your students in computing. We’d love to hear your thoughts, your feedback, and any of your own tips on the topic of digital literacy in the comments section below.

We hope you enjoy the episode!

More to listen to next week

Next week, the podcast brings you an insightful conversation featuring Rachel Arthur, Chief Learning Officer at the Raspberry Pi Foundation, Dr Jessica Hamer from King’s College London, and Becky Patel from Tech She Can.

They’ll discuss the current state of girls’ engagement in computing and explore ways to empower young women in computing at school, at university, and onwards into their careers.

You can watch, or listen, to each episode of our podcast on YouTube, or listen via your preferred audio streaming service, whether that’s Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Amazon Music. 

Subscribe to Hello World today to ensure you never miss a podcast episode or issue of the magazine.

The post How to bring digital literacy into your classroom: practical tips from the Hello World podcast appeared first on Raspberry Pi Foundation.

With thousands of attendees from across the US and beyond participating in engaging workshops, thought-provoking talks, and visiting the fantastic expo hall, the CSTA conference was an excellent opportunity for us to connect with and learn from educators.

Meeting educators & sharing resources

Our hope for the conference week was to meet and learn from as many different educators as possible, and we weren’t disappointed. We spoke with a wide variety of teachers, school administrators, and thought leaders about the progress, successes, and challenges of delivering successful computer science (CS) programs in the US (more on this soon). We connected and reconnected with so many educators at our stand, gave away loads of stickers… and we even gave away a Raspberry Pi Pico to one lucky winner each day.

As well as learning from hundreds of educators throughout the week, we shared some of the ways in which the Foundation supports teachers to deliver effective CS education. Our team was on hand to answer questions about our wide range of free learning materials and programs to support educators and young people alike. We focused on sharing our projects site and all of the ways educators can use the site’s unique projects pathways in their classrooms. And of course we talked to educators about Code Club. It was awesome to hear from club leaders about the work their students accomplished, and many educators were eager to start a new club at their schools! 

Back in 2022 at the last in-person CSTA conference, we had donated a copy of our first special edition of Hello World magazine, The Big Book of Computing Pedagogy, for every attendee. This time around, we donated copies of our follow-up special edition, The Big Book of Computing Content. Where the first Big Book focuses on how to teach computing, the second Big Book delves deep into what we teach as the subject of computing, laying it out in 11 content strands.

• If you weren’t able to get your hands on a copy of The Big Book of Computing Content, you can download yours for free. 
• If you’d like to write about your teaching for Hello World, find out more and share your idea today.

Our talks about teaching (with) AI

One of the things that makes CSTA conferences so special is the fantastic range of talks, workshops, and other sessions running at and around the conference. We took the opportunity to share some of our work in flash talks and two full-length sessions.

One of the sessions was led by one of our Senior Learning Managers, Ben Garside, who gave a talk to a packed room on what we’ve learned from developing AI education resources for Experience AI. Ben shared insights we’ve gathered over the last two years and talked about the design principles behind the Experience AI resources.

Being in the room for Ben’s talk, I was struck by two key takeaways:

1. The issue of anthropomorphism, that is, projecting human-like characteristics onto artificial intelligence systems and other machines. This presents several risks and obstacles for young people trying to understand AI technology. In our teaching, we need to take care to avoid anthropomorphizing AI systems, and to help young people shift false conceptions they might bring into the classroom.
2. Teaching about AI requires fostering a shift in thinking. When we teach traditional programming, we show learners that this is a rules-based, deterministic approach; meanwhile, AI systems based on machine learning are driven by data and statistical patterns. These two approaches and their outcomes are distinct (but often combined), and we need to help learners develop their understanding of the significant differences.

Our second session was led by Diane Dowling, another Senior Learning Manager at the Foundation. She shared some of the development work behind Ada Computer Science, our free platform providing educators and learners with a vast set of questions and content to help understand CS.

Recently, we’ve been experimenting with the use of a large language model (LLM) on Ada to provide assessment feedback on long-form questions. This led to a great conversation between Diane and the audience about the practicalities, risks, and implications of such feature.

More on what we learned from CSTA coming soon

We had a fantastic time with the educators in Vegas and are grateful to CSTA and their sponsors for the opportunity to meet and learn from so many different people. We’ll be sharing some of what we learned from the educators we spoke to in a future blog post, so watch this space.

The post  CSTA 2024: What happened in Las Vegas appeared first on Raspberry Pi Foundation.

