New online courses open today!
We have three new, free, online courses for you to sign up for, as part of the NCCE's Computer Science Accelerator Programme:
Get your tickets for Coolest Projects UK
Our event on 2 March in Manchester includes TV and YouTube presenters Greg Foot and Maddie Moate, vintage gaming consoles, and a galaxy of maker projects from some of Britain's brightest young innovators. And educators get in free with the discount code 'coolestprojects'!
"I am a Computer Science teacher currently working with Y7–13 at a school in Essex, and I am passionate about my subject because it's at the forefront of technology and job opportunities in this country. I was lucky enough to be accepted on a placement at IBM, learning about Watson and the world of artificial intelligence, and to be able to take my students on a visit to Google DeepMind organised by the Royal Society. The Royal Society also organised a number of talks on AI which gave me the chance to listen to some amazing people, especially Dr Vivienne Ming, who has become one of my idols. I really enjoy inspiring my students with details of these innovations so that they too can see what doors computing can open for them."
"I attended Picademy at the National Space Centre in Leicester, where the presenters were very knowledgeable and supportive. An introduction was given by Dr Sue Sentence, who is a true expert in computer science pedagogy. The course showed me new ways to teach the theoretical elements of computer science using physical computing, so now interrupts, scheduling, networks, binary arithmetic, and computer logic are regular features of my lessons."
"I was also fortunate to be invited to take part in Raspberry Pi’s first-ever live teacher training session on object-oriented programming. Teachers from all over the world attended this fantastic event, and I discovered new high-quality teaching resources and enjoyed swapping ideas with other teachers on innovative ways to teach computer science."
"I truly believe that with the help of organisations like the Raspberry Pi Foundation and the British Computing Society, computer science can thrive in this country and beyond."
James Spencer is a teacher and Raspberry Pi Certified Educator. Connect with him on Twitter to start a conversation.
One month left to get your message into space!
Astro Pi Mission Zero offers students and young people the chance to have their code run in space on the ISS: to take part, teams write a simple program to display a message to astronauts aboard the space station. The mission is open to all young people up to 14 years of age in an ESA member or associate member state. All the resources you need are available in all 20 official ESA languages, and over 2500 teams have already submitted their programs for this year's Astro Pi Mission Zero.
You have until 20 March to take part — head to the Astro Pi website now to get involved.
Projects
Do you have the speedy reactions needed to be an Astronaut? Create our Astronaut reaction time game in Scratch to find out!
