THE MAGAZINE FOR COMPUTING

& DIGITAL MAKING EDUCATORS

INTERVIEW: CYBERSAFE FOUNDATION
Raising awareness of cybersecurity threats

MUCH ADO ABOUT...

Computational methods and Shakespeare

KYOKUSHIN
Japanese logic puzzles for computational thinking

Issue 18 Mar 2022 helloworld.cc

THE GOOD, THE BAD,

AND THE
CRYPTOGRAPHIC

PLUS
ISAAC CS GCSE • VR FOR COLLABORATION • CYBERSECURITY ETHICS • RASPBERRY PI PICO
1 (helloworld.cc)
OPEN DAYS • CAPTURE THE FLAG • INCREMENTAL WINS • SCRATCH ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT
AGILE METHODOLOGY • E-SAFETY TIPS • ANNUAL SURVEY RESULTS • QUANTUM COMPUTING
 Introducing
Code Club World
This free online platform is a new
way for children to learn to code.

It’s a great resource for beginners to enjoy and get

started independently at home, or as a complementary
activity to enhance their learning at Code Club.

Young people can:

Create their personal robot avatar

Make music, design a t-shirt, and teach their robot to dance!
Learn to code on islands with structured activities
Discover block-based and text-based coding in Scratch and Python
Earn badges for their progress
Share their coding creations

Code Club World supports

“I’ve not coded before, but
learners to get started on
found this really fun! …I LOVED
their coding journey, providing
making the robot dance.”
activities that are meaningful,
Learner, aged 11
fun, and flexible.

Encourage young learners in your school and

community to get involved at codeclubworld.org

Code Club World is part of the Raspberry Pi Foundation (registered charity no. 1129409)
 EDITORIAL
Editor
Gemma Coleman
Subeditors
Louise Richmond and Amy Rutter
SUBSCRIBE
IN PRINT Subscriptions

FOR FREE Joshua Crossman

HELLO, WORLD!
TURN TO PAGE Social Media
Neena Patel
42
DESIGN

O
n the surface of things, emulating techniques used by real-life penetration testers criticalmedia.co.uk
the bad guys doesn’t sound like the (on page 18), and taking part in a Capture the Head of Design
best advice to give schoolchildren. Flag competition (on page 30). Lee Allen
Cybersecurity threats, though, are increasing We’re also delighted to have celebrated Hello Designers
and changing all the time; as Zach Huffman World’s fifth birthday last month — doesn’t time fly Olivia Mitchell, Ty Logan, Sam Ribbits

argues on page 26, understanding the bad when you’re sharing teaching ideas about such a Photography
The Raspberry Pi Foundation,
guys’ motives and methods can help us to fast-moving subject? To kick the celebrations off,
Adobe Stock
become better good guys. we held our first Twitter Spaces event and had the
Graphics
This issue focuses on all things pleasure of chatting with members of the Hello
Rob Jervis
cybersecurity: the good, the bad, and the World community about how they have made the
Cover
cryptographic. We have a huge range of most of the magazine over the years. Thank you to
© Chu-Chieh Lee, Folio Art
articles (in fact, Hello World’s biggest all who participated, especially our guests
collection of themed articles yet!), spanning Catherine Elliott and Alan CONTRIBUTORS
the ethics and legalities of hacking, advice O’Donohoe. You can find the Yasin Abbas, James Abela, Brian Broll, Mark Calleja,
Katharine Childs, The Connected Learning Centre, Jon
about teaching cybersecurity to primary recording on our Twitter Chippindall, Gemma Coleman, Etienne Dutoy, Babak
Ebrahim, Catherine Elliott, Dan Elwick, Rebecca Franks,
schoolchildren, and an introduction to page (@HelloWorld_Edu) Ben Garside, Lorna Gibson, Sway Grantham, Sam Green,
quantum cryptography (which isn’t as scary and we will soon be making Allen Heard, Matt Hewlett, Oli Howson, Zach Huffman,
Michael Jones, Hammad Kazi, Ákos Lédeczi, Tom Liam
as it sounds). We also share some fantastic it available on our podcast. Lynch, Joanne Lynn, Helen Marks, Miklós Maróti, Sean
ideas for making this topic as hands-on as McMahon, Alan Merrett, Alan O’Donohoe, Rob Parker,
Oliver Quinlan, Donna Rawling, Matt Richardson, Neil
possible, including by using networked Gemma Coleman Rickus, Andy Robertson, Julia Roebuck, Chris Roffey,
Marc Scott, Stefan Seegerer, Zahra Amin Shelke,
robots (on page 32), using tools and Editor
Confidence Staveley, Gordon Stein, Nancy Stevens,
Matthew Wimpenny-Smith, Andreas J. C. Woitzik

FEATURED THIS ISSUE Hello World is published by the

Raspberry Pi Foundation:

This magazine is printed on paper sourced from

sustainable forests and the printer operates an
environmental management system which has
been assessed as conforming to ISO 14001.
Hello World is published by the Raspberry Pi
Foundation, 37 Hills Road, Cambridge, CB2
1NT. The publisher, editor, and contributors

BABAK EBRAHIM ZAHRA AMIN SHELKE TOM LIAM LYNCH accept no responsibility in respect of any
omissions or errors relating to skills, products,
or services referred to in the magazine.
Babak is a computing teacher at On page 60, Zahra, head of the Tom is policy director at The Except where otherwise noted, content in this
magazine is licensed under a Creative Commons
Bishop Challoner Catholic College primary ICT department at GEMS New School, New York, USA. On Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0
Unported (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0).
Secondary in the UK. On page 28, he Westminster School in the UAE, shares page 61, he explores integrating
shares how he set up a cybersecurity her top tips for ensuring your school computer science into the study
club to engage female students. is e-safe. of literature and humanities.

helloworld.cc 3
 CONTENTS
COVER FEATURES

10—41

© denisismagilov/stock.adobe.com
CYBERSECURITY
A series of articles exploring cybersecurity

NEWS, FEATURES, AND OPINION

6 NEWS 18 REAL-LIFE CYBERSECURITY 32 HANDS-ON CYBERSECURITY

Isaac CS GCSE launch; Coolest Using real-life tools and projects for Researchers introduce networked
Projects launch; new courses with cybersecurity teaching robots for cybersecurity lessons
Infosys Foundation USA
21 HACKING AND THE LAW 34 QUANTUM CYBERSECURITY
10 INCLUSION COLUMN The legalities of hacking and An activity teaching the
Developing the strengths of learners resources for teaching it fundamentals of quantum
with SEND cryptography
24 ETHICS
12 INSIGHTS: CYBERSECURITY Ethical questions in cybersecurity
37 CYBERSECURITY RESOURCES
Addressing the cybersecurity Websites and games for primary-
skills gap 26 KNOW THY ENEMY aged students
Emulating the bad guys to become
14 INSIGHTS: CYBERSECURITY better good guys
38 VIDEO GAMES
Lessons from industry Video games to develop
27 CARRY ON HACKING cybersecurity understanding
15 INSIGHTS: MCQS Why we should teach students how
Using multiple-choice questions for to hack
41 CYBER EXPLORERS
learning and assessment A new cybersecurity resource for
28 CYBERSECURITY CLUB lower secondary
16 INTERVIEW Engaging girls in cybersecurity
Confidence Staveley, founder of
the CyberSafe Foundation, shares 30 CAPTURE THE FLAG 42 SUBSCRIBE TODAY!
its relatable approach to building Problem-solving cybersecurity
cybersecurity skills competitions

4 helloworld.cc
 44
LEARNING
76 SCRIPT KIDDIES
Hacking for lower secondary

78 RISE OF THE BOTS

Exploring malware for lower secondary

80 THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE 127.0.0.1

Exploring the risks that cyberthreats
pose to a network for lower secondary

82 CAESAR CIPHER

© Monkey Business/stock.adobe.com
Coding a Caesar cipher in
Python for lower secondary

CO-MAKE 85 SCRATCH USERNAMES

A pan-European project Learning about the importance of
developing computational thinking secure usernames for primary

87 RASPBERRY PI BUILD HAT

Building a LEGO® remote-
controlled car with Raspberry Pi

54 76
CONVERSATION
RASPBERRY 71 MY CLASSROOM
Creating a computing classroom that
PI PICOS will engage students
Educators’
experiences
of using Pico 72 PERSONAL ACCOUNT
© MIND AND I/stock.adobe.com

One educator’s encounter with a

programming competition
SCRIPT KIDDIES
44 CO-MAKE A lesson plan about hacking 74 OPEN DAYS
Representing computing at open days
A pan-European project developing techniques and consequences
computational thinking
90 INSIDER’S GUIDE
Top tips for getting the most
46 KYOKUSHIN out of Hello World
Japanese puzzles to develop logical
thinking
58 AGILE LESSONS
Agile methodology within
computing lessons 94 BEBRAS
A fun challenge in computational thinking
48 SCRATCH
Tips for efficiently managing Scratch
in the classroom
60 E-SAFETY 96 SURVEY
Tips and tools for online safety
Results from our 2021 annual survey

50 VIRTUAL REALITY 61 LITERATURE AND COMPUTING

Using VR for collaboration Integrating computer science into the
study of literature and humanities
52 INDUSTRY TO TEACHING
Making the most of your skills
from industry
64 INCREMENTAL WINS
Celebrating small achievements REVIEWS
54 RASPBERRY PI PICOS 66 QUANTUM COMPUTING 97 BOOK REVIEWS
Educators’ experiences of using Pico A quantum penny flip game Visions of Education and a
selection of books to help you
56 PHYSICAL COMPUTING 68 MACHINE LEARNING explore cybersecurity further
Taking a group of beginners through Investigating issues of accuracy
their first physical computing projects and ethics

helloworld.cc 5
NEWS FEATURE

ISAAC PLATFORM
EXTENDED TO GCSE
The first batch of GCSE content for all England exam boards has been
released on the newly designed Isaac Computer Science site

Allen Heard

s an ex-teacher and head of catered solely for A-level students, but the that meets the needs of all learners,
A department, I know how difficult Raspberry Pi Foundation and the University regardless of which examination board’s
it can be for learners to access quality of Cambridge have been working hard to specification they are following. It is packed
materials at home that reinforce the bring GCSE content to the platform, with with explainer videos, walk-through
content taught in the classroom. I also the initial launch in January 2022. The good demonstrations, animations, and questions
know how time-consuming it can be for news is that all the features that were to support learners on their computer
a teacher to set meaningful, challenging previously available to A-level learners will science journey. Learners can really develop
homework that is truly valuable to a learner now be available to GCSE learners too, plus their understanding and get a sense of their
and tests their understanding of computer some other exciting developments for progress, tackling relevant problems of a
science concepts. All this is made harder everyone, including teachers! Content similar level of difficulty to those they will
by the fact that there are five different creators have been busy curating material face in an examination.
GCSE computer science specifications in
England (for students aged 14–16), each of New features for all
which takes subtly different approaches to There is a large overlap in the concepts
some content, and often includes different covered at A level and GCSE, which the
topics. For educators and learners, finding platform is using to its advantage with the
free, high-quality resources specific to an integration of stage and board views. In the
examination board can be a difficult and board view option, users will only see content
sometimes fruitless task. that is applicable to the examination board
they have indicated they are studying. This
Developing Isaac CS GCSE is to ensure that topics are tailored to the
Isaac Computer Science (helloworld.cc/ subtle nuances of each examination board.
isaac) is a free online platform with The stage view option is useful for both GCSE
concept-led exam board content and a large and A-level students: if a GCSE learner wants
number of questions to test students’ n Isaac Computer Science offers different views depending
to see what is coming up at AS, or how a
knowledge and understanding. It previously on the user type and examination board chosen topic is different at an advanced level, they

6 helloworld.cc
© NuPenDekDee/stock.adobe.com

n Educators teaching multiple exam boards can easily

toggle between content rather than digging out
different specifications with subtly different content

can choose to see content relevant to that hundreds of GCSE questions in the pipeline.
stage. Likewise, an A-level student could go Just like content, questions can be useful for
back and look at the fundamentals of a topic all users at differing levels of ability. There
by viewing the GCSE content. Teachers will will be three levels of practice (P) questions,
benefit from these different views too, as they and three levels of challenge (C) questions.
are able to select more than one examination The content team has spent a considerable
board in their profile. This will be useful if amount of time tagging all the questions.

CONTENT CREATORS HAVE BEEN BUSY

“ CREATING MATERIAL THAT MEETS
THE NEEDS OF ALL LEARNERS
n Example question from a memory and storage topic

a teacher is teaching OCR at GCSE and For instance, a question tagged C2 at GCSE Currently, 20 percent of the platform’s
AQA at A level, for example. They can easily could also be tagged as a P1 question at A new GCSE content is live, and this should
toggle between content that is relevant to level. Using this system, learners effectively increase to 50 percent by the end of March
their current class, without having to dig out have access to a huge bank of questions in 2022. By August 2022, Isaac Computer
specifications or individual schemes of work which they can select the level of difficulty Science will be a wealth of interlinked
to surface that subtly different content. and topic. As before, the feedback supplied content to help GCSE and A-level learners
to learners when they submit a wrong alike develop their subject knowledge
Personalised learning experiences answer is specific to the wrong answer and computer science problem-solving
Question leveling is another brand-new they gave, offering some advice on why skills, and help teachers to directly access
feature that has been introduced. There that answer is wrong, or providing a hint on related lesson content and professional
are hundreds of A-level questions, with how they should proceed. development opportunities.

helloworld.cc 7
NEWS FEATURE

COOLEST
PROJECTS RETURNS!
To mark its tenth year, the event will go even further to showcase
inspirational projects and recognise the achievements of their creators

Matt Richardson

oolest Projects Global, the world- with the judges and get direct feedback Projects Global online event may happen
C leading showcase for young from them. Feedback will now be shared only once a year, creating with technology
digital makers, is returning in 2022 as for the online event, too: all creators will happens year-round. So throughout the year,
an exclusively online event starting receive feedback from the judges who the Coolest Projects team will be sharing a
in February and closing in mid-May. reviewed their projects. dynamic line-up of inspiring projects,
Individuals or teams of creators can The creators of the judges’ favourite creators, how-to guides, and new technology
submit their projects whether they were projects will receive a Coolest Projects via email, social media, and on the refreshed
created at school, at their club, or on their medal to display proudly around their coolestprojects.org home page.
own. All creators will be recognised in a necks or along with their other artefacts of There are two ways to get involved right
massive online showcase gallery and a accomplishment. Of course, everyone now. One is to go to coolestprojects.org to
live-streamed celebration in June. deserves a reward for participating, so sign up for email updates from the Coolest
Creators aged up to 18 can submit every creator will be eligible to receive a Projects team. The other is to encourage
their projects in one of six technology limited-edition Coolest Projects poster your students to submit their digital projects
categories: Scratch, games, web, mobile created by artist Joey Rex and inspired by to the Coolest Projects Global showcase.
apps, hardware, or advanced programming. past projects. Resources for mentors are available on the
Judges will evaluate projects based on their site to help you get started.
coolness, complexity, design, usability, and Get inspired, get involved Whether online or in person, it’s important
presentation. Beginners and advanced The main ambition of Coolest Projects is to to give young creators the opportunity to
coders alike are encouraged to share their inspire and celebrate young people who show off what they’ve made and be
creations for consideration. create with technology. While the Coolest recognised for their accomplishments.

What’s new in 2022

After a successful online event in 2021, the
© Mike Villa
organisers received a lot of valuable feedback
from creators, with tons of ideas about how
to make Coolest Projects even cooler.
For example, creators often make projects
related to topics that they care about. It could
be solving a problem in their community,
educating their peers about health issues, or
expressing something about their own
cultural identity. The improved registration
system will allow creators to select from a
series of topics when registering, and project
gallery visitors will be able to explore projects
related to these topics.
Something that creators value about
in-person Coolest Projects showcase
events is the ability to engage face to face n Young creators at Coolest Projects USA 2020 share their hardware project with the world

8 helloworld.cc
 NEWS FEATURE

FREE COURSEWARE
AND HARDWARE
With the support of Infosys Foundation USA, the Raspberry Pi Foundation has
created two new courses for US-based educators, with free kit available

Matt Richardson

n Teachers will discover how

n September 2021, the Raspberry
I Pi Foundation launched two new
to inspire their students
through programming and
physical computing
free online courses for educators in the USA,
with the support of Infosys Foundation USA,
who are committed to expanding access to
computer science and maker education in
public schools across the United States.
To kick-start their learning journey, we
gave qualified US-based educators the
chance to receive a free Raspberry Pi Pico
microcontroller hardware kit. We still have
kits available to give away, so read on to find
out more. You can find both new courses on
the Pathfinders Online Institute (helloworld.
cc/pathfinders), a platform which supports
US classroom educators in bringing high-
quality computer science and maker
education content to their kindergarten
through 12th-grade (K–12) students. basic circuits, coding a Raspberry Pi Pico particularly exciting because the kit
microcontroller to work with motors and includes Raspberry Pi’s first-ever
The courses LEDs, and designing algorithms to navigate microcontroller, Raspberry Pi Pico
The first free course is Programming a rover through a maze. By the end of the (helloworld.cc/pico).
Essentials in Scratch (helloworld.cc/infosys1 course, teachers will have all the resources This offer is available to 1000
— login required). It supports teachers in they need to inspire students and help them US-based K–12 public or charter
introducing the essentials of programming explore practical programming, system teachers on a first come, first
to fourth- to eighth-grade students. The design, and prototyping. Some teachers have served basis. To claim your kit, just
course covers the key concepts of told us what they’re hoping to get from the create a free account at helloworld.
programming, such as variables, selection, courses and kits, and we’ve been cc/pathfinders and start the course.
and iteration. Teachers will also discover encouraged to hear comments such as, “My On the first page of the course,
how to inspire their students and help them students love learning how to code using you’ll receive instructions for how to
create music, interactive quizzes, dance blocks and Python, and would absolutely apply for a free kit. If you’re not a
animations, and more. love to see their code in action with physical qualified educator, if you’ve missed
The second free course is Design, Build, computing DIY projects!” out on the opportunity to receive
and Code a Rover with Raspberry Pi Pico the free hardware, or even if you’re
(helloworld.cc/infosys2 — login required). It Free kit not based in the USA you are still
gives teachers of fourth- to eighth-grade Thanks to the generous support of Infosys welcome to join the course. You can
students everything they need to start Foundation USA, the Raspberry Pi find the materials yourself, or
teaching physical computing in their Foundation is able to provide qualified purchase the kit from our partners
classrooms. Teachers will develop their educators with a free kit of materials to at PiShop.us (helloworld.cc/
students’ knowledge of the subject by using participate in this second course. This is shoppico).

helloworld.cc 9
COLUMN
OPINION

DEVELOPING
STRENGTHS IN THE
INCLUSIVE CLASSROOM
Young people with special educational needs and disabilities can excel in
computing when their strengths are developed and supported

W
hen I found out the theme for this issue of Hello and barriers to learning. One student may love working as
World, I started thinking about how to part of a team, while another excels at independent learning.
incorporate that into my column. How do we Where one learner can see the whole problem and come up
support our learners with special educational needs and with creative solutions, another learner may be better suited
disabilities (SEND) to undertake cybersecurity activities in to the detail and structure of a specific task.
the classroom? Then I remembered a number of articles I Obviously, we still need to address weaknesses and
had read about organisations actively recruiting reduce the barriers faced by all the young people in our
neurodiverse people to cybersecurity roles. Neurodiversity lessons. However, by acknowledging and celebrating their
is often used to describe autistic people, together with strengths, we can help develop confidence and ensure
those with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), everyone has a sense of belonging in a class; this is at the
dyslexia, dyspraxia, and other developmental heart of inclusion.
and cognitive disabilities.
These prospective employees often Universal Design for Learning
demonstrate a number of key qualities that Identifying, celebrating, and developing
are sought after in this sector, including: each individual’s strengths isn’t easy, but
this is where the Universal Design for
n Attention to detail Learning (UDL) framework can help.
n Pattern recognition It is a “framework to improve and
n Reliability and integrity optimize teaching and learning for all
n Out-of-the-box thinking people based on scientific insights into
n Clear focus on the task in hand how humans learn” (helloworld.cc/
udlcast). Essentially, if we consider and
Combine these with an interest in provide multiple means of engagement,
technology and you have an ideal Catherine is the SEND lead for representation, action, and expression in
candidate for a cybersecurity role — the Sheffield eLearning Service lessons, this can provide learners with a
notwithstanding some workplace (sheffieldclc.net), and since the range of ways in which to engage with
announcement of the computing
adjustments that might need to be made lessons, learn about content, participate
curriculum in 2013 she has been
to accommodate specific needs. in activities, and express what they know.
working on ways to make the subject
In doing this, we can address potential
accessible for all learners. She is a
Celebrating strengths member of the CAS Include working barriers before they arise, and allow the
I often start any training on computing and group, and leads the SEND Virtual diverse strengths and interests of our
SEND by asking teachers to consider the and the Sheffield and South Yorkshire young people to be developed in different
strengths of the young people they teach, Secondary CAS Communities ways (see helloworld.cc/hwudl for a
rather than focusing solely on weaknesses (@catherinelliott). Hello World article about this).

