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COMPUTING AT SCHOOL NEWSLETTER WINTER / SPRING 2012 GOVE’S SUPPORT FOR CELEBRATING THE GENIGENIUSUS OF COMPUTER SCIENCE "Computer Science is a rigorous, fascinating and intellectually challenging subject”. So says Michael Gove, Minister of ALAN TURING Education. He continued his “We in Britain should never forget that one of our great heroes, Alan Turing, laid keynote speech at BETT by saying; the foundation stones on which all modern computing rests.” In his BETT “Although individual technologies speech (see right) Michael Gove highlighted 2012 as marking the centenary of change day by day, they are his birth. Some students may be aware of the name, largely because of his underpinned by foundational code breaking activities during WW2. Some may know about the tragic nature concepts and principles that have of his death; a persecution that is hard for many to grasp today, though it endured for decades. Long after happened little more than fifty years ago. today's pupils leave school and enter the workplace - long after the But how many will be able to recount any details of his key ideas? In the technologies they used at school preface to his excellent book, ‘The New Turing Omnibus’, AK Dewdney pays are obsolete - the principles learnt tribute to “...Alan Turing, whose ripe mathematical imagination was fuelled by in Computer Science will still hold fantasies of mechanized intellect. Turing’s greatest single legacy, the Turing true". This is the clearest statement machine itself, became the best known vehicle for the emerging theory of yet from the Government. computability. Wonderfully simple, with only two moving parts, it can be explained to the man or woman in the street, yet it embraces everything we Two days later, The Royal Society mean by the word ‘computable’!” published its 18 month study, “Shutdown or Restart” carefully Turing was a genius ahead of his time, yet few identifying three separate strands pupils are aware of his place in history. that comprise Computing in Computing has been hidden from the schools. They make 11 curriculum for far too long. Many wrongly recommendations to take the equate computing with just learning about subject forward. programming. It’s far deeper than that. You’ll find pointers to Turing’s ideas inside this Michael Gove cited the CAS newsletter and more in the online supplement. Curriculum as one source schools The centenary is a marvellous opportunity for should look to when planning new teachers to resurrect some key computing curricula. CAS look forward to concepts; concepts developed by Turing before an supporting teachers as they plan for electronic computer had even been built. September and beyond. We also We’ll cover some resources in each issue look forward to working with others this year. A wonderful five minute BCS in creating a curriculum that inspires video, made as part of their Pioneers our youngsters with the magic and series, is the perfect starting point. beauty of computer science. Why not use it for an assembly? image © The Bletchley Park Trust The “Computing At School” working group (CAS) is a membership association in partnership with BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT and supported by Microsoft, Google and others. It aims to support and promote the teaching of computing in UK schools. THE BLINKING REDISCOVERING THE SPSPIRITIRIT OF CURSOR The 80s were rubbish. We were THE BBC MICRO: RASPBERRY PI promised Bacofoil jumpsuits and teleporting to school. Instead we Even before its launch, the innovative Raspberry Pi is already got Cabbage Patch Kids and gaining widespread acclaim. But how did it come about? In an strikes. Fortunately we also had exclusive interview Clive Beale talks to Liz Upton about what the best thing ever invented: low spurred its development and motivated the trustees. cost home computers that plugged into your telly. The mighty Where did it all start? Was there a work in games – but his family don’t BBC Micro; the po’boy ZX light bulb moment? have a computer. Mum’s a cleaner, Spectrum; the painfully hip There wasn’t a eureka moment; more Dad drives a van. Neither comes into Commodore 64; plus a lesser a growing, horrible realisation that contact with computers in their daily pantheon of Dragons, Orics, things in school computing were not lives and they’re not a necessity in the Lynxes and more. as they should be. Eben (Upton) was house. They have a Wii, which the working at St John’s College, kids use to browse the internet, but a Playground fights over which interviewing kids applying to the Wii is a closed box that no kid is going machine was best were not university. There was a noticeable to be able to program. It’s a story uncommon. Yet these computers drop-off in the quality