space to learn

Background_history / Space To Learn / Tech To Help (TTH)

System paused

A little note to say that, sadly, I am on compassionate leave at present due to my Mum being gravely ill. My regular schools know this, and I am grateful for their understanding. My Digital Writes colleague Keith continues to deliver our current courses. Meanwhile, with time ahead in Northern Ireland, I am preparing for the upcoming Woodland Coding events, through Space To Learn, about which: more to follow.

There are two new Project Based Learning initiatives brewing which I will be excited to share here in due course. They seek to offer a (pupil-built) helpful communication system for two distinct groups of people: those who are autistic and those who are refugees. This is my priority for TTH (Tech To Help).

An important upcoming development will be the Society of Tinkerers. Building on Flickernet Tinker, this seeks to create a forum in which TTH can be advanced as well as providing space for further projects to be skilfully investigated by those from a range of technology and educational backgrounds.

Flickernet Archive has an initial event pending, during which outdoor presentation of materials will be trialled, in support of my friends and neighbours, The Woodland Trust.

Swindon Borough Council have kindly agreed to support my extra-urban particulates sensor, which will go live (on the data page) once I have selected a location from those on offer, and installed the Raspberry Pi powered equipment.

Whilst I may be more difficult to contact over the next week or two, I am keen to resume all things Flickernet soon, and look forward to delivering all that I can going forwards.

Comments Off on System paused
September 10, 2023
Resources

Boson for KS1

Enjoying exploring the DFRobot kit from BETT – this time the Boson Science equipment which is ideal for KS1 physical computing. Great Micro:Bit integration!

0 Comments
July 14, 2023
Digital Writes

Swindon’s Museum of Computing is 20!

Thank you Keith, Jeremy and the team for a fun evening at the MoC. We are fortunate to be partners with you in delivering coding sessions and are eager to resume in the Autumn with some extraordinary new physical computing interfaces.! 😉 The many guests in attendance clearly enjoyed their tours of the museum and chatting about the superb range of technology that was featured, from dusty beige to cutting edge!

0 Comments
July 9, 2023
Resources / Tech To Help (TTH)

Phoenix Enterprise

Thank you Clare for meeting with us today. We are really looking forward to helping your service users to develop an illuminated logo and animated text board. The club that we will run for you in the Autumn will enable those who choose to come along to work collaboratively to design, build and code a bright solar-powered phoenix that will hang in the factory window sharing information and, most importantly, demonstrating to all what great capabilities exist in the Phoenix team.

0 Comments
July 6, 2023
ARC / Digital Writes / Resources / Space To Learn / SWLEP / Tech To Help (TTH)

Reflections on a sabbatical year

From climbing trees in the woods of Northern Ireland whilst clutching Raspberry Pi units, to helping children who were on the cusp of quitting school to build adventure game-books, this year has been a real eye-opener to me.

It is a rare privilege to become free to teach what one chooses. I hadn’t dared believe that it could happen, but now Flickernet is full steam ahead – 24 years on from those early Dot Com years – with a new focus called TTH: Tech To Help. This is what I will be up to, going forward – please see the synopsis page for more information or if you would like to be involved.

www.flickernet.net/tth

0 Comments
July 4, 2023
Digital Writes / Resources / Tech To Help (TTH)

The Art of Accessibility

Keith and I met with Ben, a Director of Digital Writes, and an inspiration. Ben is helping us to explore a new project: using physical computing to enable those with reduced mobility to create their own unique artworks. We aim to feature these artworks in both an online space and through an installation.

We will work with Primary school pupils to analyse the need, design and build a solution, then collaborate with the end user to refine a product that is genuinely helpful for them.

0 Comments
June 7, 2023
Digital Writes / tech_ventures

Animation to Unity

This 30 second video clip shows the three step process that we undertook with both St Mary’s and SoS pupils this week.

Having drawn their game-book characters and shaded with crayon: 1. Stop motion animation; 2. Photoshop cutout; then 3. Adobe Character Animator – at which point they are sprites that can be included into any Unity game creation – in this case fitting the gothic theme!