Episode 1: Do kids still need to learn how to code?

In the recent ‘Teaching & AI’ issue of Hello World, our CEO Philip Colligan discussed what AI means for computing education, including for learning to program. And our first new podcast episode is all about this question, which every computing educator has probably thought about at least once in recent months: Do kids still need to learn how to code?

Joining my co-host Veronica and me are two computing educators: Pete Dring, Head of Computing at Fulford School in York, and Chris Coetzee, a computer science teacher for 24 years and currently a PhD student in Computer Science Education at Abertay Dundee. Given the recent developments in AI-based code generators, we talk about whether such tools will remove our learners’ need to learn to code or simply change what coding, and learning to code, looks like*.

What’s coming up in future episodes?

New episode of season 6 will come out every 2 weeks. In each episode we explore computing, coding, and digital making education by delving into an exciting topic together with our guests: experts, practitioners, and other members of the Hello World community.

Also in season 6, we’ll explore:

The role of computing communities

We discuss the value and importance of being connected to other computing educators through the many different teaching communities that exist around the world. What makes effective communities, and how do we build and sustain them?

Why is understanding cybersecurity so important?

From classroom lessons to challenges and competitions, there are lots of opportunities for learners to discover cybersecurity. There are also many pitfalls where learners’ online activities put them at risk of breaking the law. We discuss some of these pitfalls along with the many career opportunities in cybersecurity.

How to develop as a computing educator?

What is involved in becoming an effective computing educator? What knowledge, skills, and behaviours are needed, and how do we go about developing them? We sit down with teacher trainers and trainees to explore this topic.

What is the state of computing education and where is it heading?

Computing education has come a long way in the last decade in terms of practice and policy, as well as research. Together with our guests we discuss where computing education is today around the world, and we consider the lessons we can learn and the challenges ahead

What is the role of AI in your classroom?

AI continues to be a disruptive technology in many spaces, and the classroom is no exception. We hear examples of practices and approaches being explored by teachers in the classroom.

Listen and subscribe today

If you’ve not listened to the Hello World podcast yet, there are 5 whole seasons for you to discover. We talk about everything from ecology and quantum computing to philosophy, ethics, and inclusion, and our conversations always focus on the practicalities of teaching in the classroom.

Many of our podcast guests are Hello World authors, so if you’re an educator who wants to share your insights into how to teach young people about digital technology, please let us know. Your words could end up in the pages as well as on the airwaves of Hello World.

You’ll find the upcoming Hello World season and past episodes on your favourite podcast platform, including YouTube now, where you can also subscribe to never miss an episode. Alternatively, you can listen here via your browser.

* If you want to dive into the newest research on programming education with and without AI, check out our current seminar series.

The post Season 6 of the Hello World podcast is here appeared first on Raspberry Pi Foundation.

This is where our two special editions of Hello World come in: The Big Book of Computing Content and The Big Book of Computing Pedagogy. Both available as free downloads, they help you reflect on what you teach within Computing and how you teach it.

What you teach: The Big Book of Computing Content

Computing is a broad and interdisciplinary subject, and different curricula and courses around the world focus on different aspects of it. For all of us, therefore, computing is framed by the curricula with which we are working and the terms which we’re using to talk about the subject. Over the past years at the Foundation, we have been developing a Computing taxonomy to help describe the different aspects of the subject. The Big Book of Computing Content is based on this taxonomy. The aim of this special edition of Hello World is to illustrate the breadth of Computing, and to model language that describes the different concepts, knowledge, and skills that comprise it.

We have organised this Big Book according to our taxonomy’s 11 content strands and also included progressive learning outcomes for each strand at different stages of learning. These outcomes are not prescriptive; instead they illustrate the wide applications of the subject by highlighting the kinds of knowledge and understanding that learners could develop in each area of Computing.

We hope that The Big Book of Computing Content encourages educators to reflect on all aspects of Computing and how they interconnect, as well as on the language we use to describe Computing. Whether the Big Book helps you to discover new aspects to Computing, to think about the subject differently, or simply to see the differences in how we as educators talk about our subject, the time you spend reflecting is important and valuable.

