[Stephen Stewart]

13/02/2013 at 8:34 pm

Hi folks

I have been developing National 4/5 since about August now. I have created booklets that cover all the outcomes for SDD. It has solutions to the programming tasks and also theory notes on the data representation and computer architecture material. The booklets also link directly to the assessment material from support pack 1. There are also practice assessment tasks and the live assessments all translated into Python.

The materials have been developed usng Python 2.7.3 which is becoming a really talked about language since the release of the Raspberry Pi with lots of resources available from CAS. Personally I think it is easy to learn and the pupils find it easier than VB.

If you are thinking about changing your programming language now is a brilliant time to do so. These notes hopefully include absolutely everything you need.

I have spend a lot of time developing these and am completely open for feedback. I think a lot of us are in the same boat at the moment with development for next year so maybe this is will save you all that work.

I didn’t want to upload the material directly here as its quite a lot of files and there may be changes to it over the next few months. So if you send me an email I will add you to the shared drive on Google Drive and you will be able to access all my work.

sstewart897@highlandschools.org.uk

Cheers
Stephen

[Stephen Stewart]

13/02/2013 at 8:44 pm

If you would like to see a sample before being added to the shared drive check it out here…

http://www.khscomputing.co.uk/teachers.html

[Stephen Stewart]

14/02/2013 at 5:31 pm

Over 180 unique views on the teachers page within less than 24 hours and 40+ people been added to the shared drive but no comments on here. I really think teachers need to give more feedback and share resources region wide.

We all moan about having to do so much development work but this whole thing about if you share materials that possibly have some errors and you dont want to dent your pride of knowing your subject is ridiculous. We are all in the same boat and I think everyone should be sharing much more. Remember we do this for the pupils and if you think something you have developed is great why not share it so other pupils can benefit from it.

This is just my opinion and I apologise for the rant.

Stephen

[Brian Avarl]

15/02/2013 at 9:12 am

Stephen,

I downloaded your Nat 5 book (it looks to be a really good in-depth resource – and you have done an excellent job creating it) and installed the software on my laptop last night, I started working through the activities and am getting the feel for the language and dealing with problems as they arise – Can I ask we have windows XP at present in my school but are moving to windows 7 – does it run just as well on both?

[tim]

15/02/2013 at 10:39 am

Stephen,

Just had a look at your notes. Look really good. Personally I think I’ll probably use version 3 of python from the outset so that I’m not setting myself up for a premature rewriting of materials. Are people having any problems getting Python installed on school networks?

Tim

[Stephen Stewart]

15/02/2013 at 10:40 am

Hi Brian, I have Windows 7 in Kinlochleven and it works absolutely fine with no issues. I am not 100% sure about XP as I have not tested it on that. Worth having a look online to see what others say.

Cheers for the feedback Brian. Much appreciated.

[Stephen Stewart]

15/02/2013 at 1:07 pm

Thank Tim for the kind words. I agree I was close to making the decision to go on with version 3 however there is very little difference. As far as I have seen its slightly different inputs and print statements.

If you do convert the examples to version 3 it would be great to see it re-shared for others including myself when I finally get round to changing in our school. We have a contract with Fujitsu and it is very hard to get software installed on the network.

Stephen

[Brian Avarl]

15/02/2013 at 2:59 pm

Hi Stephen,

You are the designated Python expert which is why I am asking you this question. Hope this doesn’t appear stupid – when printing test runs in python is merely a case of taking a screen dump or is there a print function that does this?

[Stephen Stewart]

15/02/2013 at 3:58 pm

You can print straight from the Python Shell window or sometimes the pupils will take a screen shot. I have also had pupils just copying the text from the shell into a notepad document.

[Brian Avarl]

15/02/2013 at 4:01 pm

Hi Stephen

Thanks for the help

[Peter W Donaldson]

15/02/2013 at 4:17 pm

@Brian you can also save the contents of the shell window if you go to file and save as. I’ve had a few pupils accidently save over their code because they saved the output from the shell window instead of swapping back to the code window before saving.

[Brian Avarl]

15/02/2013 at 4:27 pm

Thanks for the advice Peter

[Brian Avarl]

27/02/2013 at 1:47 pm

Hi Stephen,

Some advice needed – I have been working through the nat 5 python booklet. Today when I opened files for the graphics none are working – the message reads:

window = turtle.screen()
AttributeError: ‘module’ object has no attribute ‘screen’

I am lost – when I created the programs iniitally they all ran correctly. Any ideas why and how to solve?

Thanks

Brian