Ray Chambers My Digital Story Independent Learning Helping students flip the learning and control the outcome they want. Start Collaboration Helping students work with their teachers to produce applications for lessons.

Ray Chambers My Digital Story Basic Information Who am I? My name is Ray Chambers and I’m the Subject Leader of Computing at Uppingham Community College in the UK. About The school is a secondary school which teachers ages We have roughly 650 pupils. The objective of the project was to encourage students to use a new 21 st century skill of programming as well to encourage teachers to flip the learning with technology.

Ray Chambers My Digital Story About the project The project started out with students developing their coding and collaboration skills with teachers. I wanted students to see the real value in developing a new 21 st century skill, “programming’. Students could code in any of their lessons and develop applications which help sustain what they learn. The tool which was used was a free web based programming environment called TouchDevelop. In order for students to take part in this project, they initially auditioned by coming up with creative ideas for apps. They had to approach members of staff around the school and had to ask them for requirements. These apps were then tested by the staff and released into the windows store. Since the initial project it has grown and has been picked up by many other schools across the UK and the Rest of the world. Close to Christmas an Appathon was put on in school in which students created more Apps for teachers. They worked in teams to come up with ideas which would change the way lessons would use technology in school.

Ray Chambers My Digital Story Design of The Environment The project was originally planned to enable students to collaborate with teachers. The students filled out planning sheets and discussed the requirements with the teachers. During lessons the teacher delivered 6 lessons (2 optional) depending on the students understanding. The lessons plans and the resources were all made available on my own blog and on the Partners In Learning network where it has been downloaded and used multiple times. blogPartners In Learning network Video tutorials and PDF’s were supplied to the students as extra support. The great thing about programming is that it combines the use of ICT, problem solving and innovation and collaborations. Students need to use trial and error and need to build on their previous knowledge of coding in order to trace the problems in their code. They would use the resources and collaborate with other students to check the overall effectiveness of their code. ICT as a subject has been abolished in the U.K and computing has been introduced. Producing the Touch Develop resources has helped teachers work with the changes. Teachers feel more confident on the delivery of the new subject. The new 21 st century skill ‘programming’ now fits into any subject and students can independently develop their own applications and collaborate with each other to fix problems.

Ray Chambers My Digital Story Design of The Environment I recently received this of another teacher using the resources and they’ve also encouraged independent learning as well as flipped learning using the project I developed. Following up the discussion with this teacher, he preferred the video resources which were uploaded to YouTube. The students would re-cap on the videos and re-play it to help them figure out the errors in their code. More problem solving.

Ray Chambers My Digital Story Evidence of Learning The project produced a number of different outcomes both internal to the school and world wide. All of the applications were produced using TouchDevelop.com through a HTML5 browser across any device. You can see the evidence of the planning sheet to the right. Students have been engaged in the project and have managed to produce a host of applications for use in lessons. Click on the links to view the apps produced. You can see and download the application by clicking on the link below. He has already had 286 downloads from the windows store.

Ray Chambers My Digital Story Evidence of Learning TouchDevelop.com is a new programming language and is a natural step for progression from something such as Kodu. It works on any device. Students can use ANY device and can log on with a windows live account. TouchDevelop.com was developed by Microsoft Research Labs. Students used a host of devices including PC’s,Windows Surface Tablets, Windows Surface Pro, Windows Phone and other devices. They were able to ‘bring your own device’ in these lessons. The technology and programming encourages a whole host of skills but two of the main skills encouraged are collaboration and learning beyond the classroom. Students were able to log on through the browser at home because of the applications being stored in the cloud. They were also able to access my videos to continue their learning.

