Computing Education

Following the launch of the low cost Raspberry Pi, there has been significant discussion on how schools are failing students in provision of IT education.

There should be less focus on gadgets and more on creativity, says Cathy Cross MBCS, Creative Director of 4D creative.

Jon G. Hall and Lucia Rapanotti from the Department of Computing, The Open University, discuss the teaching of computing in schools.

The Computing at School Working Group recognises that computer science and information technology are disciplines within computing that, like maths or history, every pupil should meet at school. The purpose of this document is to describe and explain the content of computer science within the school curriculum.

Have you considered a career in security? Mike Westmacott MBCS CITP says the time is right

At BETT 2012, Michael Gove announced that schools will no longer be required to follow the National Curriculum Programme of Study for ICT, although ICT will remain compulsory right up to the end of Key Stage 4. This announcement leaves a vacuum that begs the following question: if schools and other learning providers are not going to follow the existing curriculum, what should they follow? This document lays out a framework for the answer to that question.

Sometime in the early 1980s computers appeared in UK schools and a generation of children were taught how to program them. That generation grew up to make the UK a world leader in computer related technologies. Today the picture is very different: with the best of intentions, we have lost the 'how it works' part, in favour of 'how to use it'.There is a growing recognition that this loss is to the detriment both of our young people’s education and of our nation’s prosperity. This briefing note, intended for Governors and Senior Management Teams, provides a basis for a strategic debate about reform of the ICT curriculum.

Imagine the research processes of a scholar specialising in Jane Austen. What do their day to day methodologies entail? Melisssa Terras MBCS introduces digital humanities.

We all know that digital literacy is vital in the modern world, but are we making sure our next generation of researchers and academics, the innovators that will produce the UK’s valuable digital intellectual property of the future, are being looked after too?

We all know that digital literacy is vital in the modern world, but are we making sure our next generation of researchers and academics, the innovators that will produce the UK’s valuable digital intellectual property of the future, are being looked after too?

We all know that digital literacy is vital in the modern world, but are we making sure our next generation of researchers and academics, the innovators that will produce the UK’s valuable digital intellectual property of the future, are being looked after too?

Ian Cox, CIO at May Gurney and finalist in the CIO of the Year category of the 2011 UK IT Industry Awards, speaks to BCS about his career and the achievement that has brought him this far.

Mark Bramwell, CIO at the Wellcome Trust and finalist in the CIO of the Year category of the 2011 UK IT Industry Awards, speaks to BCS about his career and the achievement that has brought him this far.

James Thomas, CIO at UCLH and finalist in the CIO of the Year category of the 2011 UK IT Industry Awards, speaks to BCS about his career and the achievement that has brought him this far.

Phil Pavitt, CIO at HMRC and finalist in the CIO of the Year category of the 2011 UK IT Industry Awards, speaks to BCS about his career and the achievement that has brought him this far.

Rob Fraser, CIO at Sainsbury's and winner of the CIO of the Year category of the 2011 UK IT Industry Awards, speaks to BCS about his career and the achievement that has brought him this far.

Maggie Philbin, the radio and TV presenter, is the co-founder of TeenTech, a roadshow that showcases science and technology careers for young people. In this interview, she speaks about TeenTech and working with BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT

Many of the fundamental ideas of computer science have been invented, explored and discussed by leading philosophers and logicians, long before computers were invented (by logicians, of course). This presentation by Tony Hoare, Microsoft Research, looks at the ideas of philosophers and logicians such as Aristotle, Euclid, St. Thomas Aquinas, William of Ockham, Leibnitz, George Boole, and of course Alan Turing, and explains their relevance to computing of the present day.

Complex problems require creative solutions – but how do people learn to think and act creatively? In this presentation, Karen Brennan shares the work that is being done in the Lifelong Kindergarten research group at the MIT Media Lab to design technologies and environments that enable everybody (particularly young people) to develop as creative thinkers.

"Much of the ICT world is geared towards doing things faster, cheaper and at unimaginable scales. But occasionally a technology comes along that dramatically changes the world and the way we think about it. Examples include encryption, Google search and Hawk-Eye sports technology. This talk demonstrates, by example, how these technologies, and the stories behind them, can be used to educate and motivate secondary students.

Computers and brains are both information processing systems, but they work on very different principles. Computers have progressed very rapidly since the Manchester 'Baby' ran the world’s first program in June 1948, but there are limits to how long this rapid progress can continue as we approach physical limits. Perhaps there are things we could learn from the brain that might enable us to improve the capabilities of computers, if only we knew how brains actually work?