Slideshow from my 'Putting control into K33 projects' workshop at the Design and Technology Association's Summer School, on Friday 10th July 2015

2. Putting control into K33 projects
IET Programmable Components

3. KS3 scheme of work – www.data.org.uk
• Funded by the IET (FREE!)
• Designed by the D&T Association
• Year 7, 8 and 9 units of work
• Tried and tested
• Variety of strategies
• High quality resources

4. https://www.data.org.uk/resource-shop/secondary/11-
to-14-years/programmable-components-celebrations/

5. https://www.data.org.uk/resource-shop/secondary/11-
to-14-years/programmable-components-multi-light-
and-coin-operated-charity-box/

6. https://www.data.org.uk/resource-shop/secondary/11-
to-14-years/programmable-components-all-in-a-spin/

7. Principles
Engaging outcomes
Confident practitioner
Up close and personal
Reverse pedagogy
Spiral curriculum

8. Engaging outcomes
• Authentic products
• Take home factor
• Subversive
learning

9. Confident practitioner
• Most of it is in your
mind!
• Start small, think
big
• Practice makes
perfect – have a
project on the go

10. Up close and personal
• Make the invisible visible – models (inc.
analogies and similes) are ‘convenient
lies’, but useful nonetheless
• Make sure pupils can see what you see –
e.g. visualiser, video, images, etc.

11. Reverse pedagogy
• Start with a ‘black
box’
• Frontloading is
okay, but can turn
beginners off
• Quick wins leading
to long gains

12. Spiral curriculum
• Build on the
foundations
• Whole Key Stage
• Revisit, expend
and extend
• Expansive and
restrictive – a
balanced
curriculum

13. Design and technology activity
mainly
designing
exploring
technology
in society
mainly
making
designing
and
making

14. Expansive / restrictive curriculum
restrictive expansive

15. TYPES OF ACTIVITIES AND
PEDAGOGIES…
An effective school curriculum has a variety of…

16. What’s current…
…in programmable components

17. Microcontrollers
Designed for schools:
• PICAXE www.picaxe.com - open source community
• Genie www.genieonline.com - learning package
Designed for industry:
• Arduino www.arduino.cc - large community
• Mbed https://mbed.org - cloud programming

18. What’s new and up and coming…
…in programmable components

19. Crumble
“The Crumble is an easy-to-
use programmable
controller. It can drive 2
motors forwards and
backwards at variable
speeds. It has 4 IO
(Input/Output) pads which
allow connections to
switches, LDRs, low power
LEDs and so on…”
• uses a Scratch-like
interface
http://redfernelectronics.co.uk/crumble/

20. Particle Photon
“The Photon is a $19 tiny
Wi-Fi development kit for
creating connected projects
and products for the Internet
of Things. It's easy to use,
it's powerful, and it's
connected to the cloud…”
https://www.particle.io

22. Teaching electronics and control
• Resources:
– Soldering irons (1 each if possible)
– Off the shelf or in-house printed circuit board?
• Models:
– Flow of current ≠ flow of water (but is similar)
– Role play:
• acting electron paths in series and parallel circuits
• ‘I, Teacher’: programming instructions