10 helloworld.cc
©New Africa/stock.adobe.com

n Many cybersecurity firms actively recruit neurodiverse people because of their strengths and skills

For example, you could present content in different providing learners with a specific task within a group that
formats — video, audio, text, and image — and make the can be undertaken independently, but will still contribute to
most of learning platforms to provide learners with a place the final project. For example, in cybersecurity teaching, a
to revisit lesson content in a time, place, and format that capture-the-flag competition is a team effort, but tasks can
suits them. Try to provide a range of options for lesson be allocated to individuals (see page 30 for more on this).
activities — so in terms of learning about cybersecurity, I remember working with some secondary-age
students might watch a video and answer questions, role students on an enrichment project around technology.
play a specific scenario, devise their own cipher to encrypt One girl was completely switched off during the ‘Robotics’
a message, or design a poster to make young people aware unit, and seemed uninterested when we began the
of cybercrime. Where students are learning about how app development project. Once we had outlined all the
computer programs can be written to decipher messages, different elements of making an app, from the design
they can investigate and modify working programs, of the app, to content writing, coding, and testing, she
complete Parson’s Problems, or debug existing code. became much more animated. She was a keen artist, and
Physical computing devices can be more engaging for took on the design side of the project while her friends
some learners, and their tactile, sensory nature can help coded the app and wrote the content. The app they
students make connections with the code in a way that developed was excellent, benefitting from a well-rounded
can be harder with a text-based language on a screen. group of collaborators.
Consider ways to incorporate this into a cybersecurity We are all individuals, with different skills and experiences
lesson, such as the networked robots introduced on page that influence how we perceive and interact with the world.
32. The more opportunities we provide for learners, the The more inclusive we can make our computing lessons by
more we can recognise and celebrate individual strengths. providing a range of ways to participate, the more students
will enjoy lessons and the more they will achieve. This in
Project-based learning turn should encourage a more diverse set of students taking
Project-based learning can also enable more choice in computing-related qualifications, finally leading to a more
how learners learn and express themselves. Provide diverse workforce in tech-related jobs. This is essential to
some choice in context to appeal to varied interests, and if ensure that diverse experiences and ways of thinking frame
students are working in groups, allow them to assign tasks the development of future services and technologies. It will
according to the strengths of each member. Furthermore, also benefit companies in the future, as they will be better
not all students enjoy working in teams, and this can equipped to solve complex problems by drawing on the
be a barrier in itself. One way to help mitigate this is by wide range of strengths displayed by their employees.

helloworld.cc 11
RESEARCH

#INSIGHTS
ADDRESSING THE
CYBERSECURITY SKILLS GAP
STORY BY Hammad Kazi

ver the last two years, the shift Opportunities important that it is introduced at high
O towards remote working and There are several ways in which school, for example through the angle of
schooling has forced people to adopt new educational institutes are increasing providing a secure ecosystem in which
ways of living and working. The use of opportunities for undergraduates to programming activities can take place.
internet-based applications has increased, develop cybersecurity knowledge and skills There is evidence that students receiving
including use by new and often unskilled (helloworld.cc/parrish2018). For example, a computing education in high school
users such as older people and children. traditional computing programmes are are eight times more likely to major in
Unfortunately, and perhaps predictably, incorporating security-based topics a computing degree (helloworld.cc/
hackers have taken advantage of these into their content. Some institutes are jin2018). Even if high-school students do
gaps in knowledge. A 2021 survey by also offering separate cybersecurity not end up studying computer science
the UK’s Department for Digital, Culture, courses in their continuing education, later on, they will be better placed to have
Media & Sport, for example, demonstrated undergraduate-, and postgraduate-level a basic understanding of cybersecurity,
the threat that cybersecurity breaches programmes. There are also crossovers which can prove useful both in their
pose to businesses and charities on this topic in subjects such as criminal careers and personal lives. Since there is
(helloworld.cc/breaches2021). It outlined justice, business law, and social science a high prevalence of early-years usage
that 39 percent of businesses and 26 subjects that deal with the societal impact of internet-based applications, in more
percent of charities in the UK reported of internet-based breaches. industrialised countries at least, it makes
having breaches in the preceding twelve For us to get to the level of treating sense to plug the cybersecurity knowledge
months, and that the most common type cybersecurity as a metadiscipline, it is gap during secondary school.
of breach was a phishing attack.
© weerapat1003/stock.adobe.com

There are opportunities for the IT industry,

computer science academia, and educational
institutes to help address this threat by
developing cybersecurity skills in more
students, especially by treating cybersecurity
as a metadiscipline (incorporating ideas and
theories from multiple disciplines) rather
than as a single discipline. Some academics
argue that cybersecurity education should
begin at high school, before being integrated
into computer science, engineering, and
other IT-related degree programme curricula,
to ensure that cybersecurity knowledge isn’t
just concentrated in specialists (helloworld.
cc/crick2019). n A 2021 survey of UK businesses concluded that phishing
attacks were the most common type of security breach

12 helloworld.cc
 FURTHER READING
Crick, T., Davenport, J. H., Hanna, P., et
al. (2020, October). Overcoming the
© THANANIT/stock.adobe.com

Challenges of Teaching Cybersecurity

in UK Computer Science Degree
Programmes. 2020 IEEE Frontiers
in Education Conference (FIE) (1-9).
helloworld.cc/issue18insights1
Ruiz, N. (2019). A Study of the UK
Undergraduate Computer Science
Curriculum: A Vision of Cybersecurity.
2019 IEEE 12th International
Conference on Global Security,
Safety and Sustainability (ICGS3),
(1-8). helloworld.cc/issue18insights2
Parrish, A., et al. (2018). Global
Perspectives on Cybersecurity
n Guest lectures by industry experts can be an Education for 2030: A Case for
effective method of teaching cybersecurity
a Meta-discipline. Proceedings
Companion of the 23rd Annual
Challenges Firstly, it is important that all the skills that a
ACM Conference on Innovation and
This is still a work in progress, however, and competent head of information security or
Technology in Computer Science
a conscious effort is required to develop the chief information security officer should have,
Education (36-54). helloworld.cc/
course infrastructure in a way that enables for example, are taught at the academic
issue18insights3
students to work in a proactive cybersecurity level. These skills include psychology,
environment, rather than in a reactive one. management and organisational behaviour,
A review of the top 100 UK computer and technical knowledge, as well as soft
science university courses revealed that 6 skills such as communication, analytical abreast of all key developments in the
percent of security curriculum content has no thinking, and collaboration. field from around the world. Finally, it is
references to cybersecurity, privacy, secure Cybersecurity should be taught in an critical that there is ample investment
programming, or other cybersecurity content effective manner using real-life case in educational resources, ranging from
during the course (helloworld.cc/ruiz2019). studies and guest lectures by industry laboratories and equipment to course
Furthermore, 39 percent of these courses do experts in the field, and should include content and pedagogical innovations. A
not offer mandatory cybersecurity content appropriate cybersecurity standards very pertinent example of this is the series
and instead push it to the end of the course
as a low-priority add-on. Finally, only 17
CYBERSECURITY CONTENT NEEDS TO
“
percent of courses offer cybersecurity
content in the first year.
These numbers make a strong case for
BE BAKED INTO THE COURSE SYLLABUS
the need for cybersecurity content in the FROM THE HIGH-SCHOOL LEVEL
UK to be baked into the course syllabus,
starting from the high-school level, and
continuing with priority into computer within the curricula (for example, the of game-based camps run for high-school
science degree programmes. In this way, Payment Card Industry Data Security students by Purdue University Northwest
students are taught how to develop their Standard — see helloworld.cc/pcidss). in the USA to increase their awareness
approach and thinking from the systematic Course content can also be taught from and interest in the field of cybersecurity
perspective of a safe and secure platform. the point of view of a hacker, thereby (helloworld.cc/jin2018).
fostering a more experimental and Addressing the cybersecurity skills gap
Ways forward creative approach to understanding how is vital. It is clear that a concerted effort
Several factors should be considered to a network can be made safer and more involving the IT industry, academia, and
help overcome the challenges of integrating secure. Institutions should prioritise the educational institutes is necessary to move
cybersecurity into course curricula as a recruitment, retention, and development cybersecurity from an optional add-on to a
metadiscipline (helloworld.cc/crick2019). of the faculty, ensuring that they are kept prioritised metadiscipline.

helloworld.cc 13
RESEARCH

LESSONS FROM THE

CYBERSECURITY INDUSTRY
STORY BY Katharine Childs

ybersecurity topics in school

C computer science curricula often
focus on defending against cybersecurity
attacks and on understanding the ethical
and societal implications of data privacy. In
programming topics, however, a proactive
approach to writing secure code is also
important. A research project called

© successphoto/stock.adobe.com
Motivating Jenny (motivatingjenny.org),
supported by the UK’s National Cyber
Security Centre, has created a number
of tools to help developers consider
the security of their code and embed n Using prompt cards and values cards can help to stimulate
a workplace culture in which software positive conversations about cybersecurity issues

security is seen as a fundamental value.

Although this research has been conducted a first-person account of the impact of in the research, in teaching and learning
in industry, there are many ways in which the security breach. Finally, the workshop (helloworld.cc/firstperson).
educators can translate the findings into concluded with a discussion of participants’ Values can support positive
good classroom practice. own experiences. Prompt cards and values discussions: In the research, using
cards kept the group conversations focused values helped to create positive, non-
Real-world industry perspectives on attitudes, beliefs, and behaviours, to confrontational conversations. Your
In a 2019 study by the Motivating Jenny create discussions that were “refreshingly school community is likely to have a set
project, researchers took an ethnographic different” and “participatory”. of values to help each pupil shape their
perspective. An ethnographic research study understanding of the world. For example,
aims to find out more about the behaviours Applying findings to the classroom a classroom wall display that links
and routines of a group through direct The findings from the workshops were cybersecurity considerations to the school’s
observation, and researchers conducting designed to be applied to professional values is a powerful way of modelling this
this study met with professional developers settings. However, the themes that and providing discussion prompts.
in their workplaces to find out more about emerged could be equally relevant to the Group discussion through play is
their beliefs, attitudes, and experiences computing classroom: effective: The researchers gamified group
with writing secure code. The write-up of Personal stories resonate: Cybersecurity discussions by using a timer and prompt
the study provides a real-world example of can often seem like an abstract or cards. This provided a valuable structure
a computing career and is useful for both intimidating topic. However, all software to conversations and helped to give each
teachers and pupils. and systems are designed and implemented participant a chance to speak. Consider
The researchers ran a series of workshops by people. Consider how to use examples how this approach could work when you
with groups of professional developers, of real-life security compromises, such as are leading classroom discussions with
with the aim of finding out more about how the first-person account that was used your pupils.
social interactions and a culture of software
development contributed to supporting
developers in writing secure code. In the
FURTHER READING
first part of the workshop, participants read
Lopez, T., Sharp, H., Tun, T., Bandara, A., Levine, M., & Nuseibeh, B. (2019, May 28). Talking
various examples of a security compromise
about Security with Professional Developers. 7th International Workshop Series on
that had taken place, each with a different
Conducting Empirical Studies in Industry, Montreal, Canada. helloworld.cc/issue18insights4
focus or perspective. They then all read

14 helloworld.cc
 MULTIPLE-CHOICE
QUESTION CONSTRUCTION
STORY BY Oliver Quinlan

hile multiple-choice questions want learners to be using the cognitive

W (MCQs) are often considered processes you intend them to. FURTHER READING
to be a tool for assessing learning, the
process of answering them can be a Create questions that require engaging Butler, A. C. (2018). Multiple-choice
valuable learning experience in itself. with specific cognitive processes testing in education: Are the best
There is extensive literature on the use It is important to consider how a question practices for assessment also good
of such questions in these two different addresses both specific content and specific for learning? Journal of Applied
ways, and researcher Andrew C. Butler ways of thinking about that content. One Research in Memory and Cognition,
compared the best practices for both way to achieve this is by using resources 7(3), 323–331. helloworld.cc/
scenarios. He found that whichever way that provide template questions, or shells, issue18insights5
you are using MCQs, there are some key based around different cognitive processes.
things to get right. For example, questions such as ‘Which best
defines X?’ or ‘Which distinguishes X from learning, it can help to use correct answers
Avoid using complex questions Y?’ Frameworks such as Bloom’s taxonomy to later questions as distractors in earlier
or answers can also be used to consider how questions questions, but only if they could plausibly
The traditional MCQ is a single question can address different types of thinking. be possible answers.
with a single correct answer and several
wrong answers (or distractors). Some Use three plausible possible answers Sets of questions should be
question writers make this more complex The literature finds that a question with challenging, but not too difficult
by providing answers such as ‘none of three answers is the format that strikes For assessment, questions should be able to
determine whether a student has understood
a concept or not. Educators should therefore
ANSWERING MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUESTIONS
“ CAN BE A LEARNING EXPERIENCE IN ITSELF
pitch MCQs at a level at which students
get some answers right and some wrong.
This allows the educator to assess the
level across the group. The same applies
in a learning situation, as questions can be
the above’ or ‘option A and B but not C’. the best balance between beneficial used to identify which learners may need
Research suggests that these questions engagement with the question and the additional support in learning the material.
are more difficult to write well and that amount of time it takes a student to Across all of these key considerations,
they can be particularly susceptible to answer. However, the more important Butler emphasises that it is important
learners guessing, or engaging with aspect of this is that all the possible to provide feedback to help learners
cognitive processes that are focused on answers must be plausible — and if this understand where they are at and continue
test-taking strategies rather than the means only having two options, this is to learn. This feedback can be effective
content the question is concerned with. preferable. Plausible answers are often whether it is immediate or after a delay.
Simpler questions mean that different common errors or misconceptions. Some Whether you are using multiple-choice
learners are more likely to be engaging MCQ platforms allow educators to analyse questions to assess students or support
in the same cognitive processes when incorrect answers, which can help them their learning, considering these key points
answering them. Butler argues that to identify the misconceptions or errors will help you to make the most of this
for both assessment and learning, you learners are making. When using MCQs for powerful tool.

helloworld.cc 15
INTERVIEW
OPINION

CONFIDENCE STAVELEY

© CyberSafe Foundation
“CYBERSECURITY AWARENESS SHOULD BE
EMBEDDED IN EVERY AREA OF YOUR LIFE”
to educate people.” She states forcefully, “The number one
Gemma Coleman speaks to Confidence preventative measure is not a software tool. It’s awareness.”
Staveley, founder of the CyberSafe Although the Foundation is relatively young, Confidence’s
interest in tech stretches back to her childhood: “When I
Foundation, about its fun and relatable realised how much I loved coding and creating, there was
approach to building cybersecurity fire in my eyes. I came home and told my parents I didn’t
want to be a doctor like they wanted me to be. Instead, I did
skills and awareness a presentation to show them why I wanted to build a career
in tech.” She laughs, “That was the beginning … But I soon

C
onfidence Staveley and her Nigeria-based NGO realised I was called to do more than just helping to keep
the CyberSafe Foundation are on a mission. different companies’ IT infrastructure safe.”
“Cybersecurity is very much like Covid,” she Guided by Confidence’s passion and steely determination,
explains. “We are not safe until we’re all safe. Through the Foundation has grown to about 40 staff, a network
relatable awareness campaigns, art, and training, we aim of 500 volunteers, and a host of unique initiatives. “What
to facilitate changes that ensure online safety across really makes us stand out is our approach to awareness,”
Africa. The biggest thing we’re trying to do is address the says Confidence. “Cybersafety can be very boring, but
skills shortage and close gaps in awareness, and our work we leverage storytelling a lot, and this very human-
can serve the rest of the world. Africa can become the next centric approach makes cybersecurity lessons much more
cybertalent hub to feed shortages, and fill those jobs to interesting for people to consume.” Confidence points to their
reduce attacks locally and abroad.” ‘NoGoFallMaga’ (‘Don’t fall victim’) campaign, including radio
Confidence founded the CyberSafe Foundation dramas focusing on cybercrime, a music video billed “possibly
(cybersafefoundation.org) three years ago, after her mother Africa’s first afrobeat cybersecurity awareness song,”
became a victim of cybercrime. “It hit very close to home. I and market tours in which staff and volunteers approach
was enraged — in a good way — and I wanted to stop this, shoppers with cybersafety information and resources.

16 helloworld.cc
 © CyberSafe Foundation

© CyberSafe Foundation
n Staff and volunteers visit markets to spread cybersecurity awareness n CyberGirls aims to close the digital gender gap in Nigeria

Not only does this style of approach insert some much- there’s hardly [any] part of Africa that will not be
needed fun into cybersecurity, it also ensures that the able to access this. Literacy is one of the barriers to
Foundation is reaching the less privileged and non-digital awareness in Nigeria. That is bridged by having this
natives, who are spending less time online. guidebook in multiple languages spoken in Africa.”
“I want to give people more avenues to learn about The programmes that are perhaps closest to Confidence’s
cybersafety, an opportunity to change their habits. When I heart, though, are CyberGirls and DigiGirls: “The younger
founded the CyberSafe Foundation, that kind of information age group that we’re targeting [15–21 and 15–40 years
was lacking in Nigeria for end users who weren’t tech- respectively] is about the age I was when I got involved
savvy,” Confidence explains with her signature gusto. in tech. They are very pivotal ages for girls in Africa,”
“We like to think about Confidence explains. “A lot of
cybersecurity awareness girls aren’t in tech in Nigeria

WE ARE NOT SAFE

“
as something that you and in Africa because they
experience all around you. don’t even know that it’s an
It shouldn’t be something UNTIL WE ARE ALL SAFE option for them.” CyberGirls
you have to go to separately. focuses on giving girls
It should be something cybersecurity skills to use in
embedded in every area of your life and consumed in the future tech careers, while DigiGirls, which the UK government
way you consume other content.” funds, aims to build broader digital skills such as UX,
There are specific programmes targeting those who are graphic design, digital marketing, and cybersecurity.
particularly vulnerable to attacks, including older people “A lot of cybercrime in this country is driven by poverty. If
and children. Shine your Eye, for example, is a cybersecurity we can give people the skills that will lift them out of poverty,
initiative for seniors that has reached 5000 people so far. The we are reducing the rate of people going into cybercrime,”
Foundation started this programme recognising that older Confidence proudly explains. “What we’re hoping to achieve
people are generally not digital natives. “They have the twin is to close the digital gender gap in Nigeria. Women here
struggle of learning how to use new technologies, and also don’t have as much access to technology as men. But if
keeping that technology safe,” Confidence explains. “People women do not have tech skills, they are automatically cut off
get called up or emailed by scammers all the time in Nigeria or disadvantaged in the workplace. This plays out in lots of
— ‘I’m calling from Facebook and I need your password for ways, including increasing the chance of girls being victims
this and that’ — and seniors hand over their password very of domestic violence. We are arming girls with the skills to
easily, because they don’t realise it’s not Facebook calling! fend for themselves, to fit into the new world of work.”
They’re more vulnerable because of this lack of awareness, In a world in which cybersecurity threats are constantly
and because they also have so much more to lose: pensions, evolving, it can be hard to know if your message is having an
savings … They are always in scammers’ crosshairs.” impact. Confidence takes this one day at a time. “At the end
Staying true to form, the programme leverages of one session with young children, we wanted to test them,
video content and stories to simplify the message. and we asked them to give us their address so we could
“We’ve found that giving seniors actionable tips has send them a package to summarise what they’d learnt. One
been key. For example, we think we’ve created the first of the children unmuted their mic and said, ‘Auntie, you said
pan-African cyberawareness handbook for seniors. we should not give our address to strangers! I have to tell
It’s available in seven languages and the information my Mummy before I can give it to you!’ That’s when we
is contextualised for each region. This means that knew we’d done our job well that day.”

helloworld.cc 17
FEATURE

ACTIVITIES AND TOOLS TO BRING

CYBERSECURITY TO LIFE
Rob Parker shares how his school teaches cybersecurity skills using real-life
tools and projects, increasing engagement and excitement in the classroom

eaching cybersecurity can be a data breach. We then set up various classroom discussions in which students
T dull without hands-on practical machines mimicking commonly known debated the advantages, disadvantages,
experiences and exercises. Fortunately, my vulnerabilities, to demonstrate how a difficulties, and ethics of such a project.
passion for cybersecurity and my more than penetration tester could identify weaknesses Students are always interested to learn
20 years of experience as a data security and show how they could be fixed. Running more from real-life case studies that help
engineer have helped me to understand an activity such as this not only has the them relate personally to the importance of
how to motivate my students to acquire advantage of keeping our school network as cybersecurity. Khanteepop Thaipradith, one
the real-world skills needed for success secure as possible, but also helps students to of my students at Steam Labs, shared, “I
in industry. In this article, I’m going to understand the types of threat schools face learn ethical hacking to keep myself updated
present activities and tools you can use to and how to put their learning into action. with the news and security. By going
link cybersecurity to the world outside the This project particularly stressed the through the process of ethical hacking, I’m
classroom. importance of keeping all operating systems able to gain knowledge in order to use it to
up to date and using suitable security secure myself, as well as people around me,
Projects with real-life consequences software, and the real-life consequences of from being hacked.”
I recently gave my students a taste of not doing so. Students absolutely thrived
industry experience through a data security during this project, as it allowed them to Professional real-world tools
project about our internal IT infrastructure. develop some basic skills that ethical hackers Another way of increasing engagement
Working alongside a team of remote and penetration testers use in industry, as in cybersecurity teaching is through using
penetration testers, I identified weaknesses well as practical skills they can use in their tools that are actually used in industry.
in our own school system that could allow everyday lives. It also allowed for topical We use Raspberry Pis preloaded with Kali
Linux, a system commonly used by industry
n Keep students engaged with cybersecurity
by using real-life tools and projects specialists, to teach students about evolving
threats in cybersecurity (helloworld.cc/
kalilinux). Students learn the fundamental
skills and steps needed to protect themselves
against these threats, and the importance of
ensuring that any data that is transmitted is
encrypted. Using Kali Linux, students explore
how to scan devices and sniff packets of data
that are being transmitted. They learn how
penetration testers identify whether particular
ports are open on network devices using a
TCP half-open port scan, and then look at
what action a pen tester would take if there
were ports open that could be dangerous
(you can learn more about how to do this at
helloworld.cc/sniffpacket).

18 helloworld.cc
FURTHER
RESOURCES
n h elloworld.cc/steamblog: Blog at Steam
Labs (an online school that teaches
robotics and ethical hacking), where I post
free cybersecurity content for schools at
the request of other global educators

n h elloworld.cc/robparker: My LinkedIn
profile; here, you can contact me for help
with designing lessons, and raise queries
about how to integrate cybersecurity into
the classroom

Another great way of putting advantage of a device using an outdated into everyday life and other parts of their
cybersecurity into practice is by using Secure operating system. Wireshark (wireshark. education. Importantly, students finish these
Shell. Using Raspberry Pi’s command line, org) is another powerful real-life tool you lessons with the know-how they need to
students learn how to access a device can use in cybersecurity lessons. It analyses help protect themselves and their families’
remotely by analysing the weaknesses in its network traffic and explores how encryption devices from this type of hacking.
security. The students take the perspective of works, underlining the importance of VirtualBox (virtualbox.org) is another
the hacker, and search for areas of weakness. having a strong password. Our students great tool, particularly if you’re low on time
From there, we challenge them to think of quickly discover how easy it is to crack a and budget. It is a well-rounded, free, open-
ways of fixing the issues in the system. Any user’s password using tools such as John source piece of virtualisation software. This
skilled ethical hacker or penetration tester
has to be able to understand offensive
ANY SKILLED ETHICAL HACKER HAS TO
security and think like a black-hat hacker.
Students are taught the ethics behind
“ UNDERSTAND OFFENSIVE SECURITY
cybersecurity, and they thrive when learning
about the skills that white-hat (ethical) AND THINK LIKE A BLACK-HAT HACKER
hackers develop and use in higher education.
Similarly, we use Shodan (shodan.io), the Ripper (helloworld.cc/john), and why type of software allows you to install and use
which can index every device connected to systems block multiple password attempts applications and operating systems other than
the internet, to demonstrate the importance when individuals use brute-force tools such the one running on your computer. This means
of keeping devices that are connected as Hydra. Through these activities, we’re you can look at malicious files safely without
to the internet up to date. We use it to developing their analytical and problem- infecting your computer, which can be a
explore how a hacker could potentially take solving skills, which they can transfer great starting point for applying cybersecurity
knowledge and skills in the classroom.
Raspberry Pi OS Lite is another good place to
ROB PARKER start. You can download a headless image and
Rob is a computer science educator and the data teach students how to access devices without
protection officer at St Andrews International a keyboard, mouse, or monitor.
School, Bangkok. He is also a robotics and If educators develop fun and exciting
technology coach at Steam Labs (steamlabs. projects in cybersecurity, we will start to
co.th), a specialist online school that teaches unlock our students’ ability to excel, and help
robotics, computer science, and ethical hacking. them to keep their own data and devices
Rob is a certified Ethical Hacker with EC-Council. secure, as well as those of the organisations
they work for in the future.

helloworld.cc 19
HEAR FROM
THE WRITERS!
Listen to Hello World’s
Subscribe to the podcast!
podcast now:
• Get more great Hello World content • Apple Podcasts
helloworld.cc/applepod
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• Spotify
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SCAN ME

OUR MOS
POPULAR T
How mora
EPISODES
l is your m
computin ach ine? E
g educati thics in
Accessib on
le and in
educatio clu s ive comp
n: where uting
to start?
How can
we get ev
eryone e
about co xcited
de?
 THE THIN BLUE
PIXELATED LINE
Jon Chippindall and Alan Merrett discuss what the law says about hacking
and the resources you can use to educate your learners

ention ‘hacking’ or ‘hackers’ to your this article focuses on UK law, its learnings we’ve spent too much time on teaching
M class and you might spot a few should still be relevant for all. how to protect against cybercriminals at the
smiles or exchanged glances. There might expense of reminding pupils not to become
even be confessions of “I managed to hack “It’s OK, I only teach primary” the cybercriminals themselves! What’s more,
so-and-so’s Roblox account once.” Pupils’ You might question whether we need to the advent of new off-the-shelf hacking tools
eagerness to identify as a hacker might be be covering the legalities of hacking in has lowered the bar of technical knowledge
somewhat explained by the romanticisation primary schools, as surely pupils are too required to undertake cyberattacks, so it’s
of hacking in popular culture. But let’s young to be at risk of offending, but you’d more important than ever that we educate
be absolutely clear: without express be surprised. The Pathways Into Cyber pupils from a young age on what is and isn’t
permission, unauthorised access to any Crime report from the UK’s National Crime OK to do with computers.
computer system is illegal, and our pupils Agency (NCA) highlighted that 61 percent of There is also a real positive opportunity
need to know this so they don’t find hackers start hacking before the age of 16, here to promote cybersecurity career choices
themselves on the wrong side of the law. In and many can trace their pathways back to and strike an appropriate balance of stick and
this article, we’ll unpick a little about what discussions in game-modding forums at the carrot. Pupils need to know what is illegal,
the law says around hacking and other top end of primary-school age (helloworld. but also that if they have an interest in the
cybercrimes, and share some resources you cc/ncareport). Looking at the make-up computer science behind hacking, there is
can use to educate your pupils. Although of many digital literacy curricula, perhaps an ever-growing world of jobs available to
them when they’re a bit older. Indeed, many
offenders interviewed by the NCA and police
officers were motivated not through malicious
intent, but by genuine curiosity, and by the
satisfaction to be gained from solving the
complex technical challenge of the hack. If we
can get these pupils on the right track, they’ll
be a huge asset to any organisation that
employs them to defend their digital interests.
So, what does the law actually say?