How you teach: The Big Book of Computing Pedagogy

One part of our work as educators is understanding the breadth of Computing and the specific ideas within it. The other part is reflecting on how we teach the subject: the specific methods, strategies, and practices we can use with our learners. The Big Book of Computing Pedagogy describes a range of teaching approaches framed around our 12 pedagogical principles for teaching Computing. Each research-informed principle either reflects how general-purpose pedagogy applies within Computing or explores pedagogies specific to Computing itself. This Big Book consists of research summaries as well as practical articles from educators which illustrate how you can apply the different pedagogies.

Rather than prescribing a set of principles that educators must follow, the aim of The Big Book of Computing Pedagogy is to help you develop your understanding of a range of pedagogical approaches which you can select, apply, and adapt to suit your context.

Reflect to develop your knowledge and agency

Ultimately we want to support all Computing and Computer Science educators to build their understanding of subject matter (that is, content) and pedagogy, or what is called pedagogical content knowledge (PCK, a term popularised by Lee Shulman). Combining your PCK with your grasp of the context of your learners, curricula, and setting will enable you to choose suitable practices for your content and context.

We hope that you find the two Big Books to be valuable reference tools to help you and your peers reflect on what it is you mean when you talk about Computing, and on how you teach the concepts, knowledge, and skills within it. Both books are available as free PDF downloads.

We would love to hear examples of how you have used The Big Book of Computing Pedagogy or The Big Book of Computing Content to inform your own teaching practice or to discuss practice with colleagues. Tell us in the comments.

The post Reflecting on what we teach in computing education and how we teach it appeared first on Raspberry Pi Foundation.

England’s Computing curriculum requires that all learners be taught the subject between ages 5 and 16, and it consists of only 25 statements outlining expectations for learners. To accompany this curriculum, we started developing a framework to help us describe the subject of Computing, and in particular the common threads running through it.

A 2012 report by the Royal Society presented the breadth of computing by dividing it into three areas: information technology, computer science, and digital literacy. Although this goes some way to describe computing as a discipline, in our view this model creates artificial divides between aspects of the subject according to whether they are seen as more or less technical. Our more holistic view of computing recognises that concepts and skills within the subject are far more interconnected.

Principles for our taxonomy

When we set out to develop our framework, the goal was to provide a way to look at and describe the subject of Computing as a set of interconnected topics; the framework doesn’t define standards or curricula. There are, of course, many ways of organising the subject matter, implemented through exam specifications, textbooks, schemes of learning, and various progression guides. For our framework, we reviewed examples of each of these, from England and beyond, and decided on some organisational principles:

• Our framework should describe the whole of Computing, incorporating computer science, information technology, and digital literacy
• The framework should be applicable across primary and secondary education, meaning it should be useful for categorising the knowledge encountered by all learners, from five-year-olds to our oldest secondary school students
• While inspired by England’s national curriculum, the framework should be independent of any particular exam specification and capable of adaptation to new curricula
• The framework should represent Computing as a discipline that combines a broad mixture of concepts and skills 

Developing the taxonomy

Following these principles, we identified ten content themes, or strands, that thread through a learner’s journey in Computing education. We call this framework representing the knowledge and skills that make up the subject our Computing taxonomy. As the Foundation is part of the consortium that established the National Centre for Computing Education in England, our taxonomy became a cornerstone of the work of the Centre, providing a common language to describe Computing in English schools and shaping the educational content we created for online teacher training courses, the classroom resources that make up the Computing Curriculum, and the material on the Isaac Computer Science platform for A level and GCSE learners and teachers.

Computing is, of course, a constantly evolving field and as such, our taxonomy evolves with it. Since 2018 we’ve iterated our taxonomy to incorporate new things we’ve learned, for example relating to the rapid developments of artificial intelligence (AI) technology in recent years. AI now is a significant area of study and represented as its own strand in our current taxonomy, bringing the number of strands up to eleven:

• Effective use of tools
• Safety and security
• Design and development
• Impact of technology
• Computing systems
• Networks
• Creating media
• Algorithms and data structures
• Programming
• Data and information
• Artificial intelligence

Given the interconnected nature of Computing, we embrace a best-fit approach to content categorisation, choosing the most appropriate strand(s) for each idea. In developing our Computing taxonomy, we determined that four of the strands (the horizontal strands in the diagram) were best taught interwoven with the others, in context rather than as discrete topics. A good example of this is the strand ‘Safety and security’, which focuses on supporting learners to realise the benefits of digital technology without putting themselves and others at risk. While it would be possible to teach this strand as one discrete set of lessons, revisiting it throughout a learner’s journey provides regular reinforcement as well as grounding in the context of other strands.