0 Comments
May 25, 2023
ARC / Resources

Micro:Bit Extras

https://www.flickernet.net/microbit

Hardly a day passes without a new Micro:Bit accessory becoming available. With Version 2 Micro:Bits having a bit more about them (!) and Primary Schools now having the offer of 30 free – it is a great time to explore the extra functionality that these offer.

As a quick guide for ARC, I have put a page together that lists some of the best – along with links to info pages / data sheets and associated resources.

0 Comments
May 22, 2023
SWLEP

ICE cool

Huge thanks to Brea, Paddy and Laura for a great gathering at the Cyber Business Centre in Chippenham yesterday. It was great to see this amazing facility filled with students and industry representatives along with a wide range of career guidance specialists. There was a buzz throughout – that even the built-in Faraday cage and sound muffling technology couldn’t dampen!

https://swlep.co.uk/programmes-swlep/business-cyber-centre
https://www.flickernet.net/swlep

My thanks also to Sarah. It was a privilege to represent Odyssey Hub. Sarah even managed to set up a moisture-sampling experiment to check on the health of the CBC plants while we were there! Our combined eagerness to see physical computing widely adopted in primary schools fits neatly with the SWLEP vision for uptake in physical computing across our region too.

I look forward to helping with these endeavours in every way that I can going forward, in the hopes that by May ’24 we will have won the Raspberry Pi competition!

0 Comments
May 11, 2023
tech_ventures

Pre ICE deodorant experiment

Not an attempt to avoid sweating tomorrow, but rather attempting to meet a challenge set by Paddy Bradley of SWLEP ahead of my presentation at the ICE event tomorrow..

Could Zjeremy show in his live data feed a distinct difference between the current pristine tree particulate reading and the polluted air around him. No better way to pollute that air than Lynx Inca, methought – and so the data proved: careful breathing in when spraying – those particles really do fill the air!

www.flickernet.net/swlep
www.flickernet.net/data
3 Comments
May 9, 2023
Digital Writes

Gamebook Gathering

Thanks to David, Judy, Barbara, Kaye and Kimberly for joining me and Keith this morning for a Starbucks-fuelled brainstorming session!

The graphical look and feel of the book is now taking shape: think sepia -tinted, line-drawn paper edged animations that we hope will capture the imaginations of Key Stage 2 and Key Stage 3 pupils.

With such a wide range of contributions so far, and many months left of the project remaining (ahead of publication in December), we are going to assemble the core writing team next so that the fundamental story arc is in place ready for coding, drawing and team development.

https://www.digitalwrites.org.uk/literature-alive
0 Comments
May 1, 2023
Resources / tech_ventures

BETT

The vast, sprawling assembly of tech-enthusiasts that is BETT was every bit as overwhelming this year as in previous years. Rather than attempt to see everything, I was more than content catching a few great seminars and panel discussions, then finding my way to the Physical Computing corner.

Ricky and the team: your equipment has taken remote sensing opportunities to a new level! I am delighted to have connected with you and I look forward to sharing the immense range and functionality of what DFRobot produce in China. It will take me a few months to explore the equipment – but there is no doubt in my mind that what you have created could benefit learners up and down the UK.

https://uk.bettshow.com
0 Comments
March 31, 2023
Uncategorized

Network Meet @IoT

Thank you Tony and Marie-Ann for a fascinating tour of the wonderfully resourced Institute of Technology, recently opened on the New College Swindon campus.

Good to know that some Honda robots survive – now housed (actually caged!) within the £20m facility. We were tempted to try out the e-sports gaming rooms, but conversation was focused on cyber security and careers opportunities this time. Thank you Paul, Steve and Rupert for the tours of your departments – it is hard to imagine a finer suite of equipment to enable students to excel as the workforce of tomorrow.

https://www.sawiot.ac.uk
0 Comments
March 28, 2023
Digital Writes

Creative Writing Trip To Bath

Our Digital Writes trip to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein House in central Bath was scary fun! The SoS pupils managed the escape room with 30 seconds to spare.

A steam-punk twist to the exhibits added just the right technological twist too!

0 Comments
March 24, 2023
ARC

Doom via Makey Makey

This week in ARC we enjoyed the potential of Makey Makey units with a view to incorporating them into future robotics. Doom and Asteroids ensued!

