Computing at School - what a BCS Branch can do
- When?
- Thursday 28 October 2010, 20:00 to 21:30
- Where?
- University of Surrey, Lecture Theatre M
- Open to:
- Public, Staff, Students
- Speaker:
- Dr. Kathryn Harkup (Schools Liaison Officer, University of Surrey) & Dr. Roger Peel (Department of Computing, University of Surrey)
Our meeting this month features the recent formation of a "Computing At School" Hub based around the BCS Guildford Branch and the Department of Computing at the University of Surrey.
There is an increasing realisation that the study of computing topics in schools is not laying the foundations for a lifelong appreciation of the subject, but instead just training students in skills related to particular current technologies. The BCS, Microsoft Research and several other industrial and educational organisations have created "Computing At School" (CAS; see http://www.computingatschool.org.uk/) as a vehicle to incubate improvements in the school-age study of computing, and to support teachers with high-quality resources to enable this change.
The BCS Guildford Branch is the first BCS Branch [to our knowledge!] to launch a local Computing At School Hub. This will be based in Guildford, but attracted teachers from south London and West Sussex as well as from Surrey and Hampshire to its Launch event last week. So far, there are about 10 Hubs country-wide, but we hope to promote our model to other Branches.
This month's meeting will introduce the Surrey CAS Hub to the BCS Guildford Branch, and outline the role that our industrial and commercial members can play to help it to achieve its goals. In particular, we will be exploring particular technologies that could be used to provide motivating learning experiences for mass teaching of the foundations of computing - such as the mobile phone.
Following on from this meeting, we hope to encourage members of the Guildford Branch to join CAS, and to help to support its goals through the provision of knowledge, case studies, examples and demonstrations for use in schools.
All Meetings are free, and open to members and non-members. Students are particularly welcome.
Attendance Certificates for inclusion in your Professional Development portfolio can be obtained at BCS events.
