10 ways to make Computing interesting

The way some people describe Computing makes it sound (let's be honest here) dead boring. The subject gets reduced, in effect, to 'coding'. That's about as exciting as reducing English Literature to 'reading and writing'. It's an accurate description – as far as it goes. But it doesn't even begin to describe what the subject is all about, or why anyone would wish to bother with it.

Questions

A good place to start, then, is with a question: what is the problem you're trying to solve? That will lead on to other questions, such as: is programming the key to a solution? If so, what does the program need to do? How should it do it? Why?

When it comes to thinking of challenging questions, you could do a lot worse than consult Jamie McKenzie's Questioning Toolkit, which you will find at http://bit.ly/tsQuestions. It is not geared specifically to Computing, but despite that, and despite being over 20 years old, it is extremely useful.

It's divided into a number of sections, such as Unanswerable Questions, Essential Questions and Probing Questions. Read through them, and you'll soon be drafting your own, Computing-related, questions with which to kick off a class discussion or start the kids off on a research project.

Talking to lamp posts

A few years ago, a company called Pan Studio recognised that every item of street furniture has a number. That number is held in a database, and can be communicated with via text messaging. They got people to text lamp posts, which appeared to respond, via text, although in fact the responses were randomly generated.

Have a look at a short video about the 'Hello Lamp Post' project here:

So what does this have to do with Computing? Two things.

First, as part of a recruitment campaign. It shows that Computing can be more fun, and appeal to more kinds of people, than most people think.

Secondly, it ought to suggest some ideas for investigation by your students, along the lines of: how can we make our school environment more interactive? How might programming help?

Project-based learning

If we amalgamate the ideas of questioning and Hello Lamp Post, we arrive at the idea of project-based learning. Set the students a question that cannot be answered easily, or even get them to identify an issue for themselves. Then give them time to work on a solution in small teams.

This approach tends to involve several activities, such as research, analysis and prototyping.

Get real

As hinted at above, if you want to really hook students, get them working on authentic projects.

You and your students can look for ideas all around you, starting with school-based issues like 'how can we improve attendance at parents' evenings?'.

Go international

If you really want to make an impact in terms of student engagement, why not create projects that involve working with schools in other countries? The students will gain experience in working with people from other cultures, and of useful skills like Zoom conversations and co-ordination (especially if the time zones involved are several hours apart). Build in a requirement for the students to make a 5 minute video about their findings, and you'll have an archive for future use.

To whet your appetite for such an undertaking, read about an international project focused on innovation, at http://bit.ly/tsNatGeo. The scale of that is far beyond the resources of any one school, but it will give you a flavour of the benefits.

If launching into an international project is too difficult at the moment, experiment on a small scale by partnering with another school in the same local authority or multi-academy trust.

Go local

At the other end of the scale, go very local. What might be improved in your local area, and how might computing help?

If you're stumped for ideas, then get your students working on it, and if they  can't think of anything take a look at the ideas featured in the Apps4Good showcase.

Focus on something useless but fun

Having espoused the benefits of realism, I should point out that there is much to be said for doing the opposite. A good starting point here is the  Computer Science for Fun website at http://www.cs4fn.org/. Look in the magazines archive for a wealth of great ideas involving puzzles, magic tricks and more.

Self-referential

Someone has created a JavaScript game in which the game itself changes as you change the code it's based on. It's called Untrusted, and you can find it at http://bit.ly/tsuntrusted.  

Could you do something similar in Python? How about setting that as a challenge for your students?

Robots

If you're interested in combining 'making' with programming, robotics is an interesting idea to explore. The robots don't have to look like people, For example, it could be a robot arm. There are plenty of kits out there if you have the time to explore and the money to buy.

An advantage of robotics is that everyone is talking about robots, bots and artificial intelligence these days, so it's highly topical and relevant. Another advantage is that it becomes immediately obvious whether your code has worked or not.

Drones

Finally, if you really want to be on the cutting edge, look into teaching with drones. Thast will involve not only ordinary coding, but other areas such as GPS. Students will also need to be aware of what they are and are not allowed to do, so plenty of research will be necessary.

There's a book about using drones in education, which is good but pertains to the USA scene in terms of legalities. There are UK websites that contain the relevant information. Read more at http://bit.ly/tsdrones.

Conclusion

There really is no need at all for the Computing curriculum to be boring. By adopting some of these ideas, you can help to erase the perception that it's boring as well.

Terry Freedman is a freelance consultant, trainer and writer. He publishes the ICT & Computing in Education website at www.ictineducation.org