Within the strands, we have also identified progressive learning outcomes for each stage of learning. These learning outcomes are illustrative of the kinds of knowledge and understanding that learners could develop in each area of Computing. They are not prescriptive and instead aim to illustrate the wide applications of the discipline.

Coming soon: The Big Book of Computing Content

On 24 October, we will publish The Big Book of Computing Content. Framed by our taxonomy, The Big Book of Computing Content presents our work so far in describing the diverse range of concepts and skills that comprise Computing. It also includes the illustrative learning outcomes we’ve identified.

This will be the second special edition of Hello World, our free magazine for computing educators. The new Big Book complements our first special edition, The Big Book of Computing Pedagogy, in which we lay out 12 key principles for teaching the subject.

The Big Book of Computing Content will be available in print and as a free PDF download; if you subscribe now, you’ll receive the PDF in your inbox on publication day.

Share your thoughts on our taxonomy

We hope our taxonomy and the new Big Book enable you to reflect on the breadth of Computing and resonate with your teaching. Please share your reflections, in the comments below or by tagging us on social media, if you’d like to help us develop the taxonomy further.

The post A taxonomy of Computing content for education appeared first on Raspberry Pi Foundation.

It was great to see the return of the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) Annual Conference to an in-person event this year, and I was really excited to be able to attend.

Our small Raspberry Pi Foundation team headed to Chicago for four and a half days of meetups, professional development, and conversations with educators from all across the US and around the world. Over the week our team ran workshops, delivered a keynote talk, gave away copies of Hello World magazine, and signed up many new subscribers. You too can subscribe to Hello World magazine for free at helloworld.cc/subscribe.

We spoke to so many educators about all parts of the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s work, with a particular focus on the Hello World magazine and podcast, and of course The Big Book of Computing Pedagogy. In collaboration with CSTA, we were really proud to be able to provide all attendees with their own physical copy of this very special edition. 

It was genuinely exciting to see how pleased attendees were to receive their copy of The Big Book of Computing Pedagogy. So many came to talk to us about how they’d used the digital copy already and their plans for using the book for training and development initiatives in their schools and districts. We gave away every last spare copy we had to teachers who wanted to share the book with their colleagues who couldn’t attend.

Don’t worry if you couldn’t make it to the conference, The Big Book of Computing Pedagogy is available as a free PDF, which due to its Creative Commons licence you are welcome to print for yourself.

Another goal for us at CSTA was to support and encourage new authors to the magazine in order to ensure that Hello World continues to be the magazine for computing educators, by computing educators. Anyone can propose an article idea for Hello World by completing this form. We’re confident that every computing educator out there has at least one story to tell, lessons or learnings to share, or perhaps a cautionary tale of something that failed.

We’ll review any and all ideas and will support you to craft your idea into a finished article. This is exactly what we began to do at the conference with our workshop for writers led by Gemma Coleman, our fantastic Hello World Editor. We’re really excited to see these ideas flourish into full-blown articles over the coming weeks and months.

Our week culminated in a keynote talk delivered by Sue, Jane, and James, exploring how we developed our 12 pedagogy principles that underpin The Big Book of Computing Pedagogy, as well as much of the content we create at the Raspberry Pi Foundation. These principles are designed to describe a set of approaches that educators can add to their toolkit, giving them a shared language and the agency to select when and how they employ each approach. This was something we explored with teachers in our final breakout session where teachers applied these principles to describe a lesson or activity of their own.

We found the experience extremely valuable and relished the opportunity to talk about teaching and learning with educators and share our work. We are incredibly grateful to the entire CSTA team for organising a fantastic conference and inviting us to participate.

Discover more with Hello World — for free

Subscribe now to get each new Hello World straight to your digital inbox, for free! And if you’re based in the UK and do paid or unpaid work in education, you can subscribe for free print issues.

The post What we learnt from the CSTA 2022 Annual Conference appeared first on Raspberry Pi Foundation.

You will find us at booth 521 in the expo hall throughout the conference, as well as running four sessions. Gemma, Kevin, James, Sue, and Jane are team members representing Hello World magazine, the Raspberry Pi Computing Education Research Centre, and our other free programmes and education initiatives. We thank the team at CSTA for involving us in what we know will be an amazing conference.

