Tech To Help (TTH)

Marvellous Musical Machine / Robotics / Tech To Help (TTH)

Marvellous Musical Machine 3 Concludes

Working with the children of The Ridgeway School ASC has been a joy and a privilege. 

Thank you Will, Adam, Ryan and all the team at the ASC. Keith and I have enjoyed every moment of it – and we think that your pupils have too!

Please see www.flickernet.net/mmm3 to explore their work or, better yet, come along to future MMM events to have a go with the latest machine that we created together.

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July 22, 2026
Robotics / Tech To Help (TTH)

Expression

As  I gradually add to the Sessions, the third, called “Expression”, is one that I am most eager to develop.

This is the chance for anxious or disheartened young people to find a way to share what they are feeling through robotics.

The page will slowly grow – please feel free to email me any thoughts or ideas: it will be a vital part of the RaceHub project.

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June 2, 2026
Art of Conversation / Tech To Help (TTH)

Cats on the prowl!

Driftwood Islands now contain a variety of animals, as voted for by the wonderful pupils at Crowdy’s! These include [dancing] goats, fish and now cats. Much discussion and voting has now resulted in a cat-shaped island  with stars and sparkles, natural features and a huge rock nose!

Their latest island, Tutorial Plateau is also taking shape – it will contain many new puzzles including a labyrinth. 

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May 25, 2026
Art of Conversation / Tech To Help (TTH)

Cat Island gains eyebrows!

Our Cat Island (more accurately called “Meow Meadows”) was the focus this week.

It looks rather more cat-like, now that the Year 9 pupils have voted on the placement of a variety of materials from which cat features can be built..

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April 27, 2026
Robotics / Tech To Help (TTH)

Session 5 Trial 2

The RaceHub Sessions are taking shape, not necessarily in order! Enjoyed exploring Session 5 with the KS3 SoS group today.

They had so much fun, but in the process were also super-helpful at showing me potential road-blocks in the planning – which I am racing to fine tune now!

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April 24, 2026
InFindingOut (IFO) / Robotics / Space To Learn / Tech To Help (TTH)

Robotics reimagined

RaceHub is the new robotics project that I have been working on for some time now. It is a sister project to Robotics Link. Together they will form the RaceNode Network.

RaceHub will come first: individual young people being provided with a robot to build, and to keep, with which they can join in to a supportive network and even enter into robot racing competitions.

If they do not feel ready to race their robot in person then they can compete remotely. Their robot also becomes an individual expression of their wellbeing or race readiness..  

 
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March 30, 2026
Art of Conversation / Tech To Help (TTH)

AoC Assembly

Thank you to everyone at Crowdys today for listening so attentively to our ChoiceBox and Secrets of Driftwood Islands update!

The eagerness of pupils to volunteer to take a turn at navigating the islands and the questions about how to become involved / download the game were super encouraging! 

We will publish the next working draft on the Digital Writes AoC page and on the Flickernet AoC page after the Easter holidays

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March 26, 2026
Art of Conversation / Tech To Help (TTH)

Jungle and Cat Islands

The creative super-powers of Class 9C at Crowdy’s have led to the creation of two new islands for the growing Secrets of Driftwood Islands world.

Jungle Island involved maths skills in choosing the angle of their plant stems (having used their art skills to draw the leaves) followed by english skills in telling the story of Chloe the cat who left Cat Island to visit Jungle Island.

With the ChoiceBoxes remaining central to this project, every week each pupil has been able to vote for what they would like to see happen next.

We will publish the updated online-playable game here soon so that you can hear the children reading out their story as you explore the growing archipelago! 

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February 5, 2026
InFindingOut (IFO) / Tech To Help (TTH)

School Of Solutions

Congratulations to Tammy, Bill, David, Tarcila and all the SoS team for the publication of their book, 

Everything You Need to Know to Set Up a Therapeutic Alternative Provision: Exploring the School of Solutions 

now available to order on Amazon.

I continue to deliver weekly sessions for the SoS in Swindon.