What the law says

In the UK, the Computer Misuse Act 1990
(helloworld.cc/cma1990) sets out what
constitutes illegal activity with a computer.
There are five elements of the law, which were
n Figure 1 Child-friendly translations of the laws constituting the UK’s Computer Misuse Act 1990

helloworld.cc 21
 FEATURE

FURTHER
RESOURCES
barefootcomputing.org/cyber: All the
activities mentioned in the article
and more can be downloaded here.

[email protected] or
[email protected]: Email
addresses for additional cybercrime-
related support in the UK.

translated into child-friendly explanations as

part of Barefoot’s Be Cyber Smart resources,
and are shown in Figure 1. This figure also
shows details of the sentences that people
can receive if convicted of each element,
including imprisonment and fines.
To bring the Computer Misuse Act to life,
let’s look at a selection of real prosecutions
to illustrate the elements that make up
the law. The following case information
was taken from a record of convictions
© oz/stock.adobe.com

maintained at helloworld.cc/cmacases. This

record could be explored with older pupils
to deepen their understanding of when
and how the law is broken, but please be
aware that some cases include crimes of a
sexual nature inappropriate for students.
MANY CYBERCRIMINALS INTERVIEWED
Case 1
“ WERE MOTIVATED NOT BY MALICE, BUT
A 22-year-old student created software
capable of harvesting names and passwords BY GENUINE INTEREST AND CURIOSITY
for various online services. They deployed
the software to gather these credentials so files without permission and subsequently Here, the victims include those whose
that they could then access the services for damaging them (breaking laws 1 and 3). online services were being used without
free. They were imprisoned for six months They were sentenced to ten months in prison their permission, and social media users
after they were found guilty of creating and their laptop was destroyed. whose personal information was sold
the software to harvest login credentials without their knowledge — potentially
(breaking law 5) and accessing the services Case 3 leading to further crimes such as identity
without permission (breaking law 1). A student hacked into social media and theft. In their interviews, the NCA learnt
gaming accounts using a program they had that cybercriminals often see their crimes as
Case 2 created, and then they sold the personal victimless. With large-scale hacks, though,
A disgruntled Jet2 employee launched a information from within them (breaking laws the sheer number of victims can vastly
revenge attack that shut down Jet2’s booking 1 and 4). They were sentenced to four months surpass traditional crimes, as demonstrated
system and accessed the CEO’s email. imprisonment, suspended for one year. in these case studies. Most large businesses
Recovery from the attack cost the company now employ cybersecurity teams to
£165,000 (approximately $225,000). The From these three cases alone, we can prevent hacks by regularly testing their
person was convicted of accessing Jet2’s see the far-reaching impact of cybercrimes. organisation’s defences. These penetration

22 helloworld.cc
testers are just one example of the careers putting pupils in the roles of defendant,
available in cybersecurity. barrister, and jury members. Pupils then
By introducing pupils to the Computer hear a number of cybercrime cases and for
Misuse Act 1990 (or your country’s each, consider whether the law has been
equivalent) and case studies such as these, broken, who the victims are, and what the
we can lead discussions to educate pupils on punishment might be. The resources even
what constitutes the illegal use of computers, include templates to create a barrister’s wig
the impact of these crimes, and the sentences for pupils and a judge’s wig for the teacher!
perpetrators can receive. Here is a selection of From the same set of resources, You’re the
JON CHIPPINDALL &
questions to lead a discussion with pupils: Cyber Security Expert brings us back to the ALAN MERRETT
positive opportunities of the topic, namely Jon (pictured) is the Barefoot director and
n  ow was the law broken?
H raising awareness of cybersecurity careers. It the computing lead at Crumpsall Lane
n What specific part of the law was broken? does this by giving pupils a taste of life in Primary School in Manchester, UK. He also
n Who are the victims? How are they affected? this field as they learn what a brute-force leads the computing PGCE at The University
n What might the punishment be? hack is and, importantly, what strategies we of Manchester. Alan is a senior officer in the
could deploy to guard against it. So, for Cyber Prevent Team at the UK’s National
Taking this one step further, the free Barefoot those pupils who exchanged a knowing Crime Agency. He has 34 years of law
You’re the Jury resources, which can be glance at the mention of hacking, let’s enforcement experience, including overt
downloaded for free at barefootcomputing. harness that curiosity and raise their and covert roles with HM Customs and a
org/cyber after a quick registration, suggest awareness of rewarding careers that pursue team leader role at the UK’s Interpol Desk
turning classrooms into courtrooms and this interest legally. and Fugitives Unit.

helloworld.cc 23
 FEATURE

ROBIN HOOD VS THE

SHERIFF OF NOTTINGHAM
Matthew Hewlett shares his thoughts on the importance of developing students’
understanding of ethics through the lens of cybersecurity

onsider the following: in 2015, the we can apply to help our students make outcome. Theft, as the Sheriff of Nottingham
C dating website Ashley Madison sense of an ethical question and therefore in the tale of Robin Hood would point out, is
was hacked and its users’ data was begin to formulate a response. theft, and theft is always wrong.
stolen. Names, addresses, and credit card A consequentialist approach considers
numbers of the people using the site were the outcomes or consequences, rather than Practical applications
subsequently leaked. If this wasn’t bad the underlying motivation of the agent. The If pupils are required to consciously refer to one
enough, Ashley Madison was no ordinary tale of Robin Hood is probably one of the of these ethical branches in their responses
dating site: it specialised in matching most famous examples in history: he stole to cybersecurity issues, they will be able to
people who wanted to have affairs. The from the rich to give to the poor, and the structure their thoughts on the issues more
consequence of this leak was, among other theft of private property can be justified by confidently. Having stated an initial position,
things, numerous divorces, and at least one the happiness that his redistribution of an students are able to develop their opinions
person taking their life. Ethically speaking, individual’s wealth entailed. more articulately when the inevitable nuances
who should shoulder responsibility for By contrast, a deontological approach of an ethical argument present themselves.
these outcomes? The hacker, for leaking the considers the intentions rather than the For the following cybersecurity ethical
material? The owners of Ashley Madison, for consequences of an event when judging scenarios, ask students how they would
not securing or encrypting their users’ data? a person’s behaviour. Actions that adhere approach these issues and whether they
Or the users themselves? We will all have to ethical rules are right, regardless of the consider themselves to be consequentialist
a gut response to this, but it is important or deontological thinkers. Is there an agreed
to be able to develop a considered moral principle that should be adhered to? Can
ethical response. it be broken for the sake of the outcomes?
KEY TERMINOLOGY
Robin Hood vs the Sheriff 1. Y
 ou are an ethical hacker and have uncovered
It is fair to assume, as computer science Ethics: The discipline of studying what is a security flaw in a globally used operating
educators, that we are more comfortable good and bad, right and wrong. system. This flaw can allow unethical
with cybersecurity content knowledge Deontological: An ethical philosophy that agents to inject malicious code onto people’s
than we are with ethics. If that is the case, believes that morally right actions can be computers. Before you can take action, a
how can you help students to approach an determined by asking whether they adhere friend who works for a rival company offers
ethical quandary in a cybersecurity context? to a set of agreed rules. to employ you on a lucrative contract as long
Firstly, remember that you are applying as you stay quiet about your discovery.
Consequentialism: An opposing theory that
ethics to a context, and that as such, there 2. You work for a social media company and
holds that the outcomes of someone’s actions
are developed ethical systems to draw have access to the ‘big data’ that is generated
define whether they are behaving morally.
upon. Of the many approaches to ethics, by the millions of users of the platform. A
there are two well-used approaches that general election is underway and the party

24 helloworld.cc
 © Lucian Milasan/stock.adobe.com
n In cybersecurity ethical dilemmas, students must ask
themselves, are they Robin Hood or the Sheriff of Nottingham?

that is almost certainly going to win is,

IS THERE AN AGREED MORAL PRINCIPLE
in your opinion, opposed to your nation’s
values. Providing the data to another “ TO ADHERE TO? CAN THAT PRINCIPLE BE
political party could successfully swing the
election to one that is better for society. Do BROKEN FOR THE SAKE OF THE OUTCOMES?
you share it?
3. You have developed a messaging platform digital literacy. However, we have to play
with secure end-to-end encryption. The our part in helping our students understand
majority of your users are using your their own actions and, as much as possible,
platform to engage in illegal activity. Should the actions of others (for example, dealing
you maintain the platform? with questions around why people may hack,
4. You run a new PR firm that has secured its rather than just focusing on how to hack).
first major contract. Your firm uses software It’s often said that we are preparing
that has security flaws, but you can’t students for a world they can’t imagine. I
currently afford the cost of resolving the disagree. In computer science we are teaching
issues. What should you do? students to shape a world we can’t imagine. It
is incumbent upon us to develop young
Can you think of extra context that would people with not just the skills, but also the
challenge your students’ initial response? ethical grounding to make them responsible,
Having identified their initial ethical stance, it empathetic, and considerate overseers of the
should be easier for them to respond further. ongoing technological revolution. Did the MATTHEW HEWLETT
owner of Ashley Madison consider his Matthew is the computing development lead
Why is it important? deontological duty to do no harm? Did the at Fairfields Primary School in Basingstoke,
Exposure to these ethical concepts is vital, people using the website, presumably all UK. He is a facilitator for the UK’s National
despite the fact that many computing curricula consequentialists, apply a reasoned ethical Centre for Computing Education and a
dedicate little time to them. Admittedly, it can argument to their actions? Whenever your facilitator for Isaac Computer Science.
be hard to fit these concepts into lessons with students are presented with an ethical Matthew is also a resource author and a
less teaching time than many comparable dilemma, cyber or otherwise, get them to keen Raspberry Pi tinkerer.
subjects — lessons which are also under start by picking a side. Are they Robin Hood
pressure to deliver programming skills and or the Sheriff of Nottingham?

helloworld.cc 25
 FEATURE

KNOW THY ENEMY

Pretending to be the bad guys adds depth, understanding, and fun to
cybersecurity classes, and helps us to become better good guys

now thy enemy. This is one of the Understanding the offence improves our
K most famous tenets of warfare, defence. Understanding the techniques
according to the legendary Chinese phishers use helps us to identify them more
general Sun Tzu. It’s great advice on quickly and accurately.
the battlefield, and its utility extends to After studying these emails, it’s time for
the teaching of cybersecurity. In a way, students to show me what they’ve learnt,
cybersecurity is war: an ever-evolving by phishing me. In doing so, they have to
conflict between those who want ask themselves the same question as the
information and those who have that bad guys: what am I trying to accomplish,
information. By the time I start teaching and how? Some students’ emails are more
phishing, most students have already convincing than others, but they all make ZACH HUFFMAN
been phished. If you want to beat the bad it clear that they know what a phishing Zach is an upper-school computer science
guys, I teach them, you have to walk a attempt looks like. Most of them are funny, teacher at the Hun School of Princeton
mile in their shoes to understand them. and occasionally, one of them actually in New Jersey, USA. He is an avid gamer
fools me. Any student that does this gets and has spent the last five years teaching
Walk a mile extra credit and provides the entire class computer science, from kindergarten all
When I introduce cybersecurity, I use as with another learning opportunity: it’s a the way up to 12th grade (@ltwheat).
many real-world examples as possible. I win-win situation.
keep every single phishing email I get in By studying and then creating real-life
a folder, so that when we study phishing, artefacts, we deepen our understanding of causation. In doing so, they gain a level of
we are studying primary sources. I pick them. Being the bad guys makes us better understanding that does not come with
out a few and, as a class, we study each good guys. So, the next time you study a simply studying the subject. They understand
one. We ask ourselves, what is this person threat, have your students emulate it. Have their foe, and as Sun Tzu said, “If you know
trying to accomplish? How are they trying them write a clickbait title for a fake news the enemy and know yourself, you need not
to accomplish it? What is their motivation? article, or equate a spurious correlation with fear the result of a hundred battles.”

PHISHING CONTEST: THE WINNING ENTRY

Most real-life phishing emails try to alarm you into
acting quickly and irrationally. Aaron, last year’s winner,
appealed to my lack of attention. I primarily use Google
Docs for grading, and receive about 50 emails every
week that all say “[Student] has invited you to edit
the following document,” with the little blue Google
Docs icon. I click these without a second thought. Aaron
knew that, and exploited it. This provided a meaningful
teaching moment in class.

26 helloworld.cc
 KEEP CURIOUS AND
CARRY ON HACKING
Ben Garside explores the meaning behind the word
‘hacking’ and argues why we should teach students to hack

ver time, the meaning of the word solvers and how to fill the gaps in their Although martial arts teach people how to
O ‘hacking’ has changed. Today, it knowledge. They were learning to hack, in do harmful things to other human beings,
often has pejorative connotations around the spirit of the original meaning of the term. a sensei is there to guide students in self-
the bad things that bad people do on Developing students’ problem-solving control and discipline. Relating this to hacking,
their computers. However, the term has skills is no bad thing, but what if we were students can easily go online and follow
much more positive origins, with its to take this a step further and also teach hacking tutorials, but at home, there is no
first recorded use coming from MIT’s students how to hack in the more common, sensei there to guide them about the rights
Tech Model Railroad Club in the 1950s. malicious sense of the word? When writing and wrongs of their choices. As educators, we
need to remember our role as sensei.
Let’s keep teaching our students to be
WE DECIDED TO GO BEYOND THE THEORY
“ AND GIVE STUDENTS THE CHANCE TO
curious about technology, to want to know
how something works, to be problem-
solvers, and, therefore, to be hackers — just
EXPLORE THE CODE BEHIND THESE ATTACKS like the good people of MIT’s Tech Model
Railroad Club.
Members of this club enjoyed taking apart cybersecurity units for the Teach Computing
model trains to discover how they worked, Curriculum (helloworld.cc/tcccyber1 and
with the aim of enhancing them; they helloworld.cc/tcccyber2), this is exactly what
were ‘hacking’ the technology they were we did. We made the conscious decision,
working with. In this article, I argue that in places, to go beyond the theory of how
hacking shouldn’t be used as a dirty word, these attacks work and give students the
and that teaching students how to hack opportunity to explore the code that makes
isn’t necessarily a bad thing. them happen. We created activities in which
When I was a teacher, I often asked learners use very unsophisticated code that
classes to open up old computers over a could be used for a brute-force attack, as well
series of lessons about hardware. We would as an activity in which students perform an
look at their components, see how they fit SQL injection on a fake website.
together, and discuss what we could do We’re not encouraging students to become
to improve the machines. This method of criminals, of course, and we contextualise BEN GARSIDE
teaching students about hardware had more these activities with the ethics and legalities Ben is a learning manager for the
benefits than just visualising the abstract: of these types of action. As Zach argues Raspberry Pi Foundation. He has worked
without realising it, I’d been teaching my in the previous article, I believe that we’re on the production of the Teach Computing
students how to hack. Just as Grace Hopper encouraging students to get a deeper Curriculum, and on online courses including
famously enjoyed dismantling clocks as a understanding so that they can better the recently released Introduction to
child to figure out how they worked, my protect themselves against real threats. I Machine Learning and AI (@BenberryPi).
students were learning how to be problem- relate this approach to the karate principle.

helloworld.cc 27
 FEATURE

CYBERSECURITY FOR GIRLS

Babak Ebrahim explains how his school used a cybersecurity
club to increase interest in computing among girls

t is impossible to walk into an CyberFirst Girls Competition (helloworld.cc/ found it more effective when these teachers
I upper-secondary computer science cyberfirst), aimed at Year 8 girls in England encouraged the girls to join. They would also
lesson and not notice the number of boys (aged 12–13) with the aim of influencing help with running the club. We found it to
compared to girls. This is a common issue girls when choosing their GCSE subjects be most popular with Year 7 students (aged
across the world; it is clear from reading (qualifications pupils take aged 14–16). Each 11–12), with 15 girls regularly attending.
community forums and news headlines that school can enter as many teams as they like, We often do cryptography tasks in the
there is a big gap in female representation with a maximum of four girls in each team. club, including activities from established
in computing. To combat this problem in I advertised the event by showing a video competitions. For example, I recently
my school, I started organising trips to of the previous year’s attendees and the challenged the club to complete tasks from
local universities and arranging assembly winning team. To our delight, 19 girls, in five the most recent Alan Turing Cryptography
talks for my Year 9 students (aged 13–14). teams, entered the competition. Competition (helloworld.cc/alanturing). A
Although this was helpful, it didn’t have as huge benefit of completing these tasks in the
much impact as I expected on improving Club activities club, rather than in the classroom, was that
female representation. This led me to alter To make sure that this wasn’t a one- students could work more informally and
our approach and target younger female off event, we started an after-school were not under pressure to succeed. I found
students with an extracurricular club. cybersecurity club for girls. All computing this year’s tasks quite challenging for younger
As part of our lower-secondary curriculum, teachers encouraged their female students students, and I was worried that this could
all pupils study encryption and cryptography, to attend. We had a number of female put them off returning to the club. To avoid
and we were keen to extend this interest teachers who were teaching maths and this, I first taught the students the skills that
beyond lesson time. I discovered the computing as their second subjects, and I they would need for one of the challenges,
followed by small tasks that I made myself
over two or three sessions.
For example, one task required students to
use the Playfair cipher to break a long piece
of code. In order to prepare students for
decoding this text, I showed them how the
cipher works, then created empty grids (5 x
5 tables) and modelled the technique with
simple examples. The girls then worked in
teams of two to encrypt a short quote. I gave
each group a different quotation, and they
weren’t allowed to let other groups know
what it was. Once they applied the cipher,
they handed the encrypted message to
another group, whose job was to decrypt it.
At this stage, some would identify that the
n The club gives girls the opportunity to discover their potential and other group had made mistakes using the
consider pursuing a career in a male-dominated profession

28 helloworld.cc
TRY IT FOR
YOURSELF!
n  edicate a school display board to
D
celebrating the work students do at
your cybersecurity club. This may
encourage others to come along,
and help to retain current members.

n Invest in a long-term plan by

focusing on early-year groups. We
find that Year 7 students (aged 11–
12) are generally keener to attend
after-school clubs than older pupils,
and will then continue attending as
they get older.
n Students feel under less pressure and can work
more informally in a club-based setting
n  ork with other teachers to
W
promote and encourage more
the girls, as they discovered the pivotal roles girls who take GCSE remains to be seen, but
students to join the club.
women had in breaking codes during the it certainly gives the girls the opportunity to
n  s women are underrepresented
A Second World War. If you’re not based in the discover their potential, learn the importance
in computing, encourage UK, Bletchley Park also runs a virtual tour of cybersecurity, and consider pursuing a
female members of staff and workshops (helloworld.cc/bletchley). career in a male-dominated profession.
to help run your club. Another worthwhile activity in the club has There are many factors that influence a
been for older pupils, who are in their second child’s mind as to what they would like to
year of attending, to mentor and support study or do, and every little extra effort that
techniques, and they would go through the girls in the years below them, especially in we put into their learning journey will shape
text together to identify them. Once students preparation for participating in competitions. who they will become in the future.
were confident and competent in using this You could also organise a day trip to a local
cipher, I presented them with the competition university where students could attend
task, and they then applied the same different workshops run by female lecturers
process. Of course, some students would still or university students; this could involve a
make mistakes, but they would realise this mixture of maths, science, and computer
and be able to work through them, rather science activities.
than being overwhelmed by them. We are thrilled to learn that one of our

EVERY EFFORT THAT WE PUT INTO OUR

“ STUDENTS’ LEARNING JOURNEYS WILL HELP
SHAPE WHO THEY BECOME IN THE FUTURE
Trips teams won this year’s CyberFirst Girls BABAK EBRAHIM
Other club activities have included a trip to Competition! More importantly, the Babak is a computer science and
Bletchley Park. As a part of the package, knowledge gained by all the students who mathematics teacher at Bishop Challoner
students took part in a codebreaking attend the club is most heartening, along Catholic College Secondary in Birmingham,
workshop in which they used the Enigma with the enthusiasm that is clearly evident UK. He is a CAS Community Leader and
machine to crack encrypted messages. This each week, and the fun that is had. Whether works as a CS Champion for England’s
inspirational trip was a great experience for this will have any impact on the number of NCCE (@BishopChalComp).

helloworld.cc 29
 FEATURE
© Viktar Naumik/stock.adobe.com

CAPTURE THE FLAG

TO CAPTURE INTEREST
Nancy Stevens shares her classroom experience with using a Capture
the Flag competition to engage students with cybersecurity concepts

had intended to look into a teaching a number of courses and not only Capture the Flag
I
cybersecurity competition for my was I discouraged by my failure to get I soon found just the solution at a
students for quite some time, but this was to know my students, I’m not sure that I cybersecurity summit I attended. In one of
getting pretty comfortable at the bottom would even recognise them without their the sessions, David Raymond of the US
of my to-do list as competing priorities masks. The joy of teaching for me is in Cyber Range introduced a Capture the
took over. Pandemic teaching and learning taking students on a journey: exploring new Flag (CTF) competition that schools could
is tough, though, and by the spring of last content, sharing ideas, and developing a enter. This CTF was temporarily available
year, my district had tried virtual schooling, better understanding of the technology in to teachers with US Cyber Range accounts
in-person learning in cohorts, and a hybrid our lives. I needed something that would (a fee-based service). It would last for three
plan that was the worst of them all. I was bring the joy back to the classroom. days and students had 90-minute class

30 helloworld.cc
 experience. As they looked over the tasks, yet attainable competition, and a fun way
there were initially a few questions (What is to give students a taste of the skills and
TRY IT FOR steganography? What is a packet tracer?), understanding required for a career in the
YOURSELF! but I would provide encouragement and cybersecurity industry.
check-ins on their progress only, pushing Finally, my students were developing soft
them to research their questions themselves. skills beneficial to their studies and future
uscyberrange.org: Cybersecurity labs, careers. Since it was a CTF with limited
including a web-based CTF platform
Benefits attempts at each task, coordination and
teachcyber.org: Organisation that provides CTF competitions present numerous benefits collaboration were important. Students
cybersecurity resources, training, and to teaching cybersecurity. Within 24 hours were learning to work together as a team;
support to secondary school educators of introducing the challenge to my students, to communicate and delegate clearly;
they were problem-solving, researching, to persevere; and to explore different
cryptologicfoundation.org: Foundation that
communicating, and collaborating — and approaches to solving a problem, as well
shares cryptology educational resources
there were even points on the leader as the obvious boost to their computational
board! I felt like Gene Wilder in Young thinking skills and cybersecurity knowledge
Frankenstein when the monster is brought and understanding. By the end of the week,
periods where they would work on the tasks, to life by an electrical charge. CTFs provide my students were in fourth place on the
as well as a little homework time. CTFs the perfect opportunity for students to leader board, out of 148 teams!
take different forms, but most educational explore and investigate content on their Cybersecurity education can change the
ones are jeopardy-style: participants must own terms. Instead of me standing at the future. It gives the opportunity to learn about
undertake different problem-solving or front of the classroom teaching a lesson on protecting your personal information, and it
programming tasks, and for each task that steganography, my students were searching can offer a career in protecting your nation. A
teams or individuals complete, they are online and discussing how to solve a problem CTF or a cybersecurity competition will help
given a flag that equates to points. There with hidden information. In this way, I also you be the change in your classroom.

