From Wednesday this week the BBC will release a free Dr Who themed game to help teach computer coding. Since September, the start of the school year, computer programming has been a compulsory subject for all 5 to 14 year-olds in English schools. "The Doctor and The Dalek" aims to support this learning for 6 to 12 year-olds. Initially there will only be a desktop browser based version with tablet and cellphone versions to come.
The BBC's Mission is:
To enrich people's lives with programmes and services that inform, educate and entertain.
Shows for schools started over 90 years ago before the BBC became a Corporation (1927). Initially the radio programmes were only available on the British Broadcasting
Company's 2LO network. Television programming for schools started on what was then the BBC's only channel in 1957. In 1965 it started broadcasting programmes from
the Open University as part of their distance learning courses.
Along with the schools' broadcasts, the BBC provides teachers' notes free of charge so schools can integrate the programmes into their teaching schedule. The BBC has moved
to make most of this programming non-linear. Initially VHS recorders meant that the transmission times could be moved to overnight and lately more has been moved to downloads. podcasts or distributed via DVD. Many documentaries shown as part of the ordinary evening schedule are produced in co-operation with the Open University which offers free wall charts and booklets to supplement the broadcasts.
The BBC also has a history of supporting computer literacy.
During the early 1980s, the BBC started what became known as the BBC Computer Literacy Project. The project was initiated partly in response to an ITV documentary series The Mighty Micro, in which Dr Christopher Evans of the UK's National Physical Laboratory predicted the coming microcomputer revolution and its effect on the economy, industry, and lifestyle of the United Kingdom.
The BBC wanted to base its project on a microcomputer capable of performing various tasks which they could then demonstrate in their 1982 TV series The Computer Programme. The list of topics included programming, graphics, sound and music, teletext, controlling external hardware and artificial intelligence. It decided to adopt a microcomputer brand, then developed a fairly ambitious (for its time) specification and asked for takers. The BBC discussed the requirement with several companies, including Sinclair Research, Newbury Laboratories, Tangerine Computer Systems, Dragon Data and Acorn Computers.
The chosen computer was essentially Acorn's Proton computer, its successor to its Atom. The £235 "BBC Micro" was notable for its expandability and ruggedness, an essential feature for its use in schools. Programs were intitially stored on audio cassette tape although external floppy disc drives became available shortly after launch in 1981. Acorn went on to develop RISC architecture and changed its name to ARM Holdings. Today it markets its designs to makers of "computers on a chip" for embedding in devices. Your cellphone almost certainly has an ARM chip. In 2013, its operating revenue was over US$ 1.1 billion.
Sinclair Research already had an established market in home computers with their ZX80 and ZX81 micro computers. These were manufactured by Timex in Scotland and were marketed under the Timex brand name in the USA. They had flat membrane keyboards. Their prototype designs for the BBC included a rubber keyboard overlay to the membrane and, importantly, color output. They marketed it as the ZX Spectrum. This became a more popular choice than the BBC Micro for home use because of its price, £99. Sir Clive Sinclair later sold the company to Alan Sugar's AMSTrad company which continued to develop them and lost its way when attempting to market dedicated word processors using the CP/M operating system.
While many were happy to stick to pre-written programs, others moved on to writing their own and getting to know machine code rather than using a programming language. The result was a cohort of highly knowledgeable computer program writers who helped found the games industry that provides the basis of an important sector for the UK economy today. The "Grand Theft Auto" series being a significant export earner. In 2012, the IT, software and computer services sector produced exports of £7.2 billion (US$11.8 billion)
In the "noughties" computer education in most British schools became focused on the practical use of computers rather than programming. There were concerns in both educational and political circles that this would threaten the skills base of the country. A new curriculum was developed in cooperation with companies and institutions in the IT industry.
The education secretary (at the time), Michael Gove, outlined the political rationale for the changes in a speech this January:
“ICT used to focus purely on computer literacy – teaching pupils, over and over again, how to word-process, how to work a spreadsheet, how to use programs already creaking into obsolescence; about as much use as teaching children to send a telex or travel in a zeppelin.
Our new curriculum teaches children computer science, information technology and digital literacy: teaching them how to code,and how to create their own programs; not just how to work a computer, but how a computer works and how to make it work for you.”
This plays directly in to the complaints of technology companies that the UK has not been producing enough graduates qualified to fill vacancies. Microsoft and Google, along with BCS and its Computing at School working group, and the Royal Academy of Engineering were all involved in the new curriculum.
http://www.theguardian.com/....
Compulsory eduction in England is currently between the ages of 5 and 16 although many "primary" schools have "early years" classes that can enroll pupils from around age three and a half. "Primary" schools educate up to age 11 and "Secondary" from 11 to 16. Tertiary education from 16 to 18 can be either in the secondary school ("6th forms") or at further education colleges. From 5 to 16, teaching is split into four "Key Stages" (KS) KS1 and 2 cover ages 5-6 and 7-11, some area divide schools teaching these age groups into "Infants" and "Junior" schools. KS3 covers ages 11-14 when pupils start to study for national examinations (GCSEs) in individual subjects rather than a single curriculum. Each Key Stage has a number of attainment targets which the pupils should achieve at the end of their studies. For Computing, the targets for KS1 (5-6 year olds) are to:
understand what algorithms are, how they are implemented as programs on digital devices, and that programs execute by following precise and unambiguous instructions
create and debug simple programs
use logical reasoning to predict the behaviour of simple programs
use technology purposefully to create, organise, store, manipulate and retrieve digital content
recognise common uses of information technology beyond school
use technology safely and respectfully, keeping personal information private; identify where to go for help and support when they have concerns about content or contact on the internet or other online technologies
These skills can be imparted in a number of ways besides "computer class". The understanding of instruction sets is equally applicable to following food recipes for example.
The BBC's support for this new direction for computing education is not limited to the game.
The Doctor and the Dalek is part of a wider project at the BBC called Make it Digital, which will be the broadcaster’s big educational initiative in 2015, following on from its focus on the first world war in 2014.
Besides the new Doctor Who game, the corporation has already launched a series of “Bitesize” guides tied to the new computing curriculum, and revealed plans for new shows Appsolute Genius, Technobabble and Nina and the Neurons: Go Digital on its CBBC and CBeebies children’s TV channels.
“Tony Hall, the Director-General, said that in 2015 he wanted to get a new generation to get creative with coding,” Jessica Cecil, the BBC’s controller for Make it Digital, told The Guardian. “We’ve gone away and thought ‘what can the BBC do in an area where there are some incredible initiatives already?’ The first is to inspire, because what we do best is tell stories. Secondly, we can attempt to shine a spotlight on the wonderful world of what people are doing with technology.”
The renewed emphasis on learning programming is of course also not particularly new. It was the inspiration behind the production of the
Raspberry Pi. With schools and the major broadcaster on board, there should be a positive future for the children lucky enough to be taught understanding of how computers work and are able to manipulate them.