These are usually focused on robotics, sometimes they are sensor based, but always wellbeing assessment led: these wonderful pupils have taught me so much about ways to determine – and hence adapt to – their collective mood and readiness to learn.

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January 19, 2026
Marvellous Musical Machine / Tech To Help (TTH)

Marvellous Musical Machine II

We are delighted to be working with The Ridgeway School Special Resourced Provision Unit each week, as they become the second school to create a Marvellous Musical Machine.

Keith and I are looking forward to seeing where these pupils take the project, in light of their great ideas and enormous enthusiasm!

This week we focused on introducing core coding skills with MicroBit extensions such as the Bit Commander and servo driver board.

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January 14, 2026
Art of Conversation / Resources / Tech To Help (TTH)

The Islands Awake!

Please click here to view the virtual world that Class 9G  of Crowdy’s have spent the last two terms building. 

As we prepare to begin the building of two new islands for this world with Class 9C, we are reminded of what a privilege it is to witness young people applying themselves to a unique task such as this, especially given the step that they bravely took to use ChoiceBoxes to vote with.

Driftwood Islands
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January 6, 2026
InFindingOut (IFO) / Tech To Help (TTH)

Classroom Brainwaves!

The NeuroSky Mindwave unit has proven to be fascinating for many of the pupils that I teach. 

This was important, as part of the InFindingOut project is around self-assessment by young people of their wellbeing, inspired by the use of biometrics.

 We will soon by adding further sensing options – each one provides a small sample of data that can then encourage the young person to engage more fully with a meaningful measurement of their own mental and physical wellbeing.

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December 12, 2025
Digital Writes / Marvellous Musical Machine / Tech To Help (TTH)

The Marvellous Music Machine takes shape!

After two months of development with the intrepid and inspiring Year 9 team from the ASC at Lydiard Park Academy (see www.flickernet.net/mmm) – today the machine itself began to take shape. 

It will incorporate many of the experimental elements that have been explored –  today we added light sensing that is converted into sounds and sound waves.

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November 3, 2025
InFindingOut (IFO) / Space To Learn / Tech To Help (TTH)

March summary

A busy month:

The woodland is filled with Spring life – which in turn is inspiring pupils in Primary, Secondary and Alternative Provision contexts. 

Projects continue to be based on the monitoring of native species in their outdoor habitats in the Mountains of Mourne.

This takes place from within classrooms in and around Swindon.

The therapeutic benefits of live-linked learning, directly connected to the wild, are becoming increasingly evident – with engagement from otherwise reluctant pupils. This interest is being sustained and built upon each week.

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March 25, 2025
InFindingOut (IFO) / Space To Learn / Tech To Help (TTH)

Expressing how we feel through technology

The Avenue
The Clearing
Coding Skills 1
Developing facial expressions
Transmitting
Expressing via Micro:Bit

Thank you to everyone who attended the second ASK Woodland Coding event. This time we began by exploring ways to display and to transmit images with which to express our feelings, after which we created an environmental sensing machine. Full report here.

Click here for Event Reflections
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November 2, 2024
Space To Learn / Tech To Help (TTH)

ASK return to the woods!

Looking forward very much to Friday this week when we will be welcoming ASK back for their Space To Learn experience.

Six more children with their parents and carers will have the opportunity to build and code Micro:Bit devices that will help them to communicate what they are feeling as they explore the woodland of Mourne Park.

Heartfelt thanks to Meet & Code, in association with Digit<all>, for their kind support.

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October 30, 2024
RRC / Space To Learn / Tech To Help (TTH) / tech_ventures

The Year Ahead

About Flickernet 25:

Supporting underprivileged young people

Assisting schools in the South West of England

 

Outdoor learning and remote sensing facilities  (Space To Learn), in Northern Ireland

Core principles:

We have a Christian ethos, seeking to meet the needs of those who face disadvantage by providing access to technology and the natural world: in combination

 

Pupil-led investigations and project-based learning ensure creative control for those who may not have experienced an open-ended learning approach before

Immersive experiences to help those who suffer from anxiety or who are in need of other mental health support, to benefit from the calming sensations of the woodland

Engagement with the natural environment from afar, with added agency due to the remote connectivity systems.