I NEEDED SOMETHING THAT WOULD

“ BRING THE JOY BACK TO THE CLASSROOM,
AND CAPTURE THE FLAG DELIVERED
are different types of task in CTFs, including found that I didn’t have to be the expert
cryptography challenges (decrypting or in the room. I took great pride in watching
encrypting data), steganography challenges students write code that exceeded my ability
(finding information hidden in files or as they took control of their learning, and I
images), and web challenges (exploiting web instead provided them with relevant content, NANCY STEVENS
pages to find specific pieces of text). encouragement, and guiding questions. Nancy is a cybersecurity education
The competition that I signed some of In addition to working in class, I found advocate with Teach Cyber (teachcyber.
my students up to was free, very easy out that students were texting each other org), which provides cybersecurity
to join, and would get students engaged in the evenings and continuing to work on courses for high-school students, as
for the next few days. I could do this! My the tasks at home. Clearly, you should never well as professional development, virtual
introductory computer science students underestimate the power of a leader board lounges for teachers to meet, and free
(aged 14–16) were at various places in and points! I know colleagues who have guidelines and curriculum access. She
the curriculum, so I pitched the CTF to a gamified their courses, and the CTF reminded is a former computer science teacher at
group of four students who were working me of how points and challenges can be real First Flight High School in North Carolina,
ahead. These students were novice Python motivators. The jeopardy-style format and USA. She is also a Code.org facilitator.
programmers and did not have CTF the hints in the CTF created a challenging

helloworld.cc 31
 FEATURE

HANDS-ON CYBERSECURITY
Researchers from Vanderbilt University share how they introduced
hands-on cybersecurity to high-school students with networked robots

ince 2015, our team at Vanderbilt the chart service. The call block is self- making a robot spin by turning its left and
S University has been working on documenting: selecting a service configures right wheels in opposite directions, followed
a block-based educational programming a drop-down menu of the various functions by a message header that is triggered every
environment called NetsBlox (netsblox. available. Selecting a function shows the time the robot with the ID ‘robot’ sends a
org). Similar to Scratch and based on required input argument slots. message with the content provided in the
the open-source code base of Snap!, The other networking abstraction is variable ‘message’.
NetsBlox uses networking abstractions message passing. A NetsBlox program This is a new twist on educational
including services and message passing to can send messages with configurable robotics. Firstly, the student’s program runs
introduce computer networking concepts data payload to any other NetsBlox in the browser, making it much easier to
to students in an accessible manner. It program running on the internet. Just two debug; and no wires are needed, as there
uses these same networking abstractions new blocks are needed: send message is nothing to compile and download. This
to allow students to program robot and when I receive. Message passing also enables remote robotics: the student
vehicles and interact with cybersecurity makes it possible for students to create and the robot do not need to be co-located;
issues in a hands-on way. In this online multiplayer games and social only a video stream of the robot’s location
article, we will first introduce NetsBlox, applications. is required. What makes RoboScape truly
before discussing its applications for unique, though, is the ability for students to
cybersecurity learning and its use at a Robots and cybersecurity eavesdrop on the wireless communication
cybersecurity summer camp we ran. NetsBlox uses the very same networking between other students and their robots.
abstractions (services and message They can even send commands to any
NetsBlox passing) to allow students to program unprotected robot on the network, which
The NetsBlox server hosts a number of robot vehicles. A new service, RoboScape it will gladly execute. This provides an
services that can be accessed by a single (helloworld.cc/roboscape), will enable eye-opening illustration to students of why
new block called call (see Figure 1). These students to send commands to a Wi- cybersecurity is so crucial. Once they realise
services allow students to get various Fi–enabled robot (currently limited to the how vulnerable their robots are, we can
interesting data from the internet, such as Parallax ActivityBot 360°, helloworld.cc/ introduce them to the various mechanisms
weather conditions, Covid-19 numbers, activitybot). The robot, in turn, responds included with RoboScape to defend their
movie ratings, and stock quotes. They with messages of acknowledgement or robots from cyberattacks.
can visualise the data on top of Google sensor values, depending on the command.
Maps backgrounds or generate plots using Figure 2 shows an example command Cybersecurity camp
Using NetsBlox and RoboScape, we created
a curriculum for a week-long cybersecurity
summer camp for high-school students.
The curriculum covers attacks and attack
detection; denial of service; encryption;
key cracking; insecure key exchange;
and replay attack, all using NetsBlox and
RoboScape. This curriculum is not intended
as a thorough coverage of all important
cybersecurity concepts. Rather, our goal is
to introduce cybersecurity in an engaging
and motivating manner to spark students’
n Figure 1 Example calls in NetsBlox

32 helloworld.cc
n Students use robots to interact with cybersecurity issues

interest in exploring the topic further. making them exceed the rate limit.
OUR ROBOT TUG
After an introduction to NetsBlox and
RoboScape, we first task students to
The rest of the camp curriculum has
similar fun activities related to robotics and “ OF WAR GAME WAS
detect whether somebody is trying to cybersecurity. We have run six such camps
attack their robot. This can be done by in the last couple of years with over 100 VERY POPULAR
comparing the number of commands they pupils in total. Engagement has been very
sent versus the number of commands the high, with one teacher remarking, “... their
robot acknowledged receiving. Next, we cell phones, I didn’t see them out, they were
illustrate denial of service attacks. We not distracted by them”. Our post-camp ÁKOS LÉDECZI,
pick one student and ask them to drive surveys have indicated that the camps and GORDON STEIN,
around the room while all other students their hands-on teaching increased many
MIKLÓS MARÓTI &
are repeatedly sending short beep students’ interest in computer science and
commands to the same robot. Soon, the cybersecurity. We truly believe that making
BRIAN BROLL
The authors all work at Vanderbilt University
robot becomes unresponsive and starts learning fun and engaging is the way to
in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. Ákos is a
to drive erratically. To defend against this increase participation in STEM. To make the
professor advising his PhD student Gordon
type of attack, RoboScape includes rate curriculum even more widely accessible, we
working on the NetsBlox system. Miklós is a
control: the students can set how many now have a simulated 3D environment
visiting professor and Brian, after getting his
commands per second the robot will where multiple students can join remotely
PhD centred on related technologies, is now
accept from any one program and also the and run the same programs on the virtual
a research scientist. Their work is sponsored
penalty timeout it enforces when the limit robots. You can find an overview of each
by the NSA and the NSF.
is exceeded. This sets up a fun game we unit in the curriculum and an introductory
call tug of war: two students share a single video at helloworld.cc/roboscape.
robot set in the middle of an arena. They
need to drive the robot to their side of the
field by using any commands they wish,
but especially rate control. This was a very
popular activity in our camps. Students
came up with many innovative strategies
to try to shut out the other student by
n Figure 2 Example robot command and message

helloworld.cc 33
 FEATURE

QUANTUM CRYPTOGRAPHY
Andreas J. C. Woitzik and Stefan Seegerer share an activity for older pupils exploring the
fundamentals of quantum cryptography and how to detect eavesdropping

W
e rely on secure communication for No-cloning theorem: Quantum information, there is the – state (the orthogonal state of
a lot of tasks, from private chat to in general, cannot be copied. + ), which corresponds to a line with a 135°
Covid certificates. Fortunately, we have angle to the x-axis (the red line in Figure 2).
asymmetric encryption protocols such as Before we look at these features, we Returning to the key features of quantum
RSA (helloworld.cc/rsa), where people need to understand how we can describe information, we will deal first with invasive
do not need to have some kind of secure quantum information. The fundamental bit measurements (the principle that quantum
channel to exchange an asymmetric key. of quantum information is a qubit, which is information is generally modified when
However, the rise of quantum computers visualised here as a straight line crossing it is measured). To access the value of a
means that a lot of cryptography systems the origin on a unit circle (see Figure 1). The qubit, we need to measure it, and this can
are now more prone to deciphering, as state of a qubit can be any such line that alter its state. To measure the qubit, we
these computers can decode some security crosses the origin at any angle (meaning need a measurement basis, which you
protocols easily. New protocols therefore that there are infinitely many different can visualise as a cross defined by two
need to be invented, and interestingly, states for a single qubit; you can simply orthogonal (perpendicular) lines. The two
quantum information can also be used for rotate it). Usually, we define the x-axis as bases we need here are (0 , 1 ) and (+ , – )
encryption itself. These quantum protocols a 0° angle (the blue line in Figure 2) and (see Figure 3). If we measure in a basis,
enable secure communication by noting a this line describes a quantum 0, written the current state is changed to one of the
possible interference by an eavesdropper. 0 . The 90° rotated line corresponds to a two orthogonal lines. The probability to
One such protocol is BB84, which is quantum 1, written 1 (the orange line in be mapped to any of them depends on
fun to discover with students. Before Figure 2). The final states that we will need the angle between the line that describes
introducing it, students should already for our BB84 protocol later are also shown the qubit and the two orthogonal lines. In
have knowledge of one-time pad and in Figure 2. There is the + state, which the case of our protocol, we only use the
classical ciphers such as Caesar, as the corresponds to a line with a 45° angle to the angles 0°, 45°, 90°, and 135°, and here the
secure cryptography protocol motivates x-axis (the green line in Figure 2). Finally, probabilities of measurement are either 0, 1,
the quantum key exchange. Asymmetric
cryptography and potential threats to
breaking encryption through Shor’s
algorithm are also useful prerequisites
to introducing this protocol.

The fundamentals
The BB84 protocol (helloworld.cc/BB84)
is built upon two key features of quantum
information, which are strikingly different to
classical information:

Invasive measurements: Quantum

information, in general, is modified
n Figure 1 Arbitrary qubit state Credit: Andreas J. C. Woitzik n Figure 2 The four qubit states relevant for BB84 Credit: Andreas J. C. Woitzik
when measured.

34 helloworld.cc
 PLAYING THIS
“ GAME HELPS
MAKE ABSTRACT
CONCEPTS MORE
CONCRETE

n Figure 3 Left: qubit with measurement basis ( 0 , 1 ), and right: with ( + , – ) Credit: Andreas J. C. Woitzik

or ½. In our game, we will use a coin (with Repeat eight times:

0 being heads and 1 being tails), rather 1. Alice flips a coin (heads 0, tails 1) to
than trigonometry, to measure with respect create a random bit. This is the bit
to our bases. intended for the shared key.
The second feature of quantum 2. Alice flips the coin again to randomly
information is the no-cloning theorem decide an encoding basis: (0 , 1 ) or
(the principle that quantum information ( + , - ).
cannot generally be copied). This 3. If the random bit is a 0, Alice prepares
theorem has a mathematical proof that a qubit in 0 or + . If the random bit is a
is outside the scope of this article, but 1, she prepares a qubit in 1 or – (see
its implication is described by its name. Table 1 for possible outcomes).
Given an arbitrary quantum state, we 4. Hermes carries the qubit from Alice
cannot simply make a copy of it. This will to Bob.
be important later, as the eavesdropper 5. Bob decides randomly for measurement
cannot simply copy the qubits that our basis ( 0 , 1 ) or ( + , - ) by flipping a coin.
two secret-sharers send to each other. 6. B ob then measures the qubit with the
basis from step 5 according to the image.
The BB84 protocol If Alice and Bob’s bases match, Bob
The BB84 protocol is a quantum key measures the same outcome as Alice did.
exchange protocol, meaning it allows Otherwise, there is a 50 percent chance
the exchange of a shared secret bitstring for each outcome. Hermes helps in these
between two people, say Alice and Bob. cases by throwing a coin to decide the
After exchanging the key, it can be used outcome (see Table 2). ANDREAS J. C.
for secure one-time pad communication or 7. A lice and Bob compare which WOITZIK AND STEFAN
other cryptography protocols. We will give measurement bases they used. If Alice SEEGERER
a short description of the necessary steps and Bob used the same basis, they Andreas is a PhD student in quantum
and describe them as a game played by include this bit in the key. Otherwise, information science in the Quantum Optics
four students. You will need: they discard it. and Statistics group at the University of
Freiburg, Germany. He is interested in
n  qubits (a template for a circle with
8 The resulting key can now be used bringing quantum information to schools.
specified angles, a paper arrow, a paper for a one-time pad or for any other
cross, and a brass fastener to mimic the cryptography protocol. Stefan is the quantum education
images in the table on the next page — manager at IQM Quantum Computers,
see Figure 4) Eavesdroppers exploring ways to make quantum
n 4 students (playing the roles of Alice, Bob, Eve, whose role in the protocol has not computing accessible to everyone
Hermes, and Eve) yet been introduced, is our potential (@StefanSeegerer).
n 2 coins eavesdropper. Her role is to take over the

helloworld.cc 35
 FEATURE

qubits from Hermes at step 4, then do

whatever she wants with them before
handing them back to Hermes for him to ALICE QUBIT
deliver to Bob. Eve can choose to look at PREPARATION SCHEME 1st coin flip outcome: random bit
each qubit or not. If she does the latter,
she cannot gain any information and hence 2nd coin flip outcome: encoding basis 0 1
won’t know anything about the qubit’s 0 1
0
state. The magic happens as soon as she
looks at the qubit, which means that she
90°

measures it. To measure the qubit without

changing its state, though, she needs
to get its basis right (remember: simply
copying is not allowed in the quantum 1
+ -

information world).
135°

As she knows nothing about the basis

45°

Alice used to prepare her qubits, Eve

only has a 50 percent chance of guessing
correctly. If she does, she can observe
the state of the qubit without changing it.
n Table 1 The possible outcomes in step 3 of the game
But if she chooses the wrong basis, she
changes the state of the qubit. After Bob 0 1 + -

THE MAGIC
90° 45°
135°

“ HAPPENS WHEN
QUBIT RECEIVED
FROM ALICE

THE QUBIT IS Measurement in {|0 ,|1 } 0 1

Hermes tosses
a coin for 0 or 1
Hermes tosses
a coin for 0 or 1
OBSERVED
Hermes tosses Hermes tosses 0 1
and Alice exchange the bases used for Measurement in {|+ ,|- } a coin for 0 or 1 a coin for 0 or 1
measurements, they can use parts of their
n Table 2 The possible outcomes in step 6 of the game
remaining qubits to check whether they
both measured the same values. If Bob
measured on the same basis as Alice, but
observed a different outcome, he knows
that an eavesdropper has interfered.
In summary, the activity shows a
different spin on cryptography, as quantum
information allows for different ways of
encoding information. By playing this
game, students can get a hands-on
impression of the protocol and can more
easily keep track of the states of the real-
life qubits, making these abstract concepts
more concrete. They also get a feel for
when randomness kicks into quantum
information through the coin toss. In our
experience, playing BB84 with students
can help to deepen their understanding of
the core ideas of cryptography. n Figure 4 A self-made physical representation of a qubit Credit: Andreas J. C. Woitzik

36 helloworld.cc
 CYBERSECURITY: THERE’S
A RESOURCE FOR THAT!
Donna Rawling shares resources to help engage primary students in
cybersecurity learning, supporting them in becoming positive digital citizens

ur young learners grow up well information and their personal safety. As dangers. Here, I’ve curated a helpful list of
O versed in rapidly advancing well as giving them positive experiences resources that you can use to teach
technologies, and there are ever-more of technology, we have a responsibility to primary-aged pupils about cybersecurity
sophisticated threats to both their private make them aware of the potential and e-safety.

RESOURCE ABOUT

Barefoot Computing This collection of free unplugged activities and interactive games was
(barefootcomputing.org/ created together with the UK’s National Crime Agency. Topics range
cyber) from online ownership, to phishing, to the law, to password protection.

Another collaboration with the UK’s National Crime Agency, this site
features free online games dealing with aspects of cybersecurity,
n Google’s Interland game explores cybersecurity
Cybergames UK including introductions to malware and firewalls, substitution ciphers, and e-safety in a fun way

(cybergamesuk.com) and network ports.

This Google program empowers children to use the web safely, and
includes lesson plans, codes of conduct, and a fun interactive game,
Be Internet Legends Interland (helloworld.cc/interland), in which kids explore issues such
(helloworld.cc/legends) as personal privacy, real versus fake info, and thinking before sharing.

This range of resources supports teachers and parents in ensuring

children stay safe online, including platform games in which learners
Think U Know answer questions about sharing personal information and pictures,
(thinkuknow.co.uk) watching videos, and chatting with people online.

Billed as the online equivalent to the UK’s Duke of Edinburgh awards,

these interactive badges have been designed by leaders of industry and
can be worked through at a learner’s own pace. The ‘Citizen’ badges
include units on cyberspies, code cracking, being safe on social media,
iDEA (Inspiring Digital and digital ethics. There are three levels of badge (Bronze, Silver, and
Enterprise Award) badges Gold). They are fun and engaging, and one of the most-requested sites
(idea.org.uk) whenever I run a free-choice lesson for children! DONNA RAWLING
Donna currently works for educational
One of the best resources you have access to is people! Local police technology solution provider MGL as a
authorities usually have dedicated cybersafety teams headed up by computing curriculum consultant, and is a
expert officers who are often happy to run staff CPD and workshops for former primary computing coordinator. She
parents, and to come and talk to your children. I can highly recommend is a CAS Master Teacher and a Raspberry Pi
this as a great way to get your learners thinking about the choices they Certified Educator (@DdR333).
Ask an expert! make and how to get the most out of their digital journey.

helloworld.cc 37
 FEATURE
© rangizzz/stock.adobe.com

CYBERSECURITY
AND VIDEO GAMES
n Many video games can support the
teaching of cybersecurity

Neil Rickus and Andy Robertson explore how video games can
enable pupils to develop their understanding of cybersecurity

n previous issues of Hello World, Using video games in the classroom experience and decisions in the games
I I [Neil] have examined how retro A number of factors need to be considered are different each time. Students are not
video games can be used to teach aspects to ensure video games support teaching only observing what’s happening, but are
of the computing curriculum, along with and learning in the classroom. As with also implicated in the action. This caters
discussing how game-based learning can all educational technology, usage needs to a wide range of different learners, and
help pupils develop their understanding to be part of a well-planned sequence also opens up new ways for the class to
of computing concepts. Many commercial of learning, with clear objectives and collaborate and investigate issues. For
video games can also support the teaching outcomes identified. The use of video example, the impact of your decisions on
of computing-related content, including games might therefore form only a small others can be clearly seen when making
cybersecurity, with a range of benefits part of a lesson, to address a particular choices within the Headliners game
often cited, such as developing teamwork, issue or concept, rather than being the discussed later in the article.
stimulating creativity, promoting critical focus of the whole session. For example, Each game selected should be accessible
thinking, and improving decision-making. In the game Beholder, outlined later in to all pupils, with appropriate adaptations
this article, we will first introduce how to use this article, could be used for starting being made where required. The structure
video games in the classroom, before Andy discussions related to consent for taking of the session should be carefully
introduces using video games to develop photographs and videos. considered, too, including the need to
cybersecurity understanding. Finally, we will In the classroom, you can use these promote safe and healthy gaming habits
discuss how video games can be used as games like an interactive text. You can play such as regular breaks, exercise, and time
case studies in the teaching of cybersecurity, them together as a class and then pause away from the screen. It is also beneficial to
and offer up some useful resources. to discuss. However, unlike a text, your brief members of the school community on

38 helloworld.cc
the use of video games in the classroom, as
well as allocating sufficient time to examine USEFUL RESOURCES
a game’s technical requirements and
resolve any issues. Since 2009, European Schoolnet has published the Games in Schools handbook, which explores the
The range and variety of games available opportunities and challenges of integrating video games into the classroom. Their 2020 version of
can be daunting, with many titles unsuitable the guide explores the educational benefits of commercial video games, along with the most popular
for children or inappropriate for use in lesson plans selected by their MOOC (massive open online course) participants (helloworld.cc/

schools. It is therefore important to try gameplans). It also provides additional guidance on commercial video games and the links they
provide to other subjects. For example, the popular Just Dance series of games could be linked to
these games out yourself before using them
both PE and examining algorithms within computing, while Pokémon Go could be used to discuss
in a classroom setting. It’s also good to
topics related to geography, citizenship, and critical thinking.
stay away from online games, and keep an
eye on the age rating. There are resources Digital Schoolhouse (digitalschoolhouse.org.uk) also has a wide range of resources linking video games
to learning in school, including projects related to Mario Kart™8 Deluxe on the Nintendo Switch.

Taming Gaming (discussed in the main body of the article) is supported by a freely accessible
IT IS VITAL TO TRY
“ THE GAMES OUT
Family Video Game Database that offers a detailed account of specific games children play
(taminggaming.com). A parent can look the game up to find out what to be aware of, and also to
find suggestions of age-appropriate games if a title is too old for their child. The database covers
YOURSELF FIRST over 1600 games and is visited by up to 20,000 parents every day. It offers one page on all the
popular games, as well as curated lists of games that offer unusual ways to play together as a
family. The lists on the database can be filtered by age group and you can also add a filter for which
available to support you in selecting platform the games require.
appropriate games and facilitating positive
experiences for learners (see the ‘Useful
resources’ box for some suggestions). Find
the right game and it can become a real
highlight of the day for children, and offer
a way to engage and evolve learning for a
wide range of learning styles.

Cybersecurity games
Last year, I [Andy] wrote one such resource,
Taming Gaming (helloworld.cc/taming).
This is aimed at parents and guardians
who may be worried about what video
games are doing to their children, including
the impact of violence, potential addiction,
and data security. It addresses these
fears by going back to scientific studies
(distinguishing between correlation and
n The Family Video Game Database covers over 1600 games and 20,000 parents use it every day
causation was a common theme) and
providing tips and tools to help parents
gain the confidence to engage in this area
of their children’s life. Here are some of my headlines and how important it is to keep program called Orwell. Through a series of
suggestions for appropriate games that can your data secure. Bad News (helloworld.cc/ episodes you are tasked with using Orwell to
help develop students’ understanding of badnews) is a similar game with a focus on help solve mysteries such as the bombing of
aspects of cybersecurity: profit rather than control. a public plaza. To do this, you trawl websites
Headliners (helloworld.cc/headliners) Other games on the Family Video Game and documents in the game for clues.
is a great example for older children. It’s Database highlight how surveillance and Nuts (helloworld.cc/nuts) takes the
a game about controlling a city through data protection overlap. Orwell (helloworld. surveillance theme in a more light-hearted
the newspaper you publish. It offers a cc/orwell) is a narrative game in which you direction, but still paints a fascinating picture
first-hand illustration of what motivates play a fictional researcher using a surveillance of corporate power and responsibility.

helloworld.cc 39
 FEATURE
© denisismagilov/stock.adobe.com

n Some cybersecurity games highlight how

surveillance and data protection overlap

Beholder (helloworld.cc/beholder) is an This included unreleased titles, graphical methods of preventing cybersecurity-
interesting game about security for older assets, and the source code for a number of related problems, and for older pupils,
teenagers. It’s a detective game in which releases of popular video games. opportunities exist to use them to examine
you spy on tenants in a building, discover By using video game case studies to the moral, ethical, legal, and cultural issues
their secrets, and report violations of laws provide a basis for lesson content, pupils related to computing.
to the authorities. As the game unfolds and are able to study cybersecurity through Have you been using video games in the
you see more of the controlling totalitarian examining a topic they are familiar with classroom? What are your favourite
state, an uneasy tension develops between and often have a detailed understanding cybersecurity-related titles? Get in touch via
your conscience and your mission. How the of. For students aged 14–16, the case Twitter with @computingchamps (Neil)
game ends depends on your choices. studies could facilitate discussions around and @GeekDadGamer (Andy).

Video games as case studies

Finally, along with using video games
to support learning about cybersecurity
in the classroom, I [Neil] recommend
using as case studies some of the high-
profile cybersecurity-related incidents
that have taken place over the past few
years involving gaming organisations. For
example, in 2011, the PlayStation Network
was hacked, which compromised the
data of 77 million users (helloworld.cc/
playstation), while Distributed Denial of
Service (DDoS) attacks have been known
to take online gaming services offline.
Other cybersecurity breaches have seen NEIL RICKUS & ANDY ROBERTSON
video game source code and development Neil is a senior lecturer in computing education at the University of Hertfordshire in
tools posted on internet discussion forums. the UK, a primary education consultant for the BCS, and the founder of Computing
For example, the Nintendo Gigaleak Champions. He is a CAS community leader, a CEOP Ambassador, and a Raspberry Pi,
(helloworld.cc/gigaleak) in 2020 saw Google, and Microsoft Certified Educator (@computingchamps).
a vast amount of data relating to the Andy is a journalist and the author of Taming Gaming, a book supporting teachers and parents to
development of titles for various Nintendo find appropriate video games for children and understand their benefits (@GeekDadGamer).
consoles released over the past 30 years.