0 Comments
March 23, 2023
ARC / Resources

PA Consulting Competition Entered

https://www.flickernet.net/pacomp2

After a scramble to complete our two entries as far as possible – it is congratulations to Team Heat Hunters (Year 10/11) and Team Purple (Year 13) for readying their submissions in time. There was much more intended, but the experience of applying thermal imaging sensing and AI number recognition, gave both teams some valuable insights into these intriguing areas of robotics.

0 Comments
March 20, 2023
tech_ventures

Bridlewood

Delighted that Bridlewood Primary have joined our TPAT Trust. We will soon be exploring crumble kits together – to add physical computing fun to their upcoming school Design Technology project.

0 Comments
March 8, 2023
tech_ventures

St Mary’s join the fun!

Literature Alive – from Digital Writes – is now well underway. Keith and I enjoyed our first visit to St Mary’s on Thursday – coinciding with World Book day. From next week we will begin working with a selection of pupils from St. Mary’s to develop the interactive game book. When asked, during our assembly, what would be different about our book to other books, the answer came back: “everything”!

https://www.digitalwrites.org.uk/literature-alive
0 Comments
March 2, 2023
Resources

STEM PDL / New Models of Education

STEM PDL Stage 2 training has provided a rare opportunity to combine with colleagues from the far North of England to the South coast – in sharing our experience of school consultancy processes, and best support techniques. Thank you Chris and Tracey for modelling the highest standard of professional development.

As part of our training I was asked to present on a piece of educational research that I considered to have been impactful and that would be helpful to others. I share it here as Schools Of The Future (WEF 2020) touches on many helpful perspectives towards future learning.

https://www.flickernet.net/pdl/
0 Comments
February 17, 2023
ARC / tech_ventures

PA Consulting Competition update

All three of the ARC entries are gathering momentum. There is just one month left before the closing date of this year’s competition – which equates to four hours for us! Although only one entry (The Thermal Imaging project) could actually be described as a “robot”, it has been wonderful to see each team applying their coding, construction, and debugging skills in earnest.

https://www.flickernet.net/arc2
0 Comments
February 13, 2023
tech_ventures

Interactive Book

The Digital Writes pupil-powered creation is well underway: bringing new meaning to the phrase “immersive”, our Literature Alive project is demonstrating what Unity software can enable children to accomplish, even when they may have decided previously that reading or writing was not for them.

Key Stage Three pupils at the School Of Solutions – a vitally important alternative provision unit which is part of The Park Academies Trust – are experiencing cutting edge ‘world-building’ software whilst contributing their creative ideas towards a digital book like no other.

It is a virtual game book – a successor to the ‘play-your-own-adventure’ stories that allow multiple routes through the text. Turn to certain pages and the book becomes an active 3D world, based on the content of the story that is unfolding and which they can then explore.

A total of four Swindon schools, two Primary and two Secondary – as well as the Museum of Computing – are taking part in this Arts Council funded project. Full details are here, with a great demonstration video (2 mins) to be found on YouTube here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UebRsEgG30Q
https://www.digitalwrites.org.uk/literature-alive
0 Comments
February 8, 2023
tech_ventures

SWLEP visit

Thank you to Laura and the team for a great welcome to the BCC building in Chippenham. This is the UK’s first Business Cyber Centre. We were there to talk about physical computing, but it was also fascinating to be shown around this super high-tech space with ‘living walls’ and soundproof booths!

I am very much looking forward to supporting our wonderful LEP (Local Enterprise Partnership) over the months and years ahead. Please see this link for more information about how physical computing can be supported in your school.

0 Comments
January 27, 2023
Background_history / Resources / tech_ventures

S2L

The Space To Learn page is gradually taking shape. Over the next few months I will share the ways in which I aim to develop outdoor educational technology from our foothold in the Mourne Mountains. Expect live data streams; real world applications of physical technology; and an exploration into new ways in which STEM subjects, creative writing and historical investigations can benefit from a natural environment that is fully plugged in.

https://www.flickernet.net/s2l
0 Comments
December 9, 2022