GReat Learning

Many students these days wish to games programmers. Pygame is a fabulous addition to the programming language Python used to write professional looking computer games. This tutorial was originally written as part of a training day I led for staff interested in using Pygame as part of their teaching or as part of a games programming club. The training day was very well received so I have adapted the materials to allow self tuition by staff. If you have an interest in Python programming you'

Many students these days wish to be games programmers. This booklet is the first in a series of four that teaches students the tool and techniques of object orientated programming required to become a beginner games programmer. In Project 1 students will use the programming language Python, along with its add-on Pygame, to write an object orientated game called Balloon Burst. The booklet covers: . object orientated programming theory . coding Balloon Burst (with full instructions) . extension

Make your lessons fun with Computational Thinking! Structured Query Language is a programming language used to manipulate information stored in databases. As with all programming languages the best way to learn its functions is through solving problems. In this series of fun worksheets (or possible homework sheets) are sets of problems that are solved by writing or interpreting SQL instructions. Students must either predict the output of SQL instructions or calculate the SQL that must have b

(Hi there. I am an experienced writer of resources who has written two Computing text books for the Scottish education system. My resources are always designed to be engaging and exciting. As a result they are used in thousands of schools all over the world.) At the end of my App Inventor unit (also available) I asked my students to create a phone app of their own. While most coped well with the task others required a bit more help. These three worksheets provide worked examples that can be

Many students these days wish to be games programmers. This booklet is the second in a series of four that teaches students the tool and techniques of object orientated programming required to become a beginner games programmer. In Project 2 students will use the programming language Python, along with its add-ons Pygame and NumPy, to write an object orientated game called Tile Match. The booklet covers: . object orientated programming theory (inheritance, lists vs arrays, stacks, queues and

This 72 page booklet is the second of three written to cover the process of creating a website from analysis to coding to evaluation. Booklet 2 is split into two parts and should take between 20 and 40 hours to complete depending on the coding proficiency of your students. 2A - Implementation Examples: This 48 page booklet gives worked examples of HTML, CSS and JavaScript code using a cycling website as a scenario. 2B - Implementation Tasks: This 24 page booklet contains 13 tasks by the end of w

This 18 page booklet is the third of three written to cover the process of creating a website from analysis to coding to evaluation. Booklet 3 takes students through how to comprehensively test a website for: - Usability - Navigation - Media - Forms A specially created "testing" version of the completed student cooking website is supplied for the tasks. This website has deliberately introduced errors which students are challenged to find in the tasks. Teacher notes are included listing the err

(Hi there. I am an experienced writer of resources who has written two Computing text books for the Scottish education system. My resources are always designed to be engaging and exciting. As a result they are used in thousands of schools all over the world.) This detailed database resource is an excellent introduction for students learning database theory and practical work. The resource focuses of improving problem solving skills, encouraging students to consider field design, validation,

(Hi there. I am an experienced writer of resources who has written two Computing text books for the Scottish education system. My resources are always designed to be engaging and exciting. As a result they are used in thousands of schools all over the world.) Previously downloaded over 40,000 times from other resources websites, this worksheet is an excellent introduction to Scratch. Scratch is a fantastic free program developed by MIT to teach programming concepts to young children. The wor

Make your lesson fun by introducing Computational Thinking! Structured Query Language is a programming language used to manipulate and extract information stored in databases. As with all programming languages the best way to learn its functions is through solving problems. In this series of fun worksheets (or possible homework sheets) are sets of problems that are solved by writing or interpreting SQL instructions. Students must either predict the output of SQL instructions or calculate the S

These exercises were written to solve that familiar problem of; “what homework do I give during practical lessons like programming?”. In this series of questions students are asked to consider small programming problems and design solutions using pseudocode or a programming language of their choice. Homeworks 1 to 5 includes questions on: - Input - Output - Conditional (if) Statements - Conditional Loops - Fixed Loops - Arrays - Calculations,(Len Function, Int Function & Power) Additional th

These exercises were written to solve that familiar problem of; “what homework do I give during practical lessons like programming?”. In this series of questions students are asked to consider small programming problems and design solutions using pseudocode or a programming language of their choice. Homework 6 of 10 includes questions on: - Functions - Procedures - Parameter Passing - Opening a Link to a Text File - Algorithm – Find Maximum - Logic Error - Array of Records Three marking schem

Create a version of the popular phone app Flappy Bird and then add Percy the Parrot of Doom, Invincibility and Increasing Difficulty to enhance the game. This colorful, exciting workbook introduces programming skills and develops problem solving skills while using proper computing terminology. Unlike a lot of programming resources this workbook has been targeted specifically at able Elementary School or Middle School students. During a series of increasingly challenging tasks students will cr

There are several skills required to be a good programmer. One of these is being able to modularise programs by identifying blocks of code. This Scratch homework is based around the “broadcast” block which can be used to modularise programs allowing greater control over order, reuse of code and gives sprites the ability to communicate with each other. The homework starts with a worked example. There are four questions making this homework about a 20-30 minute task. Note that question 4 will be

This unit was written to provide homework, class assessments or additional tasks to complement your own database teaching. The theme of the five table relational database provided is Scottish golf club members and their competition results. There are eight task sheets included as MS Word files: Task 1 – Analysis & Design – students must identify how problems identified from the beginner design can be solved through the introduction of more tables.Tasks 2,3 – Query design questions where the colu

Make your lesson fun by introducing Computational Thinking! Structured Query Language is a programming language used to manipulate and extract information stored in databases. As with all programming languages the best way to learn its functions is through solving problems. In this series of fun worksheets (or possible homework sheets) are sets of problems that are solved by writing or interpreting SQL instructions. Students must either predict the output of SQL instructions or calculate the S

(Hi there. I am an experienced writer of resources who has written two Computing text books for the Scottish education system. My resources are always designed to be engaging and exciting. As a result they are used in thousands of schools all over the world.) Computational Thinking (learning to think in a logical/problem solving way) is the buzz word in the teaching of programming. By teaching students to predict the outcome of small pieces of code they naturally become better at building th

(Hi there. I am an experienced writer of resources who has written two Computing text books for the Scottish education system. My resources are always designed to be engaging and exciting. As a result they are used in thousands of schools all over the world.) Previously downloaded over 40,000 times on other resources websites, these 7 extension sheets continue the basic game created in "Creating a Computer Game using Scratch"(please download first). The sheets are designed to encourage and deve

There are several skills required to be a good programmer. One of these is being able to identify the order of code. In this Scratch homework students are given a description of a short animation and the blocks required to build it, Their task is identify the correct order of the blocks. The homework starts with a worked example. There are three questions making this homework about a 10-15 minute task. Students love this style of problem solving homework. Have fun!

There are several skills required to be a good programmer. One of these is being able to debug programs by identifying errors in code. In this Scratch homework students are given a description of a short animation and are required to find the errors in the code. The homework starts with a worked example. There are three questions making this homework about a 10-15 minute task. Students love this style of problem solving homework. Have fun!