40 helloworld.cc
 MEET THE CYBER EXPLORERS
Cyber Explorers is a new platform aiming to help students develop
fundamental skills and inspire them to follow a cybersecurity career path

n a rapidly evolving online world, it how digital, computing, and cybersecurity

I is imperative that cybersecurity is a skills are integral to exciting career paths,
pillar of young people’s education so that the platform aims to support teachers of
HELEN MARKS
Helen is the marketing communications
they can access the careers of the future students aged 11–14 by complementing
manager at BCS, the Chartered Institute for
and stay safe online. A new initiative learning objectives for Key Stage 3 in
IT in the UK.
from the UK’s Department for Digital, England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, and
Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) aims to S2/S3 in Scotland, and to further students’
support this by focusing on improving the independent learning.
diversity and career prospects of students Erika Lewis, director of cybersecurity The programme aims to develop
who may want to explore a technical and digital identity at DCMS, said, fundamental skills in identifying and
cybersecurity pathway. “Improving digital and cybersecurity understanding threats and risks in digital
Cyber Explorers is a free interactive skills is central to the success of the UK’s environments. Equally as important,
skills and careers platform that launched cyber strategy. We want to ensure that students also learn about what can be
in February and will complement the there is a sustained supply of diverse and done to mitigate these risks. They will also
existing CyberFirst programme of activities high-quality individuals joining the cyber be introduced to people who work in the
led by the UK’s National Cyber Security workforce in the future.” industry and explore the strengths you
Centre. Offering hands-on insights into need to be successful. Through interactive
The programme episodes, students will discover:
The platform is set in a virtual city, and
learners can select to join one of five  ow to use technology safely
H
EXAMPLE OF A CYBER
n

characters on a journey through activities, n How to defend against malware

EXPLORER ACTIVITY quizzes, and challenges exploring the n The principles in protecting the connected

relevance and excitement of a cybersecurity world through understanding basic

In Cyber City, learners will meet AJ, a education and career. Learners head networking concepts, their vulnerabilities,
healthcare worker with a keen interest in towards the ultimate challenge — to save and the security controls used to defend
AI. His team is testing a new robotic knee Cyber City from disaster by putting all the them and the information they contain
surgery system. But with all the equipment new skills they have learnt to good use. n How to secure devices and software by
connected through computer networks understanding the importance of updates
and the internet, can AJ really be sure that and patches, sourcing safe software, and
everything is safe and secure?
the secure configuration of applications
During this action-packed episode, learners n The role of access control from physical

will learn about networks and how to security through account types to
protect them. They will be introduced to the authentication methods
concept of cryptography, while helping AJ to
understand how firewalls work and how they Teachers can register students at
are employed. No industry competitors will cyberexplorers.co.uk. To find out more,
be stealing his team’s secrets! n A new interactive skills platform aims to inspire
email [email protected].
students to follow a cybersecurity career path

helloworld.cc 41
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helloworld.cc 43
 FEATURE

LEARNING FROM EACH OTHER

Introducing computational thinking to the very youngest children may sound like a challenge,
but pan-European projects are discovering that it can be creative, inclusive, and fun

eads, shoulders, knees, and toes about enhancing child development ribbons through the playground railings. A
H performed in five languages, through inclusive, collaborative Finnish school had some impromptu fun
arranging gloves in a school playground, computational thinking, and learning with gloves, and extended this with a team
weaving ribbons through railings … from one another’s best approaches. activity of making patterns that involved
what on earth have any of these things checking and debugging. The Swedish
got to do with computing? Quite a lot, it Heads, shoulders, knees, and toes settings were influenced by the Reggio
turns out, when it comes to Co-Make, an And that’s where the singing and the Emilia approach (which has an emphasis
Erasmus+ project that brings together gloves come in! The project is based on quality of environment and aesthetics),
schools from the UK, the Netherlands, on sharing each country’s theoretical which, alongside the shared Scandinavian
Finland, Sweden, and Denmark (co-make. approach to computational thinking, before prevalence of outdoor education, enabled
eu). We at the Connected Learning Centre putting the approaches into practice in a the children to produce patterns using
(CLC) in London are one of the partners, learnathon. Learnathons involve children natural objects and art materials.
and we’re working with Stockwell, in each of the partner schools tackling Heads, shoulders, knees, and toes is a
Hitherfield, and Essex primary schools as a common challenge and sharing their well-known playground song with actions.
the UK participants in the project. approach to solving it with the other When viewed from the computational
This project is looking at how we can schools, encouraging collaboration and perspective of patterns, sequence, and
build on existing good practice in early learning from each other. repeats, action songs such as this are a
years foundation stage or early childhood Our second learnathon had the theme way of introducing algorithms that fits any
education, with the aim of supporting the of pattern, and involved children spotting, early-years approach. Here, bugs have
development of computational thinking: and then creating, patterns in the world an immediate (and possibly hilarious)
patterns, sequencing, instructions, around them. A UK school used tyres and effect, and repetition is experienced in
problem-solving, and planning. It’s all crates in the playground and wove coloured a multisensory way by the children, not
simply as an abstract idea.
Over Zoom, children across the twelve
partner schools performed the Finnish,
Swedish, Danish, Dutch, and then English
versions of the song. We had fast and slow
versions, and some versions with slightly
different actions, and the children asked
each other questions. They were excited
and really curious to see the other classes
perform the song live. Teachers reported
that this was a very memorable experience
for the children to have during lockdown,
and it has influenced the subsequent
development of the project in terms of
creating more opportunities for the children
to find out what classes in the other
n Our second learnathon had the theme of pattern and involved children spotting, and then creating, patterns in the world around them schools are doing.

44 helloworld.cc
Sharing best practice
Co-Make is a follow-on project from Co-
Think, which was an Erasmus+ project
exploring inclusive practices in teaching
computational thinking to slightly older
primary school children (co-think.eu). As

© Monkey Business/stock.adobe.com
part of the three-year project, children
took part in simultaneous learnathons,
with their teachers sharing practice
and co-delivering computer science
lessons across five countries. Before
carrying out the learnathons, schools n Viewed from the computational perspective of patterns, sequence, and repeats, action
shared their country’s general approach to songs are a great way to introduce algorithms to early-years learners

computational thinking, which clearly has

different interpretations and definitions in This underpinning work was further Exploring different approaches to
different settings! developed through a day of workshops with computational thinking in countries where
Representing the UK, Jane Waite led an Linda Liukas, a Finnish computer scientist it is either recently (in the UK, Sweden,
initial session in which all the participating and creator of the Hello Ruby resources and Finland) or not yet (in the Netherlands
educators could explore the concept (helloruby.com). She helped the participating and Denmark) integrated in primary
of computational thinking through her educators to understand the Finnish take school curricula was one of the most
instructional continuum model (helloworld.cc/ on computer science and how this is deeply valuable elements of our Co-Think project.
continuum), including differences in the level rooted in the country’s social democratic Together, we are crossing the borders of
of scaffolding that various teaching systems philosophy, right down to the use of open- national education systems with the aim
offer to children. The most heavily scaffolded source educational resources in schools. of gaining a deeper understanding of how
way to learn is by rote, through copying When it comes to computational computational thinking can be taught and
code. This can seem like an easy way into thinking, Finnish schools focus on implemented in new, inclusive ways.
Our latest project, Co-Learn, has recently
launched, and will explore blended learning
CHILDREN WERE EXCITED AND CURIOUS
“
pedagogies used across Europe (co-learn.
eu). Co-Think, Co-Make, and the new
TO SEE HEAD, SHOULDERS, KNEES, AND addition of Co-Learn have been incredibly
TOES PERFORMED IN OTHER LANGUAGES valuable experiences for all the teachers,
schools, and partners involved, and we are
keen to share the knowledge gained with
programming, but it provides limited design problem-solving, and developing logical the wider community. We intend to draw
and debugging opportunities. It also often skills and digital competence within that knowledge together into a set of
leaves holes in children’s understanding, what they call ‘transversal competencies’ approaches for computational thinking in
despite allowing them to produce seemingly as part of every subject. They have early years that will be available to all
impressive results. At the other end of the adopted a blended method of teaching educators. Watch this space!
scale, there’s tinkering — letting children computational thinking through both
play with the code freely. The downsides a cross-curricular and a single-subject
of this approach? The development of bad approach, linking specifically to maths. THE CONNECTED
programming habits; the risk of unfocused Schools use an elective approach, LEARNING CENTRE
or misleading learning experiences, as the and we saw this at one of the partner The CLC is based in London, UK, and
teacher cannot assure a sensible progression; schools, where students can opt into supports schools and other settings to
and greater divergence in pupil confidence, short computational thinking and use digital technologies creatively and
as those with less experience are likely to programming courses. Teachers are critically. They provide curriculum support,
encounter greater frustration. Most teachers encouraged to use technology, and technical services, and professional
and education systems mix up these encourage the development of digital development (theclc.co.uk, @LdnCLC).
approaches without being aware of it. competency across the curriculum.

helloworld.cc 45
 FEATURE

KYOKUSHIN:
PUZZLING THE TRUTH
How can Japanese puzzles help develop logical reasoning
skills? Joanne Lynn shares her school’s unique approach to
developing systematic problem-solving skills in young people

yokushin is a Japanese concept develops their logical understanding in a

K that centres around finding the new way. They develop their skills over two
nature of one’s true character when tried years, in a similar manner to the belt system
and challenged. It is rooted in discipline, in a Japanese dojo.
self-improvement, and hard training, Each logic puzzle has its own kata,
qualities we all love to see in our students, or algorithm, for completion. For a pupil
right? We decided to use this approach to progress to the next level, they must
with our students to develop their logical demonstrate that they can follow the
reasoning skills through a range of puzzles algorithm correctly by accumulating
also created in Japan. evidence of successful puzzle completion
As pupils work through our curriculum in their class notebook. When pupils are
n A part-completed nonogram puzzle. The puzzles are created
in Years 7 and 8 (aged 11–13), we use a introduced to a new style of puzzle, we and completed on helloworld.cc/nonogramcreator
range of logic puzzles as starter activities. discuss elements of the kata required
At the beginning of each term, we introduce to solve it effectively. Pupils then work enough to complete a line, but additional
students to a new style of puzzle that together as a class to refine the algorithm information is gained for other columns and
and become more efficient. The dojo levels rows every time a true or false is found.
(known as kyu) have an associated colour This extra information sometimes changes

TRY IT FOR that shows the pupils’ proficiency and/or

experience in logical reasoning.
a previously impossible line into one that
can now be solved. Pupils must follow a
YOURSELF: Our current kyu system takes pupils systematic approach to moving around the

TOP TIPS through the following logic puzzle types:

nonograms, shikaku, KenKen, grid puzzles,
puzzle to complete the picture.
When we introduce these puzzles, we
sudoku, and kakuro. I will now take a closer show pupils how to look for the rows and
■ Start small: choose one type of puzzle look at a couple of these puzzle types. columns with only one possible solution first
to focus on at first (that is, any with a clue of 0 or 10 in a 10 x
Nonograms 10 puzzle). As a clue with multiple numbers
■ Use materials that are already
Nonograms offer a perfect introduction to in it must have a space between each run of
available (try helloworld.cc/
logical reasoning, so this is where pupils colour, pupils look for clues that would sum
nonograms or helloworld.cc/kenken)
begin their journey. They are easy logic to 10, including the spaces. After this, we
■ Practise doing the puzzles yourself first, puzzles that involve dealing with true or false discuss what else we can say must be true,
and make sure you have solutions for (or statements on a series of cells to discover or must be false, with an emphasis on using
can solve on the spot) the puzzles you an encoded image. At the initial level, pupils logic rather than guesswork. If we cannot
are asking your pupils to complete solve 10 x 10 nonograms. When solving a prove that something is true, we must
nonogram, a single clue will not usually be assume it is false for now.

46 helloworld.cc
 At first, this process is carried out as a
group, with teacher guidance. After half
term, the problems given become harder
and larger, and less support is given. Pupils
are developing logical reasoning, debugging,
resilience, and a systematic approach to
problem-solving. Oh, and when we look at
run-length encoding, they get that too!

Grid puzzles
In our fourth term, we look at deduction
puzzles that can be solved using a grid
format to record reasoning. In a deduction
puzzle, a scenario is given, followed by a
series of statements from which the solver
must deduce information about a series of
categories. A grid, with sections for each
category, is used to match each item to
exactly one other item in each category. No
two items in a category will ever be matched
to the same item in another category.
These puzzles move away from numeric
clues and also switch up the type of
information that is the focus. Until this
point, pupils focused on looking for truths.
In a deduction puzzle, it is necessary first
to prove what is false, in order to deduce
what must be true. Looking at problems n A part-completed grid puzzle. Credit: Puzzle
text taken from The Turing Trust
from different perspectives is an important

KYOKUSHIN IS ROOTED IN DISCIPLINE,

“ SELF-IMPROVEMENT, AND HARD TRAINING,
QUALITIES WE LOVE TO SEE IN OUR STUDENTS

skill for problem-solvers to have. what they can deduce. Being able to look at
We are looking for pupils to be able problems in different ways, and to consider
to achieve reasoning and a systematic varied solutions, as well as critiquing
approach, which we do by asking them and building on other people’s ideas, are
to talk us through their findings in class undoubtedly skills that are essential to the
discussion. Both the teacher and other technological revolution.
students may critique the approach. This We are seeing increased resilience in the
allows all pupils, even those who may be students, both with regard to puzzles and in
less confident, to contribute to the solving of other areas of the curriculum. They are more JOANNE LYNN
the puzzle and refine their methodology. willing to take risks in order to find solutions Joanne is a computer science teacher at
The most important aspect of these to problems. If you would like to find out the Royal Grammar School in Newcastle,
puzzles is that pupils begin to develop more about the puzzles we use in our UK. She is currently studying for an
their abstraction skills. They are required curriculum, head to helloworld.cc/kyokushin MSc in Artificial Intelligence with the
to take a statement and look at it from a for more detail, including some of the basic University of Bath (@jo3784).
variety of different perspectives to see algorithms we use to solve them.

helloworld.cc 47
 FEATURE
© Daniel CHETRONI/stock.adobe.com

n Using Scratch online allows learners to

collaborate and be inspired by others

SCRATCHING BENEATH
THE SURFACE
Sway Grantham shares her tips and tricks to help you
manage Scratch more efficiently in the classroom

cratch (scratch.mit.edu) is a of managing 30 children trying to access teacher accounts, you can specify whether
S
wonderful tool for teaching their accounts, find their saved work, and you’re running an after-school club or camp,
children (and in fact many adults) to share that work with you can feel like a so volunteers and other educators can also
program. While you can use Scratch big challenge. Here are a few simple tricks apply. These accounts allow educators to
offline via the Scratch app, where learners for organising your class to make your life create and manage online accounts for their
do not need to have their own accounts, easier when using Scratch. learners, removing the need for them to have
I strongly recommend using it online if it their own email addresses. This gives you
is possible in your setting. Using Scratch Teacher accounts the power to reset their passwords, and also
online is a much richer experience, Teacher accounts have been a part of the allows you to organise them into classes. This
allowing learners to collaborate and be Scratch offering for a while, but they are not can be really helpful when you have younger
inspired by others. However, the logistics easy to find! Although the accounts are called learners who are still learning to manage their

48 helloworld.cc
 that they can remember! My suggestion and add it to the studio. This means that you
is to use a combination of information, can view the studio and see all the pupils’
USERNAME TIP for example, GPSway22. Here, GP is the work in one place.
initials of the school, Sway is my first name I would load the studio onto the board
Using a spreadsheet, put your school’s and 22 is the year I started Year 3 (the first and allow learners to volunteer to share
initials in column A, pupils’ names in time we would use Scratch accounts). their project. This was a great motivation
column B, and the year in column C. Then n Class owner: Will students get a new for them to check that their project was
use the ‘concatenate’ function in column D. Scratch account each year, so that they in the correct place, and it made marking
It will create a list of the usernames without can be managed by their classroom their work so much easier. Equally, if any
you having to type them out manually! teacher, or are they set up once for the leadership team members or parents want
whole time they’re at your school? I taught to see what learners have been working on,
computing to all classes, so it made sense you can easily provide a URL to the studio.
own online accounts, while also giving them for my learners to have the same account Once you’ve got the accounts set up,
the opportunity to safely practise the skills of every year. However, this meant I didn’t it really does become a lot easier to use
password management. separate learners into classes, and just Scratch. Not only that, but you’re also
To get a teacher account, complete the had a Year 3 class of 60 children. Then, giving younger learners a safe space
form at helloworld.cc/scratchteacher. There when they were separated into different to learn about account management,
are a couple of quirks to note: classes each year, I didn’t have to worry password responsibility, and thinking
about learners being in the wrong group. about what they share online. You’re
n You have to create a new account, as n The first lesson: Leave yourself some showcasing to learners the benefits of
you can’t convert your existing Scratch time in your first lesson for getting collaborating online with others who
account into a teacher one everyone signed in correctly. For ease, have made Scratch projects, and you can
n  It can take up to 24 hours to be approved, I would recommend setting everyone’s model things such as leaving constructive
so you need to do it ahead of time password to the same thing when you comments on projects. As with any online
n It asks for a lot of personal information, but create their accounts. This means that tool, there are safety considerations, but
you can leave a lot of this blank the first time pupils log in, they will have Scratch is aimed at children, so it has
clear community guidelines and effective
reporting procedures.
YOU CAN GIVE YOUR LEARNERS A
“ POSITIVE EXPERIENCE OF BEING A PART
You can make your life easier and give
your learners a positive experience of being
a part of their first online community — so
OF THEIR FIRST ONLINE COMMUNITY get a teacher account and get started!

Thinking ahead to create their own password (which you

One of the first mistakes I made when using can change later when they inevitably
the teacher account was not thinking ahead. forget it!) and fill in some basic data. After
I named the first class ‘Class 3SG’ and this, the account functions just like any
started adding pupils (who all need unique other, and you can start programming!
usernames that aren’t already used on the n Transferring ownership: There may

site). However, you can’t move pupils to a come a time when learners leave your
different class, or to a different teacher, once school or club, but would still like to
their account has been created. This meant access their projects. The simplest way
that the next year, when all the learners to do this is for them to set up their own
were mixed up into new classes with new account, search for their old username,
teachers, they were stuck in the Scratch and remix the projects they want to keep.
class I had originally created for them!
Here are some considerations that will help Creating studios
you use your teacher account more effectively: The ‘studios’ function in Scratch is useful for SWAY GRANTHAM
organising content. As part of your teacher Sway is a senior learning manager at the
n Username format: All pupils need a unique account, you can create studios for each Raspberry Pi Foundation, where she leads
username that is not already in use on the class, and I would recommend creating one a team developing computing resources for
Scratch website; doesn’t include identifying per lesson or one per project. At the end of primary teachers (@SwayGrantham).
information; and, ideally, is something the lesson, pupils share their work on Scratch

helloworld.cc 49
 FEATURE

VR FOR COLLABORATION:
WORKING TOGETHER WHEN APART
Oli Howson shares his experiences of working with young
people in Wales to build a virtual reality environment

irtual reality (VR) is one of the most University to explore opportunities for The group, including Youth Shedz
V exciting recent developments in young people to meet, engage, and members, staff, and volunteers, met
computing. Those of a certain age might overcome the barriers imposed by the every Thursday evening for group work.
remember the blocky vector graphics of coronavirus. The Youth Shedderz wanted Physical Youth Shedz are focused on
Virtua Racing on the Sega Mega Drive, to create an online world with continuous what the young people want, often with a
worlds apart from what is now possible open access where they could hang out, community focus, or joint learning. We also
with modern — and much more affordable chat to people when they needed to, and allow time for the young people to hang
— systems. In this article, I’m going to have a place where they belonged as a out and play video games together. The VR
share my experiences of using VR with a group: a 24/7 virtual Youth Shed. project aimed to mirror this, with the start
group of young people as a tool for coming of each session dedicated to exploring a
together when physically apart. Lost in traditional environments range of VR applications for meeting and
Youth Shedz (youthshedz.com) is a Youth Shedz members often find that they collaborating, followed by collaborative
Welsh organisation that aims to bring get lost in traditional youth clubs, or have paintballing or bowling.
young people together in a safe and behaviours that lead them to struggle in
engaging environment, helping them to more formal settings. The pilot VR project VR applications
gain important new skills along the way. included eight Shedderz who were chosen The range of available VR applications was
With meetings normally taking place in five because of their additional barriers to staggering, and all had their own pros and
physical Shedz across North Wales, the traditional activities, including substance cons. Movement methodology, for example,
pandemic could have had a devastating misuse, prolific offending, significant has a huge impact on user experience.
impact on the young people who could anxiety, and a lack of digital skills. With the Being limited to teleporting (as in Spatial),
no longer attend due to lockdown. With exception of the leader, these additional for example, feels a lot less natural than
funding, we purchased ten Oculus Quest barriers were not shared with the Youth being able to move around using a thumb
headsets, and a project was developed Shedz volunteers, so as to encourage a stick. The quality of voice communication
between Youth Shedz, Coleg y Cymoedd safe, open space where individuals could could also make or break an environment
further education college, and the Open become new people if they so desired. (something we particularly noticed on
Immersed and AltspaceVR). Although the
Quest 2 comes with a built-in microphone
and speakers, we found that separate
earbuds picked up less background noise
and greatly improved communication.
It should never be underestimated how
easily some people can get lost when
exploring the environments! Rec Room
(which we used for Real VR Fishing and
paintballing) is a tremendous place to
explore, but it’s enormous, and being
able to direct each other to where the
Credit: Youth Shedz

group is can really help, as can avatar

customisation. Everyone greatly enjoyed
creating an avatar that (vaguely!) reflected
n Game time! Collaborative games were a great way to get to know one another and have fun how they look in real life. The applications

50 helloworld.cc
 Credit: Youth Shedz
n Avatars are used to represent people, but knowing
who is who can sometimes be quite hard!

that limited avatar creation, as well as own physical and psychological needs; all “VR has helped me over the last few months.
those that didn’t show the names of other those involved gave very positive feedback. I’m in recovery from drugs and alcohol and
people clearly, had quite a significant The pilot opened up huge amounts of have struggled with the lockdown, but being
impact on the ease of communication. platform knowledge to the group, and able to go in VR and interact and socialise
The Shedderz finally selected the Frame highlighted safeguarding needs and training with other people has helped me with my
(framevr.io) application to build their requirements. But what was really powerful mental health and confidence.”
virtual shed. This platform had a number was the ease with which the young people,
of benefits. The environment has huge who came from different backgrounds and
amounts of customisability, allowing the areas and in the majority of cases had never
Shedderz to manipulate the environment into met one another, came together along
the platform they wanted, much like a real- with me (a complete stranger), got along,
life shed. They were able to bring in external and worked towards a common aim in a
media, including videos and images, which primarily VR environment. The perceived
they used to decorate the environment. problems of negotiating VR environments,
Avatars could be customised and walk such as motion sickness and communication
around freely, and could also enter private issues, never really raised their heads.
zones and talk without being overheard, In computing education, we often look
an important aspect given the needs of the at what new developments can do to
Shedderz. Finally, Frame could also be used support learning in terms of simulation,
cross-platform, meaning that Shedderz demonstration, and analysis. We rarely OLI HOWSON
could access it through a normal computer look at new technology, though, in terms Oli is a computer science specialist and CAS
or on their phones when headsets weren’t of how it can enhance our group work, Master Teacher. He still teaches remotely
available, making it a more inclusive platform. communication, and shared experiences; and has a day job lecturing computing at
how it can break down barriers. VR can the Open University. In his spare time, Oli
Technology together really enhance this. explores microcontrollers, and is currently
The pilot project was a great success, not Perhaps the best summary of what came writing a book on the Raspberry Pi Pico
only in removing the barriers imposed by out of the project is this comment from JR, (@Mr_Howson).
the coronavirus, but those imposed by their one of the Shedderz, which left me in tears:

helloworld.cc 51
 FEATURE

MAKING THE MOST OF YOUR

SKILLS FROM INDUSTRY
Julia Roebuck gives her advice on how those who have switched careers can
bring their knowledge and skills from the computing industry to teaching

oving from a job in industry to shortage. You will be able to give them first- for example, can be used as the basis for
M teaching computing is a rewarding hand knowledge of what it’s like working in class discussions. Providing students with
and fulfilling change. There are a lot of the industry — both the pros and the cons. real-life scenarios will give lessons that bit
people transferring to teach computer For example, students often feel that they more meaning, as you ask learners what
science from other subjects, but there are cheating if they look things up on the they would have done in your shoes.
are also many of us who have degrees internet. But with your work experience, you Finally, female professionals who have
in the subject and extensive experience will be aware that in computing, you don’t moved to teaching have a unique insight
from working in the computing industry know all the answers, and you can usually to inspire more girls to study and work in
before we moved to teaching. This article find them out through research. Computing computing. The aim is to have more female
includes my top tips on how you can use is a fast-changing industry, and you can’t be computing staff, and you can highlight that
your knowledge and skills from industry in expected to know it all. This is something working with mainly men isn’t something
the teaching profession. students don’t often think about, and you’ll to be avoided. I worked in companies as a
be able to provide the insight that looking programmer for a decade after graduation,
Inspire and educate with your experience things up is actually OK. and on the whole, I was the only female,
As an experienced professional, you are in a You can also bring your own case studies, or one of a few. I like to point out to the
position to encourage all students to pursue or those of your friends and colleagues, to girls I teach that yes, they might still be
a career in an industry where there is such a class. The ethical dilemmas you experienced, outnumbered in the computing industry, but
that most of my experience working with men
was positive, and the imbalance shouldn’t put
them off. There is obviously a huge disclaimer
© MIND AND I/stock.adobe.com

here: not every workplace is the same. For

me, it was always amazing to work with other
women, but at the same time, it wasn’t the
end of the world if I couldn’t.

