Computing

This week we’ve been looking at how to be Internet Strong in our E-Safety lessons.  The key idea here is that our passwords need to be as strong as possible to protect our accounts and keep our things safe.  We’ve talked with each class about some top tips for making strong passwords and have explored a website called DinoPass which is a fantastic and free way to create some super-strong passwords!

Here are some of the tips we’ve learnt this week:

Passwords should be strong so that hackers can’t get into our things.  You could put an exclamation mark in your password to make it even safer! – Samuel

You should put capital letters and symbols into your password so that nobody can guess them.  It’ll take them ages to work it out! – Aimee

You should never tell anyone your password, apart from an adult you trust who can keep it safe for you in case you forget it – Kiki

They should be quite long, maybe with two random words put together.  It’s really important that you can remember your password! – Tilly

Of course we also got to explore a new island on Interland too, this time is was the Tower of Treasure where the children had to collect letters to build the strongest password they could.

As part of our five week Be Internet Legends program, the children have been learning about how to protect their personal information online by being on the look out for phishing attacks and spam in a module called Be Internet Alert.  Using the excellent resources from Google, we’ve discussed how to check if a website is safe, how to spot suspicious messages and how to ensure we’re as safe as possible when we use the internet.

“You shouldn’t send stuff that’s important to people you don’t know.  If you aren’t sure you could ask your friends and family if they know that person and if they don’t you don’t send them anything.  Always be careful!” – Brodie

As well as learning all about this, we’ve played the Reality River game on Interland to really help the children cement their new found knowledge!

“I really liked playing on Reality River because it was cool and I learnt about how to be safer online.” – Mason

“I learnt that if a website has a green padlock symbol then it’s usually safe to put your password in.” – Freddie

“I’ve leant that you have to look closely at details in messages that you are sent to see if it’s a scam or not.” – Fynn

This half term we are looking at staying safe online, using a brand new set of resources from Google called ‘Be Internet Legends‘.  This week we’ve been looking at the first aspect, Be Internet Smart, which focuses on knowing what information is safe to share online and who we could be sharing with in order to stay safe.  We’ve also talked about being respectful online and remembering that comments and photos you post online tend to stay there for a very long time.

It’s been great to see how much the children have remembered from our online safety lessons last year, showing just how switched on our pupils are already when it comes to e-safety – Mr Woolcock

Remember children, if you see anything online which worries you or makes you feel a bit uneasy, you can always tell an adult!

“You need to be really careful who you share things with, any personal information should only be shared with people that you know in real life.” – Clarissa

As well as learning all about this, we’ve played the Mindful Mountain game on Interland to really help the children cement their new found knowledge!

“I think Interland is really fun and that everyone should play it to help them learn about staying safe online!” – Charlie

“You can be safe by not sharing personal information with the wrong people.” – Caleb

“I think Interland is a good way to learn about sharing because it’s safe and fun at the same time!” –  Grace

One of the reasons we visit the BETT Show in London each January is to try and find exciting and innovative ideas to bring back into the classroom at Penpol.  This year we’ve returned with a dozen brand new Sphero SPRK+ Robots for the children to get to grips with.

These small plastic robots are pretty clever, despite their simple appearance.  Each robot can move at up to two meters a second, controlled remotely via iPad and can run complex sequences of code written by the children.

To get to grips with these new resources the children in Key Stage 2 have been spending time learning how to connect to the devices, how to steer and drive them and of course, having a little bit of fun along the way.  It’s pretty exciting to have a Computing lesson without being sat in front of a computer!

“It’s a great thing to have races with, if you watch the video we did in the hall it was educational to learn how to code but also fun to race them.” – Phoenix, Class 13

“They’re very fun to play with and they’re great to have races with.” – Jake, Class 13

“I like the Spheros’ because they’re fun and great to learn with and I can’t wait to tell my mum that we had a really fun day in Computing with Mr Woolcock!” – Jowan, Class 13

I think it’s safe to say we’re looking forward to writing lots of interesting programs for the Sphero in the future.

“The Spheros’ are really fun and educational at the same time, I’d recommend them to anyone!” – Joe, Class 13

At the end of last year LEGO Education got in touch with Penpol to see how we were getting on with our WeDo 2.0 robotics sets. After a lengthy discussion on the phone the LEGO team were incredibly impressed with how well the staff and pupils at Penpol were embracing and learning through their kits.  They asked if they might be able to use the school as a Case Study for a future article and we thought no more of it.  Until, that is, we spotted this article in the January 2018 issue of Education Today.

This magazine is sent out to every school in the country and often features a ‘View From The Classroom‘ section.  I’m delighted to say that this months feature is all about Penpol School and our use of the LEGO Robots!  Alongside an interview with myself there are some photos of Will, Alfie, Lily and Freya are featured showing off their creations!

You can read the whole article here: (Click on the article to make it bigger!)

Click article to view it full size

As well as being featured in the magazine, LEGO Education were kind enough to give our four magazine-stars their own ‘Mini Milo’ LEGO pack!  Here’s a photo of the four enjoying their new found fame and free LEGO!

And what exactly does a ‘Mini Milo’ set look like?  I’m glad you asked as they really are quite cute!

Class 3 have recently started getting to grips with our Lego WeDo 2.0 robotics sets and this week took their skills to a whole new level by building and coding Milo, the explorer robot.  To build this cute little robot the children had to follow a series of building instructions on their iPads, ensuring they worked in a team to locate the pieces required and to build the robot correctly.  Having displayed a great amount of teamwork and excitement, the children then wrote a short program to make their model come to life. By dragging and dropping blocks of code, the children wrote a set of instructions to move the robot forwards and backwards.  Some groups even found a way to have Milo make noises as he moved around.

“I really liked racing the robots, our one didn’t move very much but it was really fun.  The band wasn’t on right on my robot but we fixed it and it worked in the end” – Ada, Amelia, Amelia

“I liked it when our robot was in the race.  I liked it when it made code so it sounded like it was talking .  I liked it when we started building the robot because we had really good teamwork” – Alex, Louis, Ethan M

When each group had built and programmed their model we all went outside to have a quick race.  With plenty of cheering and excitement, all of the Milo robots went head-to-head to see which was the fastest.  This thrilling race has been immortalised on film for everyone to relive and enjoy!