Therapeutics and mental health care, including for the neurodivergent: opportunities for technology and the woodland environment to be combined into new and effective therapy methods

Pupils of all ages are shown real projects that have been designed to help others, or the environment: this provides inspiration for their own projects (a link with more classroom info is here)

Teachers and home educators are encouraged to join their pupils in developing innovative methods of interacting remotely with the enivronment

Training for teachers, along with the physical space to explore new technologies, including support for their own innovative approaches to learning

Multiple live feeds from within an ancient woodland in the Mountains of Mourne, Northern Ireland provide real-time access to STEM experiments

Real data, drawn from sensors that are spread throughout an area of special scientific interest (ASSI) inspire learners to develop their own projects which, in turn, can be physically located within the same woodland for them to monitor.

For more information about our 2025 wellbeing focus please click here

In 2025 our focus on the wellbeing of young people is the main Flickernet offering. 

InFindingOut:  

  • designed to encourage engagement with learning
  • starts with the individual needs of the young person.
  • for anybody who finds themselves disengaged, overcome with anxiety or otherwise prevented from doing their best in school.

Our combination of therapeutic woodland experience and cutting edge STEM experimentation, provides young people and their teachers with a new outlook.

We aim is to deliver this for free by partnering with organisations who seek to support the growing mental health challenges that are encountered by young people today.

InFindingOut: Complete Guide

Space To Learn: providing unique environmental connections and therapeutics.

Quick guide to the Woodland Receiving Hub

There follows a blog which it is hoped can be helpful in charting the journey that Flickernet, (mainly Phillip Anley!), has taken. Having taught full time in schools from 2005, Phillip has been working independently again through Flickernet Ltd. since 2022. Phillip is also a Director of Digital Writes CIC and of Mourne Country Park Ltd. Phillip divides his time between England and Northern Ireland.

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August 16, 2024
Tech To Help (TTH) / tech_ventures

Do you bloviate?

Just one month to go until the first Bloviator debate! Free and open to all – if you enjoy debating but haven’t had much of an opportunity to construct a well-reasoned argument in front of a Chairperson for some time – then please consider joining us on the 23rd February. Full details here: www.flickernet.net/debate

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January 23, 2024
ARC / Digital Writes / Resources / Robotics / RRC / Tech To Help (TTH)

Robot Racing Club

Delighted to announce the start of RRC -with the ever-wonderful St Mary’s Primary School! We are currently exploring which kit works best, and hoping to develop this new club in support of neurodivergent pupils soon. Thank you to Colm and the team for providing every opportunity to explore new technologies with his wonderful class – from Unity-built gaming to the upcoming WatchBox – these pupils are pioneers!

www.flickernet.net/rrc

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November 27, 2023
Resources / Tech To Help (TTH)

Trilled

Thank you Francesca for featuring my recycling blog (Jumpstart The Junk) on TrilbyTV.

Having been recently introduced to Simon from the inspirational Green Machine – I am keen to continue exploring ways in which to bring old tech to life! There are so many people in need of repaired or repurposed technology – e-waste is avoided when it can still function as a valuable tool.

Conduct & code – Ways to repurpose tech in the classroom
TrilbyTV blog
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October 18, 2023
Digital Writes / Tech To Help (TTH) / tech_ventures

Tech To Help.charity

It is with great excitement that we are launching a new project which brings together the common threads of Physical Computing, Project Based Learning and a desire to see technology put to use helping those who most need it.

Along with my colleague Keith Phillips, founder of Digital Writes, I am exploring the possibility of creating a new charity, which would be called Tech To Help. This will seek to find new ways of directing the limitless creativity and enthusiasm of Primary school children to design and build real-world solutions that help people who are facing disadvantage. The site page is here – it is a work in progress!

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October 6, 2023
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.

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September 10, 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.

www.flickernet.net/phoenix

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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/review

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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.

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June 7, 2023

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