Harness your specialist skills

It might seem obvious, but having worked
in tech probably means you are more
ready and open to accept technology
as a tool for learning outside of more
traditional methods. This will spill over into
your teaching approaches, so embrace
that and use technology as much as you
n You will be able to give students first-hand can in your classroom, and support your
knowledge of what it’s like working in industry teaching colleagues to do the same. The

52 helloworld.cc
 © Molostock/stock.adobe.com
n You will be able to fill in the industry-relevant gaps in your
students’ learning

in the industry, not only keeping your own

AS AN EXPERIENCED PROFESSIONAL, YOU

“
knowledge current, but also leaving the door
open to ask those colleagues for advice and
CAN GIVE STUDENTS INSIDE KNOWLEDGE answers to questions that students might

OF WHAT THE COMPUTING INDUSTRY IS LIKE have about the industry.

Even though you’ve been a computing
professional and you have extensive
same goes for teaching approaches such Reading other people’s code is a really knowledge, you can still learn a lot from
as collaboration and pair programming, important aspect of any programmer’s job: a your students. It’s incredibly rewarding
which you will have used a lot in industry. lot of work is amending code that someone when their enthusiasm for the subject is fed
It’s never too early to start students else has written, rather than writing it by your knowledge and help, so make sure
collaborating and talking through coding yourself! This will, of course, be beneficial you draw upon your valuable experience to
problems. Contextualising these methods when you move to teaching, because you inspire the next generation of programmers
by letting students know that they are will be fast at reading and debugging and software developers!
used by programmers might help motivate student code. But more importantly, you can
them, and prepares them better for life after teach those advanced code-reading skills
school, as they build skills they will use. and techniques to high-achieving students,
If you worked as a programmer, you’ll while also giving them a glimpse into the
have even more specialist skills that you reality of working in industry.
can harness in your teaching. You’ll have
extensive programming skills, as well as Find the gaps
knowledge of how to develop software. This Finally, moving from industry to teaching
will be invaluable if you are teaching older has the advantage of making you more
pupils. Of course, most of the programming able to plug the gaps in what students are
you teach will be much simpler than that you learning. You’ll be able to critically analyse
used previously. But you will be able to talk the content of syllabuses as to whether they
about these more advanced programming are relevant to working in the industry. This JULIA ROEBUCK
and development techniques to your has personally caused me some angst when Julia has over 20 years’ experience of
students, and help to whet curious appetites. there is a lack of practical skills in a syllabus, programming in multiple languages and
You might want to introduce additional but you might be able to make some small technologies. She teaches lower secondary,
languages (see my article in Hello World adaptations to help build more relevant IGCSE, and A-level computer science via
issue 16 for more on this) or go beyond your skills and knowledge in your students. I also virtual classes with her company, LearnTec.
specification to deepen and broaden your recommend that you keep in touch with your She also teaches lower secondary and IGCSE
students’ learning experience and increase old industry colleagues. This is a great way at St John’s School in Devon, UK.
their engagement and interest. of keeping up to date with what’s going on

helloworld.cc 53
 FEATURE

n A student working with a Pico in a school in Saffron Walden, UK

RASPBERRY PI PICOS
IN THE CLASSROOM
Dan Elwick speaks to educators about their experiences using Raspberry
Pi Pico to teach physical computing

eleased in January 2021, received in classrooms, and spoke to for Raspberry Pi, the eventual aim is for
R Raspberry Pi Pico is a low- some teachers in England to hear about his 11- to 12-year-old students to build a
cost microcontroller device; a tiny their experiences. line-following car. With only half an hour
computer that can be connected to per week at lunchtime, the group started
another computer so users can learn Extracurricular engagement off by covering some of the basics from
how to program it using MicroPython. One key use of Pico at secondary schools the Getting started with Raspberry Pi Pico
Against a background of school closures, has been at teacher-led lunchtime and project (helloworld.cc/picoproject), such
reopenings, isolation periods, and after-school clubs. One teacher from a girls’ as connecting it with a breadboard and
restrictions for students and teachers, secondary school in Liverpool described making LEDs flash.
we were keen to find out how Raspberry his Women in Tech club. With free rein The teacher described how walking
Pi’s foray into microcontrollers had been over the content and a personal passion into a room with the kit grabs students’

54 helloworld.cc
 Reinforcing existing computing skills computing without just writing code; you
Another key theme that came through in can capture information and output it again
TOP TEACHER TIPS our conversations was how Pico can be in a more useful way.”
FOR PICO used to reinforce existing computing skills. One of the teachers we spoke to was
We interviewed a teacher from a school in initially a bit cynical about Pico, but had
Essex, who had been using Picos to teach a much better experience of using it in
■ It can be tricky to install Thonny (the
computing to 12- to 14-year-olds in class, the classroom than expected: “It’s not
software that is used to programme
Picos) on school IT systems. Build and talked about the potential for physical such a big progression from block-based
in time to do this, and ask your IT computing as a pedagogical tool for microcontrollers to Pico — it could be a
technician for support. recapping topics that have been covered good stepping stone between, for example,
before: “If [physical computing] is taught a micro:bit and a Raspberry Pi computer.”
■ It takes time to unpack devices, connect
well, it enhances students’ understanding Why not try it out in your classroom or club?
them, and pack them back up again.
of programming. If they just copy code It might be the engagement booster you’ve
Build this time into your plan, too!
from the board, it becomes about the kit been looking for!
and not how you solve a problem; it’s not Physical computing kits from England’s
as effective at helping them develop their National Centre for Computing Education,
attention: “It’s massively more engaging computational thinking. Teaching Python including class sets of Raspberry Pi Picos,
than programming Python on a screen … on Pico really can strengthen existing Crumbles, micro:bits, and Raspberry Pi 3B+
They love the idea of building something understanding of using Python libraries computers, are now available for state
physical, like a car.” He has to remind and subroutines, as well as passing schools in England to borrow from their local
them that phones aren’t allowed at subroutine arguments.” Computing Hub (helloworld.cc/tcchub). You
school, as they’re keen to take photos of Another teacher we spoke to, in can also find a guide to using the kits at
the flashing lights to show their parents. Waterlooville, talked about the benefits of helloworld.cc/kitguide. US educators can
His overall verdict? “Once the software using Pico to teach Python: “It takes some register for a free Raspberry Pi Pico kit at
has been installed, they’re just plug and of the anxiety away from computing for helloworld.cc/pathfinders (see the article on
play. As a tool in school, it gives you some of the younger students, and makes page 9 for more information). If you’re not
something physical, creating interest in the them more resilient. They can be wary of eligible to borrow the kit, you can buy Picos
subject. If it gets just one person choosing making mistakes, and see them as a hurdle, at helloworld.cc/pico.
the subject, who wouldn’t have done
otherwise, then job done.”
WORKING TOWARDS A TANGIBLE OUTPUT
Another teacher, from a school in
Hampshire, used Picos at an after-school “ CAN HELP STUDENTS TO SEE THE VALUE
club with students aged 13 to 15. After
about six sessions of less than 50 minutes OF LEARNING THROUGH THEIR MISTAKES
last term, the students have almost
finished building motorised buggies. The
first two sessions were spent familiarising but working towards a tangible output can
students with Picos, making LEDs flash, help some students to see the value of
and using the sensors. Then in the next learning through their mistakes.”
four sessions, the students worked their As someone who is relatively new
way through the ‘Physical computing to teaching, this teacher is keen for his
project’ unit of the Teach Computing students to get a sense of the variety of
Curriculum (helloworld.cc/tccpico). jobs that are available in computing, and
The students worked in pairs, and some not just in programming. He explained
learners initially had trouble getting the how physical computing can demonstrate
motors to turn the wheels on their buggies. to students how you can make inputs,
Rather than giving them the code, the outputs, and processing very real: “Give
teacher gave them duplicate sets of the students a Pico and make them thirsty
hardware and suggested that they test each about what they could do with it — the DAN ELWICK
piece in turn, to debug the hardware. They device allows them to interact with it Dan is a programme manager at the
quickly worked out what they needed to do and work out how to bend it to do what Raspberry Pi Foundation (@DanWickPi).
to make the wheels turn. they want to do. You can be creative in

helloworld.cc 55
 FEATURE

GOING BACK TO
BASICS: PART 3
Rebecca Franks continues to share her experiences of taking a group of
beginner digital makers through their first physical computing projects

his year I have been leading

T sessions with a group of beginner
digital makers who wanted to learn
how to use LEDs to make an art project.
This group had no prior experience with
electronics and I wanted to provide them
with the right scaffolding to develop the
confidence to make something they could
be really proud of.
In issue 17 of Hello World I described
the second session of four, which involved
the makers using diagrams to create series
and parallel circuits. In this issue, I will let
you know how my makers added new
components to their circuits and how they n Figure 1 The blinky LED circuit that uses a 555 timer integrated circuit
got an LED to blink without any code!
Push the buzzer line instead of straight across, for example.
By this session, my makers could remember This was quite a tense moment, as I
which leg was positive and negative on an wanted to give my makers a chance to
PUSH THE BUZZER LED. They also had a good understanding make mistakes and try to fix them for
KIT LIST of how the breadboard worked and how themselves, but the fixer in me just wanted
a circuit diagram could be recreated on a to help and show them what to do. I
breadboard. This meant that they were held back, though, and one by one, they
■ 1 x yellow LED (3V)
ready to add in some new components, to each managed to follow the circuit and
■ 1 x buzzer (3V) see if they could apply their knowledge and get their buzzers working.
■ 1 x push button skills to a different scenario. The first task Lighting an LED is fun, but there is
was to push a button to sound a buzzer. something very different about sounding
■ 3 x male-to-male jumper wires I gave them the components they would a buzzer at the push of a button. I think it
■ 1 x small breadboard need and a circuit diagram to follow. I allows you to bring out that inner child a little
also gave them a few tips about push and be a bit silly for a while. You also have the
■ 1 x 9V battery connector
buttons, because they often work in slightly added bonus of knowing that you connected
■ 1 x 9V battery unexpected ways — sometimes, a push the circuit that made it happen. Applying
button will electrically connect on a diagonal their understanding to a new circuit with

56 helloworld.cc
555 TIMER BLINKY
LED KIT LIST
■ 1 x small breadboard

■ 1 x 9V battery connector

■ 1 x 9V battery

■ 1 x 555 timer integrated circuit

■ 1 x LED

■ 2 x 1k resistors

■ 1 x 4.7k resistor

■ 7 x male-to-male jumper wires

■ 1 x 1µF capacitor
n A circuit with a buzzer and a push button

new components definitely helped learners eight. When you see the same component What next?
to cement their learning from previous on a circuit diagram, it looks as if all the pins After finishing the circuit, it was time to start
sessions and increase their confidence. The have been mixed up. This can be a little thinking about how my makers could apply
knowledge of a series or parallel circuit could confusing when trying to relate the diagram their new skills and knowledge to their own
now be applied to many different scenarios, to the actual component. This is why I art projects. I showed them lots of examples
widening the scope of their maker skills. provided a graphic of the component, with of projects that other people had made using
its corresponding pins next to the circuit (see the same skills. I also showed them some
Now for the main event Figure 1). This definitely helped a lot, and I projects that involved motors, because if you
After some tinkering with other would highly recommend doing the same if can sound a buzzer, you can spin a motor! I
components, it was time to start the main you plan to use this with your learners. was very excited to see what they would
event: the blinky LED circuit. I let my makers I guided the makers through each come up with for their own art projects. You
know that the circuit they were about to connection in the circuit, highlighting can find out too, in my final instalment of this
see was going to look unfamiliar at first the relevant section and using images series in the next issue of Hello World!

SOUNDING A BUZZER AT THE PUSH OF A

“ BUTTON LETS YOU BRING OUT THAT INNER
CHILD AND BE A BIT SILLY FOR A WHILE
glance. To start, I asked them to spot any to connect the diagram with the real
components that they recognised. After components. They were surprisingly fast at
a few moments they could find resistors, following the diagram and connecting the
LEDs, the battery, and a capacitor. wires. This was clearly becoming more of an
Slowing down and looking carefully at automatic skill for them.
the individual components in the diagram A few of them managed to get the LED REBECCA FRANKS
helped to make it become more familiar. blinking on the first try. Others were able Rebecca is a learning manager at the
They had seen most of this before, just in a to problem-solve and retrace their steps, Raspberry Pi Foundation. She creates
different context. The only new component realising that they had placed a jumper wire computing resources for teachers and young
was the 555 timer integrated circuit. in the wrong hole or placed an LED in the digital makers. She has over 15 years of
A 555 timer has eight pins (legs). Each wrong way. Eventually, they all had a blinky experience teaching computing.
one is numbered anticlockwise from one to LED and a real sense of accomplishment.

helloworld.cc 57
 FEATURE

AGILE COMPUTING LESSONS

Matthew Wimpenny-Smith outlines how he trialled an agile
methodology approach in his upper-primary computing lessons

s computing has become more methodologies during my degree, so this Developing a model
A established in curricula globally, really piqued my interest in trying these The autumn term was the STEM term for
so too has the amount of pedagogical real-world design models in my computing Year 6 (students aged 10–11), and the
research about the best ways to teach it. lessons for non-programming projects. overarching question was, “Can we make
In my own teaching, I have been Around the same time as reading this it better?” (In this case, “it” referred to
developing my practice around these book, my school started going through the innovation and the engineering process.)
researched approaches, including Predict– process of redeveloping our curriculum for With this question in mind, the STEM
Run–Investigate–Modify–Make (PRIMM), upper primary. I saw this redevelopment as team decided to focus on an adapted agile
Use–Modify–Create, code comprehension, a great opportunity to try my ideas of using methodology, which we called the STEM
and paired programming. I recently read a design cycle in my computing lessons, and Project Process. Agile methodology has
a book, Invent to Learn (helloworld.cc/ I shared this with the wider STEM team at its roots in project management and is an
martinez2019), which talks about applying my school. The new curriculum is structured iterative approach to software development
project management models such as the around termly themes (Literature and the projects. In short, this means a project is
waterfall model and agile methodology Arts, Global World, and STEM), with a termly broken down into small increments, and
in the classroom. I had studied these key question linked to the theme. after each of these small stages, the project
or product being developed is reviewed
and adapted based on feedback. We
chose to use this methodology because
it’s swift, versatile, easy to understand,
breaks projects down into manageable
stages, and is an authentic model used in
the real world. It also aligns nicely with the
learning habits we are fostering through
our new curriculum, including collaboration,
imagination, and reflection.
Figure 1 was the model we came up
with, along with a list of questions to go
with each stage of the cycle (see Figure 2).
Our model has five stages: Ask, Imagine,
Plan, Create, and Improve. Each stage of
this cyclical model helps learners to have a
structured and scaffolded approach to their
learning, which in turn reduces cognitive
n Figure 1 The STEM Project Process model load and focuses them on what is doable.

58 helloworld.cc
n Figure 2 Questions for each stage of the STEM Project Process cycle MATTHEW
WIMPENNY-SMITH
Matthew is the assistant head of digital
AGILE METHODOLOGY HAS ITS ROOTS IN
“ PROJECT MANAGEMENT AND IS AN ITERATIVE
strategy at Headington Prep School in Oxford,
UK. He is also the Oxon Teach Computing
Hub primary schools lead, a CAS community
APPROACH TO SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT leader, a Raspberry Pi Certified Educator, and
a Fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching
(@MWimpennyS).
Applying the model to computing which included the cycle, the questions, and
I had planned for the first unit of my Year 6’s suggested strategies for each stage. For
academic year to be based on the Teach example, on the Imagine slide, I gave them helps me without just skipping and it’s
Computing Curriculum (TCC) ‘3D Modelling’ examples of ‘what a good one looks like’, easier and I understand better,” and, “This
unit (helloworld.cc/tcc3d), in which learners and then asked them to develop their own helped me because it helped me to know
develop their knowledge and understanding imaginative ideas and add these to the slide. where to start and what to do next. It
of using a computer to produce 3D models. For the Plan stage, I adapted the design helped to make everting [sic] organized.”
At the start of the unit, I gave lessons to booklet from the original TCC unit of work What’s more, 69 percent of pupils said that
introduce and develop learners’ skills using and I asked learners to create a sketch of we should use the cycle more often.
SketchUp (sketchup.com), so that they would their design, including details of its features This STEM Project Process cycle has
be ready for the Create stage of our STEM and the steps they would need to complete clearly had a positive impact on the
Project Process cycle. to create a finished model. To link all the outcomes of learning. I feel that it has
After a few lessons of this, I introduced activities back to the model, I used coloured helped to develop the learners’
pupils to the model. I explained that each arrows and symbols to indicate which stage understanding of the process of innovation,
stage would help them to develop an each lesson’s tasks corresponded to. and I have decided that it’s something that I
understanding of the process of planning am going to continue to develop with my
and designing our 3D models. I gave them Review of the model learners. It really helps them to spend time
some context about how real-life architects, At the end of the unit of work, I conducted going through this process to develop
engineers, computer programmers, a survey to gather the children’s thoughts better skills, knowledge, and outcomes.
and scientists use models like this to on the use of the cycle and what impact
produce projects. I also explained that the they believed it had had on their learning.
accompanying questions in Figure 2 would I asked if they thought that using the cycle
be used like a checklist to guide their thinking had improved their skills and knowledge
around each stage, much like a story plan and their final 3D model designs. Of the
in English. It’s important that learners 40 children, 74 percent said that using the
understand that the process is as important cycle had had a positive effect on their final
as the finished project, and they shouldn’t designs and helped them to plan, stay on
just dive straight into the Create stage. track, know what to do next, and know
I created slides for learners to refer to how to improve. Some positive comments
once they embarked on their projects, were, “Now I have the steps to do, which n A pupil’s design booklet

helloworld.cc 59
 FEATURE

E-SAFETY TIPS AND TOOLS

Zahra Amin Shelke shares insightful tips and fun ways to
ensure your school and students are e-safe

remember our parents teaching us  se collaborative apps such as Nearpod

U
I
n

how to walk safely on roads, and (nearpod.com) to gauge student

how to not accept anything from strangers. knowledge and get a discussion rolling on
As teachers and parents today, we have what information is and isn’t safe to share.
to extend these lessons to how to behave n Use the Flipgrid app (helloworld.cc/

safely online, teach children not to talk to flipgrid) and ask students to post videos
strangers over the internet, and so on. It about their thoughts on e-safety.
should be our priority to teach our kids about n Play some ready-to-use quizzes from apps

online safety and what might happen if we such as Kahoot! and Quizizz (for example,
aren’t e-safe. helloworld.cc/kahootesafe and helloworld.
The safety of our students is of the cc/quizizzesafe). This is a fun and
utmost importance at our school, and I can engaging way to learn about online safety.
proudly say that we have been following
safety protocols and chasing this up with Parents ZAHRA AMIN SHELKE
each and every child. The information can n  et parents and the whole community
G Zahra is head of the primary ICT
sometimes get overwhelming for pupils, but involved in reinforcing the same department at GEMS Westminster
it is all done with the aim of improving their behaviours at home. School, Ras Al Khaimah, UAE. She has a
future. How did we adapt to ever-changing n Share e-safety tips in the school master’s in computer science from the
needs and implement e-safety in our school? newsletter and keep parents up to date University of Mumbai.
I will walk you through our techniques, with global e-safety news and initiatives.
and hope that you will get some ideas to n Conduct regular parent workshops on

implement in your school. e-safety, including tips about parental n  each students that it is cool not to
T
controls, screen time, and what can go share all your life events online, and
Tools wrong when kids are online. give examples of what information is
n  reate an anonymous Microsoft Form
C OK to be shared.
where students can voice any online safety Everyday reminders and behaviours
concerns they have. There is an example n  isplay a dedicated e-safety slide at
D Dedicated activities
at helloworld.cc/safetyform. This is a good the start of each computing lesson, n  elebrate e-safety week with class
C
format to use, so shy students don’t have including the reporting form and a list of assemblies, and involve students in
any obstacles to reporting their concerns. dos and don’ts. activities such as creating an awareness
n Show students how important it is to be video for younger pupils, or creating an
an upstander. We often use case studies online safety mascot.
that ask students how they would have n Get your school the Common

acted in a particular situation. Sense School Accreditation, which

n Remind students that they should stand demonstrates to the school community
up for one another, and never cyberbully that you take e-safety seriously
anyone. (helloworld.cc/commonsense).
n Tell students that once they post n Dedicate an entire teaching unit to

information online, they can’t necessarily Common Sense Media’s Digital

control it. We need to think twice before Citizenship course about being safe
n A student’s e-safety poster we post. online (helloworld.cc/digcitizen).

60 helloworld.cc
 FEATURE

MUCH ADO ABOUT

COMPUTATIONAL METHODS
Computational methods shouldn’t be limited to STEM disciplines. Tom Liam Lynch makes
the case for integrating computing into the study of literature and the wider humanities

ver the last year, our screens age computer science initiatives. humanistic inquiry. Questions of character,
O have been awash with data: of Computational methods must become ethics, truth, justice, equity, and morality
the spread of Covid-19, the number ubiquitous across wider subjects, can be richly posed and explored with the
of hospitalisations and fatalities, and especially in humanities classrooms. If the help of computational methods. Here’s an
line charts predicting regional trends. pandemic taught us nothing else, it taught example I have used with English teachers
Computationality undergirds such us that the quantities we tally only matter many times. In the chart in Figure 1, I offer
reporting, yet to limit our understanding because of the human qualities they two lines representing keywords from one
of digital data to the world of STEM, as attempt to represent. of Shakespeare’s plays. The words are ‘love’
we so often do in school-age education, (the red line) and ‘death’ (the black line). The
is inadequate. In the coming months Data for humanistic inquiry x-axis lists the acts and scenes in the play.
and years, as schools cautiously emerge When we embed computer science in The y-axis indicates the number of times
from the pandemic, I argue that we English, language, and arts classrooms, we the words appeared in each scene. Forget
should rekindle and reimagine school- introduce computationality in the service of what play it might be; just look at the data.
Then ask yourself three questions. Firstly,
what do I observe? Teachers will often
observe that the frequency of the words
have an inverse relationship. Love is way
more popular in the beginning of the play;
death is more frequently used in the latter
half. Teachers will also often observe that
in the third act, both words seem to be
used more evenly. Secondly, based on your
observations, what questions about the
story emerge for you? Teachers have asked
questions such as: What happens in Act
3 when the words are used with similar
frequency? Do people die at the end of
this play, because death is used far more
often than love? What happens in the last
scene that causes the use of the word love
to surge one last time? Is there a wedding,
n Figure 1 Plotting keywords across scenes in a Shakespeare play or a funeral, or something else? Finally,

helloworld.cc 61
 FEATURE

what do you hypothesise about the plot

and characters based on the data? Many
rightly hypothesise that it is a nuanced love
story that ends tragically, with some kind of
important turning point in the third act. And
if you guessed that it is Romeo and Juliet, in
which Tybalt slays Mercutio and Romeo kills
Tybalt in Act 3, you would be correct.
In this exercise, notice how computational
methods (i.e. quantitative literary data
visualised as a line chart) are used in
the service of humanistic inquiry. In fact,
readers can identify patterns in language
and pose questions about a text using a
data visualisation that they could not easily
do if conducting a traditional close reading
of the play alone.