of applicants. In we’re hearing over and over again. all had something in common: the 1990s, those coming to Cambridge Twenty per cent of UK homes don’t when you switched them on they would arrive equipped with a few have a computer. Since schools just sat there, blinking. Waiting for programming languages and several stopped teaching programming such you to tell them what to do. This years’ experience of hobbyist hacking. kids have no way into computing. was a wonderful thing. The micros By the 2000s, things had changed came with programming manuals significantly. The typical applicant had After an evening complaining, Eben and there was an irresistible urge perhaps written HTML, used CSS or got out some breadboard, ordered an to make them do stuff. So we created a macro or two, but that was Atmel chip and a pile of transistors, hacked and we POKED and we usually the extent of their and sat down to solder together a little coded and created. At least until ‘programming experience’. The computer that booted into Python, with Mum kicked us off the telly numbers applying were falling too. an idea to build a kit that perhaps you because That’s Life was on. could sell to schools. I got to hold the We talked about the causes. A voltmeter. Five years on, one room The blinking cursor single number of factors are in play, but one has been converted into an handedly made the UK tech and big culprit seemed to be the electronics lab, and that first board digital creative industries the envy disappearance of computers which and Broadcom chips have had babies of the world. Never mind that are easy for kids to program. These which turned into Raspberry Pi. Google’s Eric Schmidt recently vanished with the ubiquity of the found our “great computing Windows desktop. We grew up with If I was gathering a team to take heritage” stuffed in a skip round BBC Bs, Amigas and ZX Spectrums. over the computing world, the the back of Poundland. The 8-bit You had to type something to make RasPi Trustees is where I would revolution is what kicked it all off. them do anything. My Beeb, and the start. Apple started with a lot Beebs at school, booted into Basic; less :). How did you get together? The Raspberry Pi Foundation every kid in school knew how to walk Eben brought the team together from wants to reboot this revolution. It into WHSmiths and run a little friends who work at the Cambridge wants to recapture the fun and program making all the display Science Park (David Braben); old excitement and creativity of these machines say “This shop smells of colleagues from the university (Jack early micros; to get kids coding cheese.” (We also knew how to sprint Lang, Alan Mycroft and Rob Mullins) again and to foster a new out of WHSmiths. They called it a and friends of theirs (Pete Lomas). generation of computational rounded education!) Programming They were picked for their experience thinkers and digital creators. was much more prevalent in school; – David is, quite simply, legendary in Its plan? To make a low cost the curriculum has changed to an British computing; Jack worked on home computer that plugs into unrecognisable degree. software for the original BBC Micro your telly. That sits and teaches business; Pete runs a there and I told a neighbour’s kid about PCB fab that’s one of those British blinks at Raspberry Pi. His ears technological success stories; Alan you....... pricked up; he told me how and Rob’s educational contacts and he’d love to learn to program, to experience are as good as you could RASPBERRY PI FOR EDUCATION USER GUIDE An education version of the Pi is planned for release this spring. It was very clear to CAS that a user guide was a must, and with the Raspberry Pi team already Jack Lang demonstrates a prototype Pi at a CAS working group meeting overstretched we decided to write one ourselves. The guide will hope to find. They’re a really strong There are other machines out there teach two languages, Scratch and team, and I think we’d have struggled that do a lot of what Raspberry Pi Python, through creative to put together a group like this does. But we are innovators on cost. scenarios such as music and anywhere outside Silicon Fen. Success would be competitors driving graphics. It will also include advice costs down so they’re accessible to and resources for budding In a project like this, where we rely so everybody. The fact that it’s possible computer scientists. The outline of heavily on the open-source to produce hardware at this sort of the guide is already written and community, transparency and a price, running open-source software, there is currently a huge amount genuine gusto for what you’re doing is exposes how expensive business of work going on backstage to essential.

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