Talk to us about computer science pedagogy

Developing and sharing effective computing pedagogy is our theme for CSTA 2022. We’ll be talking to you about our 12 pedagogy principles, laid out in The Big Book of Computing Pedagogy, available to download for free.

An exciting piece of news is that everyone attending CSTA 2022 will find a free print copy of the Big Book in their conference goodie bag!

We’re really looking forward to sharing and discussing the book and all our work with US educators, and to seeing some familiar faces. We’re also hoping to interview lots of old and new friends about your approaches to teaching computing and computer science for future Hello World podcast episodes.

Your sessions with us

Our team will also be running a number of sessions where you can join us to learn, discuss, and prepare lesson plans.

Semantic Waves and Wavy Lessons: Connecting Theory to Practical Activities and Back Again

Thursday 14 July, 9am–12pm: Pre-conference workshop (booking required) with James Robinson and Jane Waite

If you enjoy explaining concepts using unplugged activities, analogy, or storytelling, then this practical pre-conference session is for you. In the session, we’ll introduce the idea of semantic waves, a learning theory that supports learners in building knowledge of new concepts through careful consideration of vocabulary and contexts. Across the world, this approach has been successfully used to teach topics ranging from ballet to chemistry — and now computing.

You’ll learn how this theory can be applied to deliver powerful explanations that connect abstract ideas and concrete experiences. By taking part in the session, you’ll gain a solid understanding of semantic wave theory, see it in practice in some freely available lesson plans, and apply it to your own planning.

Write for a Global Computing Community with Hello World Magazine

Friday 15 July, 1–2pm: Workshop with Gemma Coleman

Do you enjoy sharing your teaching ideas, successes, and challenges with others? Do you want to connect with a global community of over 30,000 computing educators? Have you always wanted to be a published author? Then come along to this workshop session.

Every single computing or CS teacher out there has at least one lesson to share, idea to voice, or story to tell. In the session, you’ll discuss what makes a good article with Gemma Coleman, Hello World’s Editor, and you’ll learn top tips for how to communicate your ideas in writing. Gemma will also guide you through writing a plan for your very own article. Even if you’re not sure whether you want to write an article, doing this is a powerful way to reflect on your teaching practice.

Developing a Toolkit for Teaching Computer Science in School

Saturday 16 July, 4–5pm: Keynote talk by Sue Sentance

To teach any subject requires good teaching skills, knowledge about the subject being taught, and specific knowledge that a teacher gains about how to teach a particular topic, to their particular students, in a particular context. Teaching computer science is no different, and it’s a challenge for teachers to develop a go-to set of pedagogical strategies for such a new subject, especially for elements of the subject matter that they are just getting to grips with themselves.

In this keynote talk, our Chief Learning Officer Sue Sentance will focus on some of the 12 pedagogy principles that we developed to support the teaching of computer science. We created this set of principles together with other teachers and researchers to help us and everyone in computing and computer science education reflect on how we teach our learners. Sue will share how we arrived at the principles, and she’ll use classroom examples to illustrate how you can apply them in practice.

Exploring the Hello World Big Book of Computing Pedagogy

Sunday 17 July, 9–10am: Workshop with Sue Sentance

The set of 12 pedagogy principles we’ve developed for teaching computing are presented in our Hello World Big Book of Computing Pedagogy. The book includes summaries, teachers’ perspectives, and lesson plans for each of the 12 principles.

All CSTA attendees will get their own print copy of the Big Book, and in this practical session, we will use the book to explore together how you can use the 12 principles in the planning and delivery of your lessons. The session will be very hands-on, so bring along something you know you want or need to teach.

See you at CSTA in July

CSTA is now just a month away, and we can’t wait to meet old friends, make new connections, and learn from each other! Come find us at booth 521 or at our sessions to meet the team, discover Hello World magazine and the Hello World podcast, and find out more about our educational work. We hope to see you soon.

The post We’ll see you at CSTA 2022 Annual Conference appeared first on Raspberry Pi Foundation.

Skycademy and early HAB software

Over the past few years, I’ve been lucky enough to conduct several high-altitude balloon (HAB) flights and to help educators who wanted to do HAB projects with learners. In the Foundation’s Skycademy programme, supported by UKHAS members, in particular Dave Akerman, we’ve trained more than 50 teachers to successfully launch near-space missions with their students.

Whenever I advise people who are planning a HAB mission, I tell them that the separate elements actually aren’t that complicated. The difficulty lies in juggling them all at the same time to successfully launch, track, and recover your balloon.

Over the years, some excellent tools and software packages have been developed to help with HAB launches. Dave Akerman’s Pi In The Sky (PITS) software gave beginners the chance to control their first payloads: you enter your own specs into a configuration file, and the software, written in C, handles the rest. Dave’s Long Range (LoRa) gateway software then tracks the payload, receiving balloon data and plotting the flight’s trajectory on a real-time map.

Dave at a Skycademy event

These tools, while useful, present two challenges to the novice HAB enthusiast:

• Exposing and adapting the workings of the software is challenging for novice learners, given that it is written in C
• The existing tracking software and tools are fragmented: one application received LoRa signals; another received radioteletype (RTTY) data; photos were received and had to be manually opened elsewhere; and so on

Introducing Pytrack and SkyGate

Making ballooning as accessible as possible is something we’ve been keen to do since we first got involved in 2015. So I’m delighted to reveal that over the past year, we’ve worked with Dave to produce two new applications to support HAB activities!

Pytrack

Pytrack is a Python implementation of Dave’s original PITS software, and it offers several advantages:

• Learners can create their own tracker in a simpler programming language, rather than simply configuring the existing software
• The core mechanics of the tracker are exposed for the learner to understand, but complex details are abstracted away
• Learners can integrate the technology with standard Python libraries and existing projects
• Pytrack is modular, allowing learners to experiment with underlying radio components

SkyGate

After our last Skycademy event, I started to look for a way to make tracking a payload in flight easier. For Skycademy, we made a hacky tracking box using a Pi, a 7” screen, and a very rough GUI app that I wrote in a hurry lovingly toiled over.

Since then, we have gone on to develop SkyGate, a complete tracking application which runs on a Pi and fits nicely on a 7” screen. It brings together all the tracking functionalities into one intuitive application:

• Live tunable LoRa reception and decoding
• Live tunable RTTY reception and decoding (with compatible USB SDR)
• Image reception and previewing
• GPS tracking to report your location (when using compatible GPS USB dongle)
• Data, images, and GPS upload functionality to HabHub tracking site
• An Overview tab presenting a high-level summary and bearing to payload
• Full customisation via the Settings tab

You can get involved!

We would love HAB enthusiasts to test and experiment with both Pytrack and SkyGate, and to give us feedback. Your input will really help us to write the full guide that we’ll release later this year.

To get started, install both programmes using your command prompt/terminal.

For your payload, run:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install python3-pytrack

And your receiver, run:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install python3-skygate

Follow this guide to start using Pytrack, and read this overview on SkyGate and what you’ll need for a tracking box. To give us your feedback, please raise issues on the respective GitHub repos: for Pytrack here, and for SkyGate here.

We’ve developed these software packages to make launching and tracking a HAB payload easier and more flexible, and we hope you’ll think we’ve succeeded.

Happy ballooning!

Disclaimer: each country has its own laws regarding HAB launches and radio transmissions in their airspace. Before you attempt to carry out your own HAB flight, you need to ensure you have permission and are complying with all local laws.

The post New software to get you started with high-altitude ballooning appeared first on Raspberry Pi Foundation.

Our newest Raspberry Pi Certified Educators: now there are 1000 of them!

Picademy is a free CPD programme that gives educators the skills and knowledge to help learners get creative with computing. Classroom teachers, museum educators, librarians, educator coaches, and community educators can all apply. You don’t need any previous experience, just an enthusiasm for teaching computing and digital making.

Apply for Picademy

We’ve just announced the dates and venues for Picademy in the US throughout 2017. Take a look at the schedule of UK Picademy events for this year: we’ve just added some new dates. Check out what educators say about Picademy.

Are you interested? DO IT. APPLY.

Demand for Picademy places is always high, and there are many parts of the world where we don’t yet offer Picademy. In order to reach more people, we provide two free online training courses which are available anywhere in the world. They’re especially relevant to educators, but anyone can take part. Both started this week, but there’s still time to join. Both courses will run again in the future.

Hello World

Wherever you are, you can also read Hello World, our new magazine about computing and digital making written by educators, for educators. It’s free online as a downloadable PDF, and it’s available to UK-based educators in print, free of charge. In its pages over the next issues, we know we’ll see some of our first 1000 Raspberry Pi Certified Educators inspire some of our second 1000.

We hope that you, too, will join this creative, supportive community!

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