Deepening our inquiries

Computational methods and quantitative
data can help readers deepen and expand
humanistic inquiry: deepen, because it
actually forces us to look more closely at
texts, and expand, because it offers new
methods for doing so that complement
existing practice. I taught Romeo and Juliet
n Figure 2 Plotting the keywords ‘love’ and ‘death’ across all Shakespeare plays
countless times as an English teacher.
There is no realistic way to see patterns in
the whole text at once as we do with the

PROJECT IDEAS chart on the previous page. This method

also provides myriad new points of entry for
students to make meaning of the author’s
■ Explore a book using literary data for yourself or positive (1). Collect the data, calculate the work, while simultaneously building a
at helloworld.cc/plots. average per paragraph, and create a simple critical and humanistic understanding of
line chart showing how sentiment rises and how quantitative data operates in the world.
■ When teaching poetry, try forefronting
falls in the text. Finally, discuss what specific You can even extend the above example
the concept of algorithms to explore with
devices the author uses (such as the use of to all of Shakespeare’s works at once.
students how rhyme and metre serve as
metaphors) to achieve this effect.
formulas poets use to increase literary effects. Instead of looking at scenes on the x-axis,
■ Give students an excerpt from a literary text we can look at acts in the play, because all
■ Upload any text into Voyant Tools (voyant-
with keywords blanked out. Using ‘if–then’ of Shakespeare’s plays have precisely five
tools.org) to explore its language use using
statements, ask them to explain what words acts. Look at Figure 2 for the frequency of
visualisations. Just note that the literary data
the author could have used and what effect love and death in all of his plays.
will not be organised by chapters or scenes,
they would have on the reader. For example, Again, what do you observe, inquire, and
but rather general percentage.
“If the author uses ‘bloody’, she makes the hypothesise? With just a quick glance, I
■ Ask students to score each paragraph in a reader cringe and worry. If the author uses observe that Hamlet has a similar pattern
text for sentiment: negative (-1), neutral (0), ‘red’, the reader just keeps reading.” of frequency for our keywords. I wonder
how Shakespeare’s use of the words

62 helloworld.cc
©Vukas/stock.adobe.com

FURTHER READING
helloworld.cc/litanalysis
Article discussing computational
literary analysis

helloworld.cc/distantreading
Article discussing using algorithms and data
visualisations to analyse literary texts

THE BOUNDARIES BETWEEN NUMBERS

“ AND LETTERS, OR COMPUTERS AND
HUMAN BEINGS, ARE FALSELY DRAWN

compares across the two plays. Though traumatic relationship between digital data
they are both tragedies, I don’t think of and lived visceral experience. In the coming
Hamlet as a love story primarily, but rather months and years, our schools must help
as a tale of madness. I hypothesise that students explore what Covid-19 has
on rereading Romeo and Juliet, I might heartlessly underscored: that the
explore whether the protagonists’ affection boundaries between numbers and letters,
for each other might be interpreted as STEM and the humanities, and computers
an act of madness rather than frenetic and human beings are falsely drawn. We TOM LIAM LYNCH
teenage love. Does Shakespeare ultimately must prepare students to contribute to the Tom has worked at the intersection of
conflate love and madness? How do the world in a way that sees the lives behind education, technology, literacy, and policy
actions of the star-crossed lovers compare the lines on a chart, the human faces for over 15 years. A former English teacher
to those of the Prince of Denmark? Those embodied in every data point. Computer and education technology professor,
are valuable questions for students to science belongs in humanities classrooms Tom is currently the policy director at the
pose, and ones that quantitative data and because neither computers nor the sciences Center for New York City Affairs at The New
computational methods make it possible have very much value in the world unless School in the USA. He holds a doctorate in
for us to identify and explore. they help us all understand and improve English education from Columbia University
The pandemic has exposed our young humanity itself — in the moment, and for (plottingplots.com, @tomliamlynch).
people to the complex and sometimes generations to come.

helloworld.cc 63
 FEATURE

INCREMENTAL WINS
AND THE POWER OF PRAISE
Sam Green discusses the power of celebrating the small increases
in students’ understanding to support engagement and attainment

ver the past six years, we at student’s incoming position, an incremental and immediately follow with a task in which
O Turinglab (turinglab.co.uk) have knowledge step can be derived. This could students apply this simple concept by
created many tools and resources for be introducing a new concept, such as completing a multiple-choice exercise:
teaching programming. Almost 100,000 teaching an ‘else’ statement once a student
students have used these, but it hasn’t has already demonstrated ability in using Select the correct statement which
always been plain sailing. One area in which ‘if’ statements; or it could be applying an outputs the string "Hello World" to
we consistently struggled was progression existing concept in a context with more the console:
and motivation. We often found that our concept combinations. Crucially, the
materials required cognitive leaps that increments are kept small. While more print("Hello World")
were too large. While a few students could capable students can fly through a course print("Hello World"
take these in their stride, most were unable of small increments, a student with less print(Hello World)
to follow along. They would eventually natural ability will meet with disaster if
drop off, lose interest, or lose confidence the gaps are too large. The student is then given a series of
in themselves, thinking that it was their Let’s explore how we might scaffold incremental steps, such as the tasks in the
inability rather than our poor curriculum the introduction of the function print(), box below. Each helps the student develop
design that was the problem. having checked that learners have the a more comprehensive and practical
I doubt these scenarios sound entirely correct prior knowledge. We might state understanding of the concept of print(),
unfamiliar. Teaching programming can that "print() is a function that outputs and can be designed using either multiple-
be hard. In response to observing these the arguments provided to the console,” choice or fill-in-the-blank exercises.
patterns, we resolved to make the cognitive
leaps as small as possible. We also decided
to celebrate students for the minutest
of victories. Internally, we talk about this
SCAFFOLDING PROGRESSION
approach as the power of incremental wins.
Task Code scaffold Desired outcome
In this article, I will discuss how Turinglab
Fill in a number or string of your own (fill print(____) The student is able to explore different data
scaffolds progression, the power of praise,
in the blanks) types being passed to the print function
and how you can create an environment of
celebration in your programming classes.
Complete the function definitions to output ___("Hello") ___("World") The student is able to practise the feel of
the string "Hello World" (fill in typing out 'print' and observe how
Scaffolding progression the blanks) multiple print statements combine

When creating materials, we try to identify Complete the syntax to print "Hello The student pays careful attention to
print__"Hello World"__
a student’s likely existing knowledge and World" to the console (multiple choice)
Options: [, ], (, ), :
brackets in their code
skills. This can be relatively straightforward
if courses build from the ground up and Print your name to the console name = "_____" The student sees a variable being used in
(fill in the blanks) print(name) conjunction with the print statement
use regular exercises to provide ongoing
formative assessment. Having identified a

64 helloworld.cc
 SAM GREEN
Sam is a designer, developer, and educator
at Turinglab, which he started in 2015 to help
n A typical topic slide on Turinglab, with immediate visual feedback teach children programming. He is currently
exploring ways of making this easier, while
also keeping student engagement high and
TEACHING PROGRAMMING CAN BE
“
learning outcomes solid (turinglab.co.uk).

HARD, SO WE RESOLVED TO MAKE THE recreate these techniques by breaking down

COGNITIVE LEAPS AS SMALL AS POSSIBLE course progressions into small chunks and
rewarding students with sufficient frequency.
For example, consider constructing a series
The power of praise We have seen time and time again that of questions in an online form. Try to ensure
While teaching with a carefully considered students who receive immediate praise that most of your students will be able to
progression is a common idea, it’s the like this for the progress they have made complete it in under three minutes. Ideally,
winning that is so often forgotten in our are more confident, more likely to be your tool will be capable of delivering
classrooms. In computer science, students engaged, more likely to have better learning praise upon correct responses; if not, you
mostly have access to a computer, and we outcomes, and more likely to develop will want to figure out how to praise all
should leverage that. Computers can enable greater resilience when faced with harder students more manually! This might mean
students to learn about a concept, then challenges. Claire, head of computer science providing a help sheet for those who need
immediately apply their knowledge and at Longsands Academy in the UK, said, additional assistance to ensure they score
have their application marked automatically. “It was particularly beneficial for SEND highly, rewarding students for improvement,
Research shows that praise from a students who could see their progress,” rewarding for high performance, or even
computer has similar positive effects and that the approach “provides students rewarding for consistent effort.
to praise from people (helloworld.cc/ with revived enthusiasm with every You might also like to set coding
praise). At Turinglab, we decided to throw small win”. Claire also said, of her early- exercises in which the output can only be
everything but the proverbial kitchen sink secondary students: “It was amazing to achieved by writing the correct code, or in
at celebrating our students’ successes. We watch students who would usually struggle which the code is easily automarked. String
introduced characters who would celebrate with programming concepts leading at least five of these simple challenges
when learners’ code runs correctly, buttons others.” When we empower students with together by linking to the scaffold in a tool
that change colour, pop-ups praising immediate feedback, students know when such as Google Classroom. Ultimately,
students, and experience points that they are capable of supporting their peers, simply try praising your students a little
learners earn when they successfully and those who can, do. more each day. At first, it can feel strange
complete an exercise and can later be used doing this for really small achievements.
by educators to highlight achievement and Try it for yourself Rest assured, though, that receiving
progression. In our latest Python course, Of course, using tools with built-in widgets genuine praise more often really does
they receive these incremental wins every like ours is a great way to harness the power improve confidence and engagement, and
2.93 minutes on average. of incremental wins. However, everyone can sets your classroom up for success.

helloworld.cc 65
 FEATURE

QUANTUM COMPUTING:
AS EASY AS A PENNY FLIP
Andreas J. C. Woitzik and Stefan Seegerer introduce the world of
quantum information through a quantum penny flip game

uantum computing has become solved was highly artificial and not useful In the game, two people, let’s say
Q one of the hot topics in new at all, but it showed us that quantum Alice and Bob, compete in predictions
technologies over the last few years. technologies are progressing fast. With about the outcome of a penny flip. In the
Put simply, a quantum computer many players from industry investing a classical world, if we spin a coin, there
is “a machine that harnesses some lot of money and time in this technology, is a 50 percent chance of it landing on
of the unique properties of quantum it cannot hurt for students to learn a little either side, heads (0) or tails (1). When it is
physics to solve problems that are too more about the topic. spinning, we can consider the coin to be in
complex for regular computers and So let us start you off. We are all used a superposition of heads and tails. In this
even supercomputers” (helloworld.cc/ to traditional computers with their bits and version of the game, Alice would prepare
quantumc). There are strong promises of a bytes. Their power stems from being able the penny as either heads or tails, put it in a
possible quantum speed-up of computers, to very quickly and efficiently manipulate box, and give the box to Bob. He would then
though there are still many obstacles to those bits, which we interpret as either 0 decide whether to flip the box, and return it
overcome. In 2019, researchers claimed or 1. Quantum computing is different: the to Alice. Alice could also choose to flip the
they had achieved quantum supremacy, fundamental bit of information is a qubit box again before opening it with Bob. If the
a situation in which a quantum computer (quantum bit). Qubits are used to store coin showed heads, Alice would win.
can solve a specific task much faster than quantum information. A qubit can take the In the quantum version, Alice gets a
any classical computer could (helloworld. values 0 or 1, but more than that, it can also special quantum coin which she can prepare
cc/arute2019). The specific task they store a superposition of them both. Being in as either heads, tails, or in a superposition
a superposition means that the qubit can be of both. The superposition is visualised by
partially regarded as a 0 and partially as a 1 a spinning coin. If Alice decides to prepare
at the same time. the coin in a superposition, Bob’s flip of
the box does not alter the state of the coin.
Quantum penny flip game Since Alice can also revert the superposition
Students can find quantum computing hard and Bob cannot change it, she now has
to grasp. To make it more approachable, full knowledge of the state of the coin and
we can describe superpositions, one of the therefore can always win the game.
core concepts, with a quantum penny flip
game. David Meyer originally proposed Further discussions
this game in a 1998 paper, but we have This game functions as a motivating entry
created an online version of the game at point to the world of quantum computing.
helloworld.cc/quantumpenny. Before you While the classical coin behaves like
continue reading, give the game a go — it a bit, the quantum coin behaves like a
n A quantum coin can be in a state of heads, tails, or in a is intended to be played by two people qubit. A subsequent discussion in class
superposition of them both on a mobile phone. allows students to transfer the principle to

66 helloworld.cc
 Credit: Annemarie Woeste
n Students can explore the game, searching for a reliable strategy

computational ideas. For example, it is easy more). This is useful in a lot of problems that
to see that a bit can be represented by a involve an unstructured search.
qubit, as the quantum coin has the states of The penny flip activity can also lead to a
heads, tails, and the superposition of heads discussion about the fragility of quantum
and tails. With that in mind, it can be argued information and from there, to quantum
that a quantum computer can perform every cryptography. Once a superposition state
computation a classical computer can do, as is observed, it collapses, and from there,
long as they both have the same number of the coin can show only either heads or
bits and qubits. But by using its additional tails. This feature, certainly an obstacle

A QUANTUM BIT, OR QUBIT, CAN TAKE THE ANDREAS J. C. WOITZIK

“ VALUES 0 OR 1, BUT CAN ALSO STORE Andreas is a PhD student in quantum
information science in the Quantum Optics
A SUPERPOSITION OF THEM BOTH and Statistics group at the University of
Freiburg, Germany. He is interested in
bringing quantum information to schools.
states, a quantum computer can, in theory, for those wanting to build a quantum
perform some tasks better than its classical computer, forms the basis of many
counterpart. quantum cryptography protocols. The
You can also move to discussions of BB84 key exchange protocol, for example,
a more advanced algorithm, Grover’s uses superposition not only to exchange
algorithm, which uses the concept of cryptographic keys securely, but also to
superposition to search in an unsorted uncover whether there is an eavesdropper
list. Imagine your unsorted wardrobe (see page 34 for more on this).
contains 100 coats in 100 compartments Quantum computing is still very new,
and you want to find your yellow coat. In and the various unknowns and the abstract
a worst-case scenario, you might need to nature of it can make it hard for students to
look in all compartments before finding grasp. An activity such as the penny flip STEFAN SEEGERER
the coat. Using superposition, though, game, though, can provide an accessible Stefan is the quantum education manager
Grover’s algorithm only has to look at the entry point to a technology that may at IQM Quantum Computers, exploring ways
wardrobe ten times before revealing the eventually change the way we understand to make quantum computing accessible to
right position of the object you are looking the world. What better incentive could everyone (@StefanSeegerer).
for (see helloworld.cc/groversalgorithm for there be to give it a go?

helloworld.cc 67
 FEATURE

MACHINE LEARNING:
ACCURACY AND ETHICS
Michael Jones shares how to use Teachable Machine to investigate
issues of accuracy and ethics in machine learning models

he landscape for working with hands dirty using relatively inexpensive Teachable Machine. For the worried, there is
T machine learning/AI/deep learning hardware such as the Nvidia Jetson absolutely no coding involved in this resource;
has grown considerably over the last Nano (helloworld.cc/nvidia), and build a the ‘machine’ behind the portal does the hard
couple of years. Students are now classification machine using the Google- work for you. For my Year 9 classes (students
able to develop their understanding driven Teachable Machine resources aged 13 to 14) undertaking a short, three-
from the hard-coded end via resources (helloworld.cc/teachablemachine). week module, this was ideal. The coding is
such as Machine Learning for Kids I have used all three of the above with important, but was not my focus. For this
(machinelearningforkids.co.uk), get their my students, and this article will focus on module, I’m more concerned with the fuzzy
end of AI, including how credible AI decisions
are, and the elephant-in-the-room aspect of
bias and potential for harm.

Getting started
There are three possible routes to use in
Teachable Machine, and my focus is the
‘Image Project’, and within this, the ‘Standard
image model’. From there, you are presented
with a basic training scenario template —
see Hello World issue 16, pages 84–86, for
a step-by-step set-up and training guide.
For this part of the project, my students
trained the machine to recognise different
breeds of dog, with border collie, Labrador,
saluki, and so on as classes.
Any AI system devoted to recognition
requires a substantial set of training data.
Fortunately, there are a number of freely
available sets online (for example, download
helloworld.cc/dogdata, where the folder
is separated into a range of dog types).
Be warned, these can be large, consisting
n Figures 1a and 1b The model may be confused if there are items that you’re not testing in the image; this can lead to a useful discussion! of thousands of images. If you have more

68 helloworld.cc
n Figure 3 Confusing the machine

time, you may want to set students off to

WHICH FEATURES ARE BEING USED TO
collect data to upload using a camera (just
be aware that this can present safeguarding “ IDENTIFY THE DOG BREEDS? WHY ARE
considerations). This is a key learning point
with your students and an opportunity to THE HUMANS CONFUSING THE MODEL?
discuss the time it takes to gather such
data, and variations in the data (for example,
images of dogs from the front, side, or top). model. If all has gone well and a webcam to test. See Figure 1a for the response to an
Once you have downloaded your folders, is attached to your computer, the Output image of a saluki presented to the model.
upload the images to your Teachable Machine window will give a prediction of what is As you might expect, it is showing as a 100
project. It is unlikely that you will be able being viewed. Again, remember there is an percent prediction. It will spark an interesting
to upload a whole subfolder at once — my article in Hello World issue 16 that takes discussion if you now try the same operation
students have found that the optimum you through the exact steps of this process. with an image with items other than the one
number of images seems to be twelve. Make sure you have several images ready you’re testing in it. For example, see Figure
Remember to build this time for downloading 1b, in which two people are in the image
and uploading into your lesson plan. This is along with the Samoyed dog. The model
a good opportunity to discuss the need for is undecided, as the people are affecting
balance in the training data. Ask questions the outcome. This raises the question of
such as, “How likely would the model be to accuracy. Which features are being used to
identify a saluki if the training set contained identify the dogs as border collie and saluki?
10 salukis and 30 of the other dogs?” This is a Why are the humans in the image throwing
left-field way of dropping the idea of bias into the model off the scent?
the exploration of AI — more on that later! Getting closer to home, training a model
on human faces provides an opportunity to
Accuracy issues explore AI accuracy through the question
If you have got this far, the heavy lifting of what might differentiate a female
is complete and Google’s training engine from a male face. You can find a model
will now do the work for you. Once you at helloworld.cc/maleorfemale, which
have set your model on its training, leave contains 5418 images almost evenly
the system to complete its work — it takes spread across male and female faces (see
seconds, even on large sets of data. Once Figure 2). Note that this model will take a
it’s done, you should be ready to test your n Figure 2 Using a large data set little longer to train. Once trained, try the

helloworld.cc 69
 FEATURE

THE
UNCERTAINTY
PRINCIPLE
Machine learning uses a best-
fit principle. The outputs, in
this case whether I am male
or female, have a greater
certainty of male (65 percent)
versus a lesser certainty of
female (35 percent) if I wear
a beard. Remove the beard
and the likelihood of me being
female increases by 2 percent.

MICHAEL JONES
Michael is the director of computer science
IT SOON BECOMES APPARENT THAT
“
at Northfleet Technology College in the
UK. He is a Specialist Leader of Education
UNLESS YOU ARE WHITE AND MIDDLE and a CS Champion for the NCCE (@
CLASS, AI MAY BE PROBLEMATIC FOR YOU MikeJonesCSTalk).

model out. Props really help — a top hat, images that you think would fit the classes, There are some interesting articles on
wig, and beard give the model a testing and train them in Teachable Machine. You this issue that you can share with your
time (pun intended). In this test (see can then test the model by asking your students at helloworld.cc/aibias1 and
Figure 3), I presented myself to the model students to find images they think fit each helloworld.cc/aibias2.
face-on and, unsurprisingly, I came out category. Run them against the model and
as 100 percent male. However, adding a ask students to debate whether the AI is Where next?
judge’s wig forces the model into a rethink, acting fairly, and if not, why they think that In the classroom, you could then follow the
and a beard produces a variety of results, is. Who is training these models? What route of building models that identify letters
but leaves the model unsure. It might be images are they receiving? or words, for example. One of my students
reasonable to assume that our model uses Similarly, you could create classes built a model that could identify a range of
hair length as a strong feature. Adding a of images of known past criminals and spoons and forks. You may notice that
top hat to the ensemble brings the model heroes. Train the model before putting Teachable Machine can also be run on
back to a 100 percent prediction that the yourself in front of it. How far up the Arduino boards, which adds an extra
image is of a male. percentage scale are you towards dimension. Why not get your students to
being a criminal? It soon becomes create their own AI assistant that responds
Bias frighteningly worrying that unless you to commands? The possibilities are there to
Within a fairly small set of parameters, are white and seemingly middle class, be explored. If you’re using webcams to
most human faces are similar. However, AI may prove problematic to you, from collect photos yourself, why not create a
when you start digging, the research decisions on financial products such as system that will identify students? If you are
points to there being bias in AI (whether mortgages through to mistaken arrest and lucky enough to have a set of identical twins
this is conscious or unconscious is a identification. Encourage your students in your class, that adds just a little more
debate for another day!). You can exemplify to discuss how they could influence this flavour! Teachable Machine offers a hands-
this by firstly creating classes with labels issue of race, class, and gender bias — for on way to demonstrate the issues of AI
such as ‘young smart’, ‘old smart’, ‘young example, what rules would they use for accuracy and bias, and gives students a
not smart’, and ‘old not smart’. Select identifying suitable images for a data set? healthy opportunity for debate.

70 helloworld.cc
 CONVERSATION MY CLASSROOM

ME AND MY CLASSROOM
Etienne Dutoy reflects on how he used the move to a temporary classroom
as a chance to forge a space with a positive impact on cognitive load

hen my school said my students and I would be moving

W to a temporary classroom while our new learning centre
was being built, the first thing I got excited about was that it was
going to have air conditioning. I quickly realised, though, that it
was a chance to make my classroom even more synonymous with
creativity, innovation, and fun. It was also a fantastic opportunity
to review cognitive load in computer science, and to see if the
design of the classroom could help with this.
In the last year, in whole-school CPD, we have looked at
cognitive load and been encouraged to review it in our subjects.
Distractions in a classroom can increase cognitive load for our
n More open classroom space means more unplugged activities!
students, and make it much harder for them to turn working
memory into long-term memory. In my new classroom (‘Lovelace block-based approach that Scratch uses. It assists students in
10’), I have installed simple displays that act as bridges or links feeling less stressed about making syntax errors, as they can
for my students to connect previous knowledge to new learning. move it around on the walls easily.
A key in these displays was using magnetic tape to attach them I have also put objects in the classroom to encourage my
to the walls. In the Scratch display, this means it works like the students to have open-ended conversations with each other
about computing. One of the most successful was my computer
science periodic table, comprising key coding terms. One student
even went as far as to comment, “Cool display, sir.” From that
lesson onward, Python data types seemed to be in a lot of
learners’ longer-term memories. They recognise the pattern of the
table from chemistry, and realise that they need to remember the
terms when programming.
The big space in the new classroom has also allowed me to
explore more unplugged approaches — for example, getting the
whole class to ‘become’ the CPU and act out its functions, so they
can see how it works. Having this classroom space helps reduce
cognitive load, as students can visualise an abstract concept.
I always want my classroom to be a portal where my students
discover that computer science is a universe filled with modern,
dynamic, exciting opportunities. By helping my students with their
cognitive load, I believe I am giving them the capacity to learn
what they need for the careers they want, using the computers
and the technology of the future.

