Suggested itineraries

Some workshops are more introductory and others are more challenging. Here we describe some suggested itineraries that demonstrate how to build knowledge. Each workshop stands on its own, but there are some which make more natural starting places than others.

Each dish in a tapas restaurant can be eaten on its own, but some go very well together. Some are natural starters (a dish of olives), and some you might have after the main meal (chocolate pudding). This section gives a few example menus, which are suggested "servings".

Scratch itinerary

1. One hour with Scratch
2. Discover your country with Scratch
3. Poetry animation with Scratch
4. Simple scratch quizzes

This itinerary moves through several Scratch activities, incorporating more challenging ideas. If you are already familiar with Scratch, feel free to skip number 1.

Artificial Intelligence itinerary

1. Exploring Artificial Intelligence
2. Introduction to Arduinos: Blinking LEDs
3. Moving a robot around with Arduino robots

This itinerary starts with a discussion of what artificial intelligence is, and how intelligent we might expect computers to be. This first workshop requires no coding skills. We follow this with a workshop to introduce coding and actually program an Arduino that turns lights on and off. We can then discuss how much human intelligence goes into making this, and whether this behaviour is computational intelligence or just rule-following. Finally, we build some moving robots, which can seem really intelligent, because they can follow a track without assistance.

Maths itinerary

1. Scratching the surface of mathematics
2. Geometry with Scratch
3. Making a clock in Scratch

This itinerary demonstrates how different workshops can be embedded into a mathematics curriculum. The material in these workshops will allow children to explore computational ideas and also learn about mathematics. The first workshop introduces Scratch and the topic of mathematical operators (+, -, x, etc.). The next workshop builds on their Scratch knowledge. It encourages the children to take photos of items in their classroom, load the photos into Scratch and trace paths around the geometric shapes in the photos. In the process they will learn about angles (in squares, rectangles, triangles, etc.). Finally they progress to a workshop using Scratch and angles to build a clock.

Geography itinerary

1. Discover your country with Scratch
2. Talking about the weather with Scratch
3. Introduction to HTML: Hacking Google

This itinerary demonstrates how to embed these workshops into Geography classes. The first workshop uses very basic Scratch ideas to allow the children to talk about their country (or their town, or their area). The second workshop is a coding activity with Scratch that aims to teach vocabulary items, especially about weather and free time activities. The final workshop challenges the children further by introducing HTML. They will be able to make a web page that can load a weather forecast, provided online. This can lead to a discussion about linking the world's geographical information through computing to provide news about their local area/town/country. How does their region compare to others in the world?