Display: Bits and Bytes

In the computer lab we are lucky to have a large, prominent display board. Sometimes it can be a challenge knowing what to put there, and I most recently had student work displayed. With the start of term 3 I decided to spruce things up a bit. This has been a display that I've been wanting to set up for a long time but I finally had all of the parts together to make it work. During the past year the IT technicians have been amazing at keeping outdated and broken bits of hardware aside for me. This is the result:

Bits and Bytes - hardware display

The first challenge was figuring out how to hang the keyboard. Luckily, there is a nail embedded in the wooden frame of the board, and after I wrapped the keyboard cable around it, it managed to hold the weight. The motherboard was also a tricky shape to hang, some of my colleagues suggested a 'picture-frame' arrangement which turned out great. The rest of the bits and bobs secured easily to the cork backing, mostly with drawing pins. 

Parts of the Computer

The display has already drawn curious eyes, especially thanks to the pop-out nature of all the physical pieces. The colourful yellow labels really livened up the place, too. I'm proud of the monitor that I'm created from a screenshot of a student's desktop and some recycled black-printed paper. 

What the display board looks like in the lab.

 I've left a bit of space to the right of the display, in case I'm able to track down a pair of worn-out speakers, earphones or headphones. I've had senior primary boys ask what some of the bits and pieces are. What's a floppy disc? I consider this display a great success.

Game Review: Everybody's Gone to the Rapture

Game Review: Everybody's Gone to the Rapture
Developers: The Chinese Room

Welcome to Yaughton.

As someone who grew up in the UK, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture feels just like being in a Real English Village. The train station with uniform signage. It always interested me as a child that no matter what train station you went to, they always looked the same. The rainy caravan camp with scheduled activities. The pretty surroundings filled with people with insular, close-minded views. Two pubs and a church within walking distance but not a whole lot else going on. The Keeping Up Appearances houses, complete with slim white telephones. People still being considered outsiders or 'blow-ins' because they've only been living there for 1 or 2 generations... I've had authentic experiences of pretty much all of these things!

Hop on the train to Yaughton

The main story is a good scene-setter, there is a big ominous observatory near the village and we experience events surrounding two of the scientists that work there. It's a pretty straightforward sci-fi plot, and I'll always root for a decent sci-fi story. The real enjoyment for me, though, came from piecing together the inhabitants of the village, their relationships with each other and their trials and tribulations. Despite it being set in a different decade, I was often reminded of J.K. Rowling's adult book, The Casual Vacancy. Both this game and Rowling's novel are character studies, where you slowly figure out how everyone is interconnected. I really appreciate that gaming has come so far as to be compared with literature, even if it's only by me.

The voice acting and music are fantastic, especially given the limitation of not being able to see the characters - all the character interaction that we experience is in flashback. Without even seeing Wendy I could start to picture her as an old, interfering biddy the longer that I listened to her voice. Rhys and Rachel stood out as those rare younger folk of the village and I enjoyed their side-story immensely. They have some great choral music that seems to play along with appropriate story triggers, the music elevates certain important scenes to make them quite poignant. The emphasis on audio to tell the story reminded me of the tradition of excellent radio plays, where the acting needs to be that good so that the listener can tell what's going on. On reflection, I actually listened to Rowling's The Casual Vacancy as an audio book, with an excellent narrator voicing the characters. This is why EGttR and that novel both mirror these themes for me. Kudos to the voice artists and sound team, they really made the game a cut above the rest.

There is a fine old windmill on the hill overlooking Appleton's Farm.

Glowing balls of light

You are shown around the village by a moving, glowing ball of light, which was problematic at times. At one stage my ball of light got stuck in a hedge, leaving me on my own to hopefully trigger the right story-sequences, which are proximity-based. In the final section all of the voice-notes that were supposed to trigger just didn't, leaving the whole thing far more eerie (to be fair, I didn't realise there was supposed to be commentary on what I was seeing until reading forums after but I would have preferred the full experience). In certain sections I wandered around fine and hit the correct story beats, but in one or two places I sadly had to resort to a guide to complete that area's story. Adding some mechanical, game-y elements like objectives, a mini-map or waypoints certainly would have reduced my confusion. Unfortunately, doing this would probably have taken away from the mystical element of the glowing orbs.

The picturesque village and surrounds are absolutely beautiful. I was going to just grab some screenshots available online to demonstrate this but the idea of jumping back in to the game to take my own was exciting! For anyone that really enjoys taking an in-game walk and seeing the sights, EGttR has corn fields, shady forests, windy footpaths and more for you to explore. Gaming tourism at it's finest. If you have a decent rig then the game will be even more stunning, I was only able to play on lowish settings.

Stop by the village church.

Walking simulators?

Walking simulators is the label given, sometimes disparagingly, to games like Everybody Goes to the Rapture. The aim of the game is, yes, to walk around. You stroll around the game and interact with things, usually such as books or audio recordings, which helps unfold a story about the place that you are exploring. You don't get a weapon, which in a first-person video game is near-standard. You don't even get to jump or run very fast. Wikipedia calls EGttR a first-person adventure art game, which is a more appropriate moniker.

Some gamers turn up their noses at the 'art' tagline, saying that games that are trying to be art are pretentious:

"Games are supposed to be fun!" 
"There's supposed to be enemies!" 
"You're supposed to shoot things!" 
"You're supposed to level up!" 

Some of these statements I've found to be less true than others. As someone who rates narrative as the top thing I care about in a game, walking simulators are fantastic. I found that wombling around Yaughton and piecing together a narrative quite fun. If you're the kind of gamer that wouldn't enjoy that, well, just keep on walking.

As someone who has become a fan of of walking simulators, EGttR was unfortunately more like a crawling simulator. The walking speed is incredibly slow. The devs have released a post explaining that there was actually a run button, which I hugely appreciate them writing - it had been forgotten to be emphasised at release, causing some reviewers to really slam the game. Even with the run button, though, I found the default speed entirely too slow. To run you have to hold the key down which becomes tiresome. I understand the developers not wanting anyone to ruin the experience by bunny-hopping around the idyllic English countryside, as we tend to do in first-person titles, but I had to resort to using Cheat Engine to change the movement vales to something a bit less lethargic. They do prevent you running near important story areas, which I respect, in order to make sure you aren't missing anything.

Barbara will be able to help you at the surgery.

So why bother?

How is playing this game better than reading a book or watching a movie with the same premise? This is a common criticism leveled at walking simulators, and I think it's a genre that game developers are getting better and better at exploring. During my own play-through I did grumble about the shortfalls above, but I have now gone on to write this quite robust review. The game made an impact on me. Despite some mechanical reservations, I really enjoyed my time with EGttR. The atmosphere was unique and authentic. When I stepped into the access tunnel near the end, I could almost smell the rainy, cold smell of a similar place from my childhood. I just wish that you could explore more of it - some of the houses are explorable but some are not, leading to some time wasting.

The train station for Yaughton and Tipworth.

I suggest you play Everybody's Gone to the Rapture if you want to be immersed in the sights and sounds of a trip to the 1980's village of Yaughton. Don't forget to pack your wellies.

Google Certified Educator Level 1

As of today, I'm officially a Google Certified Educator Level 1!

Thanks to my PLN

I discovered the Google certification through my fantastic global PLN (Professional Learning Network) colleagues on Twitter. Earlier this term I began a conscious effort, inspired by the podcaster Chris Nessi and his show House of Ed Tech to improve my professional development. I've had a Twitter account for years but only in the last few months I've started to use hashtags and follow edu-chats. Prior to this I considered Twitter a 'soapbox' platform, but some time and attention has proved that there is some great learning spaces there. I love seeing what teachers are doing and thinking all over the world, and Twitter has been the vehicle to help me digitally meet other educators who are passionate about the same things as I am.

What you need to know about Google Certified Educator Level 1

A quick Google (ha) will reveal that the test-takers are asked to sign an NDA so I can't tell you the exact details of what the exam was like. I admit that at first I under-estimated the difficulty of the test but after some time I figured out that Google are very thorough! I hugely appreciated the interactive, hands-on elements that you experience. The study material that Google provides is well-written and a great tool for professional development, I highly recommend going through it as it guides you through everything you need for the exam.

You will need a webcam as the exam relies on your live feed for proctoring. They do ask you to take a picture with it right before you start, claiming that it is for your certificate, but mine wasn't used for my certificate. I had brushed my hair and everything!

You will also need a stable internet connection. Despite having pretty good home internet for South Africa (10Mbps), the connectivity was a tad problematic. Once, after the connection dipped, the exam portal gave me the error that I was inputting answers for the wrong question! I solved this by closing the tab (despite the exam page protesting) and quickly opening it again. When the exam resumed I was in the right place with no harm done. Although this made my anxiety levels rise, it turned out to be a minor blip.

Overall, I enjoyed the process of studying for and taking the Google exam. I've had a look at the study materials for level 2 and it looks far more in-depth than level 1. Once I can get more experience using Google Apps for Education in the school setting then I think I'll be equipped to tackle level 2.

All official like.

Making Games in Scratch with Junior Primary

This post marks the end of an 11-week adventure. For the last couple of months I have been running a Coding Club for a group of 8 and 9 year olds. I wrote briefly about this in May but I thought that a more comprehensive wrap-up post would be fun for me and formative for you.

At our school we are lucky enough that each week we have some time set aside for Clubs. In club time our teachers host a variety of interesting, hobby clubs that our Grade 2s and 3s choose from voluntarily. It's a great exercise in student choice, that they don't have to choose an activity based just on what their friends are doing. We encourage them to choose an activity that is something that they personally would really like to do.

My eager bunch of coders had a mixed background - some had participated in Coding Club last term, some had taken part in the Hour of Code we did last year and some had never done any coding before. They were incredibly enthusiastic, particularly because I had framed our club around making games.

An example of some Scratch code created by one of my Gr 3 students.

All About Scratch

We used a freeware program called Scratch for our club. In case you haven't heard of it, Scratch is a hugely popular program where click-and-drag blocks are used to create instructions. It's very kid-friendly even though what you can create can get quite sophisticated. I had never learned coding before becoming a teacher and Scratch is a great introduction to the concepts behind coding, Coding has method and logic attached to it, and Scratch teaches that using method and logic can produce art, games, puzzles and even more. Coding has really become a type of 21st century literacy and Scratch propels that form of literacy forward.

CS First is a fantastic website that creates entire Scratch coding courses around themes. Our limited bandwidth means that I couldn't use the CS First built-in courses that function with the Scratch online site, so I used their course materials and an offline version of Scratch. Click here for instructions and links to what you need to get Scratch running offline. Our coding club was built around the great Gaming module on CS First. Each week I would take the group of students through a Scratch template projected on the board and demonstrate what coding blocks we would be using for that lesson. Then I let them loose on their desktops, sometimes in pairs or on their own depending on the activity.

This is what the Scratch platform looks like in action.

The Benefits of Using Scratch at a Junior Primary level:

I was incredibly impressed with the focus that this group of kids had. Despite their young ages, they managed to grasp the outcome of what I was steering them towards and really went for it. I learned along with them as we created:

• a racing game for two players
• a space-themed maze game
• a platform game where we had to program x/y co-ordinates (!)
• a bunch of other wacky and weird experiments

A sample of my students' creations.

The Challenges of using Scratch at a Junior Primary level:

There were very few challenges that we found. The offline version worked well and was very stable. 

Navigating file structures: We were able to save our projects into our local drives and retrieve them, and though some of my students still struggle with a Windows file structure we managed fine.

Reading: Literacy levels could be a barrier to enjoying Scratch because although the blocks are colour-coded the students still had to read the functions of the blocks. Using Scratch enhanced my students' vocabularies with words they were not using before like degrees, co-ordinates, sprite, percentage, function ... the list goes on! Coding was so fun that it was great motivation to tackle any tricky reading required.

Expectations: When explaining the concept of coding to my students, many wanted to immediately create Minecraft or Clash of Clans. It took a bit of work to get them to have realistic goals that they could achieve in a few sessions. Once they got the feeling of what they could do with Scratch, they regained their enthusiasm and really started to experiment.

Coding to create a magic spell!

At the end of our last session I awarded certificates to all of the students who took part. They received them with such genuine glee that it really made my day.

I would highly recommend Scratch for anyone who wants to introduce coding to primary-age children. It's offline client really saved us because so many amazing online tools are just not reliable for us yet due to our limited bandwidth. My students loved their creations and will now often choose to play on Scratch during free-time during IT time.

Site Recommendation: JigZone

I have a range of ages and abilities that visit my computer lab every day. It's always a challenge to provide the kids with engaging content due to our limited bandwidth. There is a website that I've used more and more this year and I'd like to tell you about it. Recently I've been adding JigZone as one of the approved websites that my students are allowed to visit. JigZone is a puzzle website which has large, varied categories including themed sections such as animals or sport.

Many themed puzzles keep the idea fresh.

 It's a great site because it loads relatively quickly and provides you with lots of options. The puzzles are available from 6 to 247 pieces. I use the 20 and 48 piece puzzles with my age 5 - 9 year old students. The kids become calm and focused when working on their puzzles, which is quite unusual for my computer lab! They often choose to work on puzzles in their free time and enjoy working on their own or in partners. I keep our school Symbaloo up to date with puzzles appropriate to their learning themes.

To keep things fresh, JigZone has a puzzle of the day and also a custom puzzle feature that I haven't tried out yet. Underneath the puzzle space is some statistics about how long you have taken compared to the average and the fastest time - I plan to introduce these to my students as they progress.

A screenshot of the puzzling interface on the JigZone website.

They have some ads on the puzzle page. The top ad is an unobtrusive banner but the bottom ad is a square video which autoplays and enlarges to a full-screen video advert when you mouse over it. For my young (and even older) students this is a huge temptation to play with. We constantly do talks about the purpose of advertising and remind our kids about our limited bandwidth, which means running a full-sized video ad is not the best idea. 

Despite the adverts, JigZone offers a great puzzling experience for my students.

Franschhoek Literary Festival: Winnie the Witch

My school is a stone's throw from the little town of Franschhoek. This is a most exciting week, as the Franschhoek Literary Festival is happening. A lucky off-shoot of that is that we get very exciting literary guests during the Literary Festival. Each grade gets a different author or illustrator who comes and talks to them. This year, one of the guests who will be visiting our Grade 1 class is Korky Paul, the illustrator of the Winnie the Witch books. Winnie the Witch is very popular here at Bridge House School, so we are all very excited to meet Korky Paul.

In IT this week, the Grade 1s got into the spirit of things by helping Winnie the Witch unravel some Witchy Words. I created an MS Publisher template that, when opened, looked like this:

A mixed-up magical mess.

I've put a download link at the bottom of the post if you would like to download the free the template.

Winnie the Witch, I explained to the kids, had sent us a message. The problem was, though, that her magic has mixed-up the words and made them all witchy. Their job was to use MS Publisher to untangle her message.

The Grade 1s had to click-and-drag the words around so that the four sentences made sense. We talked about clues that could help us figure out the sentence structure, such as capital letters and punctuation. We also talked about making sure our sentences were neat and tidy and no words were floating off in page. We got more familiar with the complexity of clicking-and-dragging in Publisher, especially use of the undo arrow to fix any strange mistakes. The students enjoyed the activity and were proud to print their finished product.

Some Witchy Words proudly on display in the JP IT Lab.

Explaining what our objective was.

A close-up of two of our fantastic pieces of work.

Click here to download the free Witchy Words .pub template (Dropbox).

Scratch: Racetrack

Second term is upon us here at Bridge House School. For our coding club, we have moved onto the ambitious task of coding games in Scratch. As themes go, gaming is the theme that is the most motivating for my students. I have 9 excited youngsters who are all eager to recreate Minecraft - I've had to sadly put things in perspective for them and explained that it might take years (!) to be able to make something as good as Minecraft.

For now, we are starting off with an excellent racing game template from CS First. Even though I'm not running my coding club through the CS First website, their resources and templates are invaluable. So far, my students are working on the following:

• Changing sprite costumes, using the built-in library
• Creating their own sprites
• Sprite movement using keyboard keys (forward movement as well as left / right turn)
• Altering the stage backgrounds to create their own race tracks
• Populating the track with decorative sprites who have text speech

A few groups have even figured out how to program keyboard keys to change backgrounds and racers between costumes. This is an enormous amount of learning in a couple of weeks. Next week I hope to tackle the exciting element of sound, if sprite 1 touches sprite 2 then a chosen sound will be played. The students are very excited about the idea of adding 'crash' sounds when a racer touches another. The finale will be to play each other's games - a true test of how 'good' their creation is.

As the race track has been set up to be a two-player game, I have asked them to try and work in pairs. This has been extremely effective - this age-group codes better in pairs because they are able to work on their problems out loud. They have a built-in person to discuss the code with and two sets of eyes to spot coding problems. The only slight downside is that we have an odd number in our club, so I have to encourage them to try out working as different pairs.

Once we get tired of the racing track idea we can try and move onto a maze game. All of the guides for these activities are included on CS First, so I highly recommend going through their material to see what interests you.

Our young coders get to grips with the race track using Scratch.