ETIENNE DUTOY
Etienne has been a teacher for 14 years. He
teaches computer science at Sprowston
Community Academy, Norwich, UK. He has
boundless energy for experimenting with
new pedagogies, edtech, and innovation
in his teaching.
n Part of the Scratch display

helloworld.cc 71
CONVERSATION PERSONAL ACCOUNT
© BNP Design Studio/stock.adobe.com

YOUNG CODERS
COMPETITION
Shaun McMahon describes his experiences of the coding competition
that his school has won for the last three years

oung Coders is an annual coding competition run by closing date approached, the students came out of lessons and spent
Y
the Worshipful Company of Information Technologists, the whole day finalising and debugging their code, honing their entries
Leicestershire Education Business Company, Cranfield University, to be the best that they could be. The time spent paid off: for the first
Canterbury Christ Church University, and the University of three years of the competition, my school’s teams won every time!
Northampton, in the UK. These groups have recognised that there In recognition of the school’s achievement and success, I was
is a shortage of coders, so the competition aims to spark interest in offered a place on the coding competition’s committee for 2019/20
coding at an early age, to help create coders for the future. Young and my students became part of the final judging panel. The students
Coders has been growing ever since its founding in 2015 and now judged a shortlist of games selected by the adult judges, filling out a
sees global entries, including teams from Nigeria and Canada. form to score the games on their ease of controls, repeat playability,
and whether the brief had been fulfilled.
Triple champions Before they embarked on the judging, I explained how important
Although the competition has now gone global, initially it focused on this task would be, as they would have the final call in judging the
the Northamptonshire area in the UK, and that’s where I joined the games, and there were cash prizes at stake for the winners. The
story. I found out about the competition and, due to the large number children took this on board and were mature and thoughtful in their
of children wanting to take part, ran a lunchtime coding group several judging and comments. The children gained an appreciation for the
times a week. I was working with several teams, and I gave each importance of being fair to every entry and gave constructive feedback
group their own dedicated time to support them with their entries. It on the games. They were also very excited to have the final say and
was great to have an opportunity to be a part of the next generation felt that their opinions mattered. Although school closures during the
of coders; the coders of the eighties and nineties are now the ones pandemic hit entry numbers badly, the teams who entered through
working on the cutting edge of programming, so who knows what their schools’ online portals showed great resilience, perseverance, and
technology my young coders will be working on in the future! As the cooperation. Even lockdown couldn’t keep good coders down!

72 helloworld.cc
 n The final judging panel included students

SCHOOL CLOSURES HIT

“ ENTRY NUMBERS BADLY, BUT
THE TEAMS WHO ENTERED
SHOWED GREAT RESILIENCE

2022: Join now!

Now the competition is back for 2022 with the theme of My
World, Our Planet. Students are asked to produce an original
game around the theme using Scratch. I think the best piece of
advice that I can offer to any potential entrants is to try to keep it
simple. Think of a simple idea, with simple code, and then make it
shine. Pac-Man, Space Invaders, and all those older games have n The 2021 winning game focused on fire safety

endured for so long because they are very simple in their game
design and controls — anyone can pick them up and play.
Apart from the glory of becoming competition champions, each SHAUN
student in the three top teams also receives a signed copy of my MCMAHON
book (helloworld.cc/fowl), a personalised trophy, a certificate, Shaun works as an IT
and a cash prize for the school(s). The competition is open to technician at Park Junior
any group of up to six children aged 8 to 13, from any school, School in Wellingborough,
club, or organisation with an adult willing to support them and Northamptonshire, UK.
submit their entry. Registration is open now, and the competition He has worked in IT for
closes on 27 May 2022. You can find further information at 15 years, 12 of them in
codingcompetition.org where, upon registering, you also get the education sector.
access to a range of free ICT teaching resources.

helloworld.cc 73
 CONVERSATION
© Mediteraneo/stock.adobe.com

COMPUTING AT
SCHOOL OPEN DAYS
Gemma Coleman catches up with computer science teacher Yasin Abbas
to discuss how to represent computing at school open days

What activities do you usually run interact with, such as robotics with our it works best to give students a two-week
on open days? Why do you choose Cozmos (programmable robots that can sprint before the open day to learn and
those particular activities? detect objects and faces); coursework create something new to talk about!
We have a heavy footfall on open days and such as a train journey planner app; simple
due to Covid, we limited sessions at our Pygame platformers; and a fun digital How do you help a student decide
most recent open day to 15 minutes at a MIDI theremin using a Kinect (a motion- if choosing to study computer
time. This reduced our options for activities sensing input device). We also set up science is right for them?
other than Q&A sessions and presenting several computers in the lab with our digital Studying computer science is unique
work that our students had produced for school prospectus, an informative slide — it involves both logical thinking and
their non-exam assessments. As an open show, the exam board specification, and creative problem-solving. It’s also
day nears, I also ask students to engage a game to explore algorithms called The traditionally the hardest of STEM A-level
with a quick-fire project of their own choice. Jewels of Heuro (helloworld.cc/heuro). subjects (for students aged 16–18) to
I give them access to the hardware I have Our students really help out on the gain an A* at ( just 4.2 percent in the UK
and see where they take it, with minimal day, having discussions with prospective achieve this) and involves a substantial
intervention on my part. It works really well! students and parents. I tell them to practical coursework element.
We tend to focus on showing off just be open and honest about their We don’t sugar-coat, and we certainly tell
interesting projects that guests can experiences. I personally have found that it how it is. If you’re going to do a computer

74 helloworld.cc
 course additionally covers some Haskell, particularly keep in mind the notion that
SQL, and AQA assembly (ARM-based you can’t be what you can’t see; as a male
assembly language). The practical teacher in this zone, I didn’t appreciate
paper for the specification we follow is that my own gender could be contentious.
available in five different languages. We Personally, I didn’t distinguish between
give students the option to do any of genders, but I’ve since learnt that maybe
them, and they can do coursework in any I should. I’ll describe my current approach
language, as long as it’s not Whitespace below, but as I’m still learning about this
or LOLCODE! from our students, this could change.
n Can you take computer science at As our gender ratios are still unbalanced, I
A level without a GCSE or prior try hard to engage with our female students
programming knowledge, and does it when it comes to representing computer
affect outcomes? You’re welcome to do science at open days. I have also noticed that
computer science A level without a GCSE prospective female students will talk more
and without knowing coding. It doesn’t readily with our current female students.
affect outcomes, because we make no I try to impress on prospective female
assumptions about prior knowledge. students the nature of the A level, both
n We show off interesting projects such as our work with Cozmos We’ve known students who didn’t have its logical and creative elements. I also tell
a computer science background who them that there’s a very human component
science degree, you’ll visit a lot of the first- became very strong coders. to the subject that’s often missed, as I’ve
year degree content in the A level, so it’s a n What other subjects do you found that this often seems to appeal to
super-helpful base. If you’re not going to recommend that we take? We female students. I’ve found personally that
do a computer science degree, you should recommend taking STEM-based A levels, women tend to be more driven by the
think about doing it at A level because you and especially maths, further maths, and long-term and not the short-term picture.
will pick up enough practical programming physics. This is flexible, of course, but we I tell them there’s a positive recruitment
skills to benefit any future STEM-based really stress the importance of maths, as drive in the industry that could see them
degree (as if you had done the first year of most computer science degrees set this being recruited quickly, and this is mainly
a computer science degree). It’s a win-win. as a requirement. because studies have shown that mixed-
gender departments work better.
What are the most common How do you convey the balance
questions you get from students? between the more typically exciting
And what are your answers? aspects of computing, and the
n W hat content is covered in the perhaps drier theoretical aspects?
course? We direct students to the For open days? I don’t think we get the
specification. opportunity to. In general, all topics have
n How much of the A level is similar relevance, whether they’re practical
to the GCSE? Quick answer: we or theoretical, and so we focus on the
cover somewhat more than the GCSE, whys. The more fun aspects of computer
including databases, assembly language, science are heavily based on theory,
functional programming, and object- and an understanding of this generally
oriented programming (OOP). drives the reasons to study. The Jewels of
n W hat is the gender ratio? Women Heuro game, for example, introduces the
make up roughly 30 percent of our intake, concept of theoretical content, such as Big
and we want to even out those numbers! O notation and the travelling salesman
 hat are the admissions
n W problem. Most students aren’t aware
requirements? We point them to our of how simple problems actually have
school prospectus. a lot more to them under the surface.
 hat are the pass rates? See my answer
n W YASIN ABBAS
to a previous question. In short, don’t take Is there anything in particular Yasin is the head of computer science at
the subject if you’re after an easy A*/A! you do to encourage girls to Woodhouse College in London, UK. He has
 hich programming languages can
n W choose to study computing? also worked as a lecturer at the University
you study? We tell students that we I’m in discussions with our female of Greenwich, at City, University of
run a language-agnostic course. We students at the moment to help me London, and as a teacher in Indonesia.
introduce both C# and Python, and the understand these issues better myself. I

helloworld.cc 75
 LESSON PLAN

SCRIPT KIDDIES
The following three
lesson plans are
taken from the six-lesson
‘Cybersecurity’ unit in the
Year 9 (age 13–14) stage
of the Teach Computing Introduce learners to the techniques used by hackers to steal
Curriculum (TCC).
data and cause disruption, as well as their legal consequences
This unit takes learners on
an eye-opening journey of Ben Garside
discovery about techniques
used by cybercriminals
his is the third lesson in the TCC’s ‘Cybersecurity’ unit, focusing on exploring the concept
to steal data, disrupt T of hacking and the techniques used by hackers to exploit computer systems.
systems, and infiltrate
networks. It aims to increase
learners’ awareness of the
importance of their data to
STARTER: HACK GEORGE’S FAKEBOOK ACCOUNT 10 MINUTES
cybercriminals, the most
George’s phone is off and his family don’t get the right answer but haven’t used capital
common methods of attack,
know where he is. Learners must hack into letters, encourage them to think about how
and the measures used to
George’s Fakebook account to see if they can to create strong passwords. Show the clues
defend against threats.
find information on his whereabouts. Using in Figure 2 if they are struggling. Once
clues from his social media, learners might be learners get into the account, they can see
able to guess his password and find him. that George is at the cinema. Ask them to
Ask learners to navigate to ncce.io/ consider the following questions:
fakebook, which will take them to a fake login
page where they need to run the program and n If you hacked into a friend’s account, does
enter a password. that make you a hacker?
To work out the password, give the class n Was hacking into George’s account ethical?
clues in the form of public messages posted
on another of George’s social media accounts Learners might believe that as they weren’t
(Figure 1). You can download Figures 1 and 2 given permission by George, and they used

ABOUT THE TCC from the slides at helloworld.cc/scriptkiddies.

They won’t know the password, but a hint,
his social media to crack his password, their
actions were unethical. Some might believe
‘colour TV’, will appear if they guess incorrectly. they were ethical, as they were doing it for
The answer is ‘RedSimpsons’. The what they thought was a valid reason: to
password is case-sensitive, so if the learners help his worried parents.

The Teach Computing

Curriculum is part of England’s
National Centre for Computing
Education and supports
students aged 5–16.
Every unit of work in the TCC n Figure 1 George’s social media posts n Figure 2 Clues for George’s password
contains: a unit overview; a
learning graph to show the
progression of skills and ACTIVITY 1: HACKING 8 MINUTES
concepts in a unit; and lesson
content, including a lesson After defining the term ‘hacking’, ask is it ethical to hack into the systems of a
plan, slides, and formative learners why people may want to hack. Give company that you suspect is testing their
assessment opportunities. Find them a couple of scenarios to debate the product on animals and harming them, in
them when you sign up for a free ethics of different contexts. For example, order to expose their practice?
account at helloworld.cc/tcc.

76 helloworld.cc
ACTIVITY 2: DDoS 12 MINUTES

Learners will now explore the Dyn cyberattack as clients). The job of the server is to catch
(helloworld.cc/dyn). Explain that it was a requests in the form of paper balls being sent
distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack (thrown) by a student acting as a client. After
that meant that many people couldn’t access 30 seconds, ask the client to start throwing
websites, as the services that provide the them as fast as they can until the server stops
locations of the web servers were attacked. catching them and can’t handle the requests.
Explain that this was done by ‘script kiddies’ This simulates a DoS attack. To simulate a
(hackers who don’t have technical hacking DDoS attack, ask some more students to act
knowledge but use downloaded software to as clients making requests. Ask clients to start AGE RANGE
do the hacking for them). slowly, to make it manageable for the server 11-14 years
Set up an activity in which learners play the to handle the requests (catch the balls), before
part of a server experiencing DoS and DDoS their requests become more frequent until the REQUIREMENTS
attacks from their fellow classmates (acting server stops being able to handle them all!
•A
 web browser

ACTIVITY 3: BRUTE FORCE ATTACKS 10 MINUTES OBJECTIVES

Introduce students to the term ‘brute-force figure them out. Ask them to look at the results
Define ‘hacking’
attack’ (an attack that makes multiple attempts and explain why the password ‘Abc1’ would
to discover something such as a password). be more secure than ‘abcd’. in the context of
Ask learners to open and run the Python You can then explain that the program cybersecurity
program at helloworld.cc/bruteforce. This has been set to check only for ASCII letters
runs through combinations of characters and digits. Ask learners to modify line
until it matches a string, recording how many 15 of the program to print(guess_
Explain how a DDoS
attempts it took to do this and how long it password(password,extended)) , so attack can impact
took. Learners will discover how making a that it checks for punctuation and white space
the users of online
password more complex significantly changes in the password. Now get learners to run
how long it takes for a computer to crack it. the program with the passwords ‘abc’, ‘Ab1’, services
The password is currently set as ‘ab’ — ask ‘Abc1?’, and ‘AB C1’, and record the number of
students to change the password to ‘abc’, attempts and the time taken for the program Identify strategies to
‘Abc’, and ‘Abc1’ respectively. Each time to crack each one. Having done these tasks,
they run the program with these different ask students what password rules they would
reduce the chance of
passwords, they should record the number of set themselves to reduce the chance of a a brute-force attack
attempts and the time taken for the program to successful brute-force attack against them.
being successful

Explain the need for

ACTIVITY 4: COMPUTER PLENARY ACTIVITY: DYN the UK Computer
MISUSE ACT 5 MINUTES CYBERATTACK 5 MINUTES Misuse Act (1990)
This activity aims to highlight the law Using their knowledge of the Dyn cyberattack
that exists in the UK to deter hackers. and the CMA, ask learners the following:
The Computer Misuse Act 1990 (CMA)
prosecutes hackers for their actions,
regardless of their intentions or technical
n Which of the three sections of the CMA
does a DDoS attack violate?
RELEVANT LINKS
expertise. After watching a short video n Why do you think this?
(helloworld.cc/ncavideo), explore the three n What is the maximum punishment for TCC ‘Script kiddies’ lesson:
principles of the CMA (helloworld.cc/cma). this crime under this act? helloworld.cc/scriptkiddies

helloworld.cc 77
 LESSON PLAN

AGE RANGE
11-14 years

REQUIREMENTS
RISE OF THE BOTS
•A
 web browser
Explore different categories of malware and help your learners
understand the impact of malicious bots

OBJECTIVES Ben Garside

his is the fourth lesson in the TCC’s ‘Cybersecurity’ unit. The purpose of this lesson is to
L ist the common T make learners aware of malware and the different categories of malware, as well as
malware threats understanding how they work and the damage they can do. This lesson focuses more on the
technical side than on prevention methods, which is covered in the fifth lesson of the unit.

E xamine how
different types
of malware cause STARTER ACTIVITY: RANSOMWARE ATTACK 5 MINUTES
problems for
As soon as your learners enter the classroom, for advice. Should you pay the ransom or not?
computer systems they’ll realise something strange is happening. If they decide not to pay, switch the screen to
Ideally, if you have screen-sharing software, a slide informing them that the data has gone.
Q
 uestion how use it to place your screen on theirs to make it If they choose to pay, switch the screen to a
look as if all the computers have been infected slide informing them that 50 percent of the
malicious bots can
by a ransomware attack (like the image in data has been decrypted, but more payment
have an impact on Figure 1). Using your inner thespian, enact the is required. The activity aims to highlight the
societal issues role of a panicked teacher and ask the class potential damage that malware can do.

PRETEND TO PANIC, AND ASK

“ THE CLASS: SHOULD YOU PAY
ACTIVITY 1: MALWARE 10 MINUTES

Introduce learners to the term ‘malware’ and give a brief

THE RANSOM? description of the following common types of malware:

n Viruses: Self-replicating software that maliciously

modifies files.
n Trojans: Software that appears to perform a useful
function, but unbeknown to the user, it also performs
malicious actions.
n Worms: Self-replicating software that causes disruption
by using system resources.
n Adware: Can be a worm, a virus, or a Trojan. It infects a
computer and causes it to download or display malicious
adverts or pop-ups when the victim is online.
n Spyware: Unwanted software that monitors and gathers
information on a person and how they use their computer.
n Ransomware: A specific type of virus that locks a
computer and encrypts files, preventing the user from
being able to access the data.
n Figure 1 Enact a ransomware attack in your classroom!

78 helloworld.cc
ACTIVITY 2: QUICK READ 20 MINUTES

Set the scene with the learners that their n Research the malware to give information
local cybersecurity police force wants them as to what is it
to make a quick-read fact sheet to help n Describe how it would break the Computer
educate the public on malware. Depending Misuse Act 1990, or your country’s
on your setting, you can either allocate equivalent (see previous lesson)
a category of malware to the learners or
let them pick for themselves. Whichever To stretch students further, you can ask them
category they pick or are allocated, to find a case study of where the malware
they must: was used and the impact it had.

ACTIVITY 3: BOTNET 5 MINUTES

According to Cloudflare (2019), over 50 as well as the number of bots needed to

percent of internet traffic is bot traffic, and a work through all the devices around the
significant proportion of that is malicious bots! world that are connected to the internet.
Explain to the learners what bots are and the This leads us to the term ‘botnet’, referring
tasks they might perform in this context, with to a large collection of malware-infected
both positive and negative uses. devices (zombies). It is likely that the owner
Explore two examples of malicious of the zombies is not aware that they have
actions conducted by bots: the automation been infected. When an attacker chooses to
of social media accounts, and bots that look make an attack, they use software to ‘wake’
for vulnerabilities of internet-connected the zombies to carry out an attack. For
devices. Prompt the learners to think about example, the zombies might be controlled
what devices they have that might be to send multiple requests to a single server.
connected to the internet, to exemplify the Ask the learners to think about what this
scale of possibilities that can be exploited, type of attack is called (a DDoS attack).

PLENARY ACTIVITY: INFLUENCING VOTERS 10 MINUTES

During a review of their platform after the The aim of this activity is for the learners to
2016 US presidential election, Twitter think about the fact that these automated
announced, “We have identified a total accounts have been made to target Twitter
of 50,258 automated accounts that we users, to try and influence their opinion and
identified as Russian-linked and tweeting convince them to vote in a certain way. The
election-related content during the election political nature of this highlights a potential
period.” Ask the learners to think about the new form of warfare between governments,
following question: which can attempt to destabilise other
countries. Encourage learners to reflect
RELEVANT LINKS
What are the potential consequences of on the information that they see on social
50,258 automated accounts (non-human media and question the motives behind TCC ‘Rise of the bots’ lesson:
users) posting election-based content? the messages. helloworld.cc/riseofthebots

helloworld.cc 79
 LESSON PLAN

AGE RANGE
11-14 years
THERE’S NO PLACE
LIKE 127.0.0.1
REQUIREMENTS
•A
 web browser

How do you protect a network against cyberthreats?

OBJECTIVES What are the risks, and how much of a threat are they?

C
 ompare security Ben Garside
threats against
his is the fifth lesson in the TCC’s of defending a network against attacks, such as
their probability T ‘Cybersecurity’ unit. This lesson aims to firewalls. Learners will look at global threats
and their potential help learners to develop their understanding of before thinking about threats at the school
impact to the risks that cyberthreats pose to a network, network level. They will also discuss methods
followed by an exploration of common methods used by network managers to reduce risk.
organisations

E xplain how STARTER ACTIVITY: THE STATS 8 MINUTES

networks can be As learners enter the room, display statistics n What is the term for when human users
protected from on the board to focus their minds on the of a system are tricked into providing
common security content of the lesson (see Figure 1). confidential information?
These stats highlight that organisations n What is the term for a large collection of
threats have to invest a lot of money to protect malware-infected devices used to carry out
themselves against cyberattacks. Ask an attack on a system?
learners to answer the following questions
independently — you can give them multiple- The questions are designed to remind the
choice answers for support: learners of the concepts that they have
covered that will feed into this lesson, but
n Trojans, spyware, adware, and worms are it is also an opportunity to address any
all examples of what? misconceptions that may have arisen.

n Figure 1 Cyberattack statistics

80 helloworld.cc
ACTIVITY 1: CYBERTHREATS 10 MINUTES ACTIVITY 2:
RISK VERSUS IMPACT 8 MINUTES
Ask learners to visit helloworld.cc/threatmap. This shows
the global cybersecurity attacks taking place in near-real Explain to students that network security provision is based
time. Ask learners to explore the website and answer the on risk. Companies will often compare the possible impact of
following questions: an attack against the probability of it happening. This helps
organisations to plan their budgets. Ask learners to work in
n What are the top three targeted industries? pairs to complete a cybersecurity risk assessment for the school
n What are the top three malware types? network based on the potential of the following threats:
n Which malware trend makes up the largest percentage of
attacks in their country? n Viruses n Ransomware
n DDoS n Brute force
From the learning that has taken place so far in this unit, n Social engineering n Internal threat
students should be able to understand a lot of the key
terminology used on this site and get an understanding Get learners to plot their threat analysis on a probability vs impact
of the scale of cybercrime taking place globally. graph (with probability on the x-axis and impact on the y-axis).

ACTIVITY 3: SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS 10 MINUTES

Discuss some of the available software It might add value to the learners if you are
that can reduce the chance of cyberattacks able to get your school network manager to
being successful (for example, firewalls, anti- talk about the threats to a school network and
malware, auto-updates). discuss this software.

ACTIVITY 4: PERMISSIONS 15 MINUTES

Ask learners to consider what security following methods that the network can use:
methods are in place on the school
network to prevent unauthorised users n Secure passwords (password managers)
from accessing data. Ask them to think n A maximum number of sign-in attempts
about the following questions: n CAPTCHA
n Biometrics
n How do you log into the school system? n Two-factor authentication (2FA)
n What measures are already in place to
make it secure? Again, using the school network for context,
n What measures could be put in place to pose the question, “Should this be the same
make it even more secure? for all users of the system?” This should
prompt the learners to think about other users
You will then make them aware of the of the system besides themselves.

PLENARY ACTIVITY: ALLOCATE THE PRIVILEGES 5 MINUTES

RELEVANT LINKS
Ask the class to discuss what privileges the n The ability to install new software
reception staff should have on the school n Read/write access to the staff shared drive TCC ‘There’s no place like
network. Discuss each one in turn: n Read/write access to student shared drives 127.0.0.1’ lesson: helloworld.cc/
n The ability to see registers and pupil data noplacelike127

helloworld.cc 81
 LESSON PLAN

CODING A CAESAR
CIPHER IN PYTHON
This lesson introduces symmetric cryptography with a hands-on
AGE RANGE
approach in which students use Python to create a Caesar cipher
11–14 years

tudents really enjoy the idea of cryptography and sending

REQUIREMENTS S secret messages! In this lesson, they will create the code for a OBJECTIVES
• A computer that Caