I love teaching Computational Thinking, in so many ways, it’s almost not computing but at the same time it is complete pure computing- thinking like a computer! These thinking skills can be so useful in a variety of subject and in all walks of life and they can be so enjoyable for your class. Computational Thinking is also important for a child’s computing diet at school as the Programme of Study shows:

Computing Curriculum Purpose of study

  • A high-quality computing education equips pupils to use computational thinking and creativity to understand and change the world.
  • The core of computing is computer science, in which pupils are taught the principles of information and computation, how digital systems work, and how to put this knowledge to use through programming.

One of my favourites to do with children is Abstraction, and I have covered how this could be done here. Recently, I’ve been thinking how this could be done with Apple Software as so many schools and children are familiar with and are enjoying using iPads. Also,  wanted to look at a simple and cheap way of doing this for schools and I have found it with Keynote.

What is it?

Through the process of abstraction, a programmer hides all but the relevant data about an object in order to reduce complexity and increase efficiency (Margaret Rouse, Tech Target, 2018).

Why?

This is a nice, simple activity to teach part of Computing Curriculum, children’s understanding of computational thinking and how I.T works is believed to be the most under taught part of the computing curriculum and this can be helped by enjoyable and engaging activities like this.

The idea

Last Christmas I got a book called Film in Five Seconds, the book is a bit like a quiz book where you have to try and guess the film from an icon set version of the film’s plot. Each film has had the key parts of the plot analysed and then been made into an eye-catching infographic, this was the idea behind design studio H-57, who are based in Milan (all rights reserved to Matteo Civaschi and Gianmarco Milesi, the book is available at https://www.amazon.co.uk/Film-Five-Seconds-Great-Moments-ebook/dp/B00EDOBZI0)

Book Cover

How

Keynote has the ability to add icons directly in the app, no app smashing required, don’t get me wrong I love app smashing but it does help to keep things simple. I’ve made a full video on how I made my Film plot picture (Cinegraphic). I chose to make mine from a small portion of Harry Potter, when Voldemort visits the Potters at Godric’s Hollow.

Cinegraphics are very interesting to make and the good thing is this activity would work from EYFS to KS4, just adapt the film/book and add complexity to the graphic.

 

Thanks for Reading,

Adam

@_geekyteacher