Ray Chambers My Digital Story Knowledge Building / Critical Thinking To encourage students to build on the knowledge they had already gained in the lesson we decided to host an Appathon event at our school. The students collaborated with the staff and brought the ideas back to the room. They then worked in groups of four and delegated the ideas to each other. Once they had shared out the ideas, they developed their apps. There were a number of issues with the students code and they had to use the debugging in order to figure out the problem. Some students were given worksheets from their history, science and English lessons. They would then think about how they develop it further. Students were given gifts for the hard work they put in and a thank you from the teachers. The collaboration with the other teachers was a high point for this project. They would analyze the requirements set by the teachers and would then work in teams to evaluate what was required. They then used their programming knowledge to develop the app for the teacher.

Ray Chambers My Digital Story The Appathon

Ray Chambers My Digital Story Extending Learning Beyond the Classroom TouchDevelop.com has enabled my students to continue to learn outside the classroom in many ways. The resources are all available through my blog and the stats on the next slide will show you how many times this has been accessed. Having the appathon allowed the students to have the freedom to go around the school an interview staff for requirements for apps. The original APP Squad still meets on Tuesday lunch times and even when lessons are over for TouchDevelop, these apps continue to be developed. We currently have an app in the works to allow students to name the parts of computers for the new curriculum coming into the U.K. All the resources are free to access online and students can access their apps through the cloud anywhere at anytime. Students can be on the bus with their mobile device and continue programming because they’re not bound to a single platform. This is also a major reason for choosing this language.

Ray Chambers My Digital Story Collaboration Students worked together in pairs to discuss and modify the final requirements and then approached the member of staff to have them signed off. They would then collaborate to help each other out with the code. They could access apps they were working on together by sharing accounts and working through the cloud. The collaboration with the staff and the students has now given them more confidence to approach any problem and they take it upon themselves to figure out ways of solving it.

Ray Chambers My Digital Story Cutting Edge Use Of Technology For Learning Cutting Edge use of technology is Essential for this project. Previously many people were scared of the technical jargon of Programming. This project has turned programming into a skill to be used across all lessons. Students could not develop these apps without the ability to test them on different devices. They would not be able to continue learning outside the classroom with many other projects. Microsoft Touch Develop allows them to access their work through the Cloud and allows them to share their resources electronically using the technology.

Ray Chambers My Digital Story Cutting Edge Use Of Technology For Learning Cutting Edge use of technology is Essential for this project. Previously many people were scared of the technical jargon of Programming. This project has turned programming into a skill to be used across all lessons. Students could not develop these apps without the ability to test them on different devices. They would not be able to continue learning outside the classroom with many other projects. Microsoft Touch Develop allows them to access their work through the Cloud and allows them to share their resources electronically using the technology.

Ray Chambers My Digital Story The Impact Touch Develop videos have been access over 1100 times since they were first published and the scheme of work continues to be accessed today. The 1 st lesson in the playlist on YouTube has over 750 views which shows how popular the scheme of work is getting across schools in the U.K The computing at schools network has recognized the scheme of work and ask med to publish an article for them.

Ray Chambers My Digital Story The Impact With ICT being abolished in the UK and students having to learn how to build applications rather than analyze them, I was asked to produce an article to encourage more schools to code. This article introduced programming using Touch Develop and helped people see how it can be ran anywhere and any time.

Ray Chambers My Digital Story The Impact On top of building an article, using my own skills, I developed an app using TouchDevelop.com which would help teachers map the new curriculum into extra exams for pupils. This now allows students to study for further exams on top of their current qualifications. This extends learning beyond the classroom and allows them to continue with extra qualifications. You can download the application by clicking on the link on the right.

Ray Chambers My Digital Story Cutting Edge Use Of Technology For Learning Cutting Edge use of technology is Essential for this project. Previously many people were scared of the technical jargon of Programming. This project has turned programming into a skill to be used across all lessons. Students could not develop these apps without the ability to test them on different devices. They would not be able to continue learning outside the classroom with many other projects. Microsoft Touch Develop allows them to access their work through the Cloud and allows them to share their resources electronically using the technology.

Ray Chambers My Digital Story Want to know more? Blog: - raychambers.wordpress.com Tweet: -