Welcome to ICT Session 2.

This week we’ll be exploring ways of collecting and interrogating data, manipulating variables and representing findings through infographics, graphs and charts.

Alongside this, we’ll look at software for beginning computing skills and think about how a simple project might be introduced at Primary level.  I’ve posted more about these themes here.

We hope you’ll enjoy making a computer game using some free software called Scratch and looking at resources for introducing programming concepts in the Early Years, including a really simple iPad app, Daisy the Dinosaur:

The good thing is that these tools are intuitive and easy to use; you don’t need to be an expert or even have any previous programming experience yourself. You really can take the role of facilitator and learn the basics alongside the children. It’s all about helping them learn to solve their own problems and figure things out for themselves. But I do hope you get a buzz out of dabbling with computing and end up with a game you can share with your family. You can get a real sense of achievement when the computer does what you tell it to do!

Find collections of links and resources for Primary Programming here and resources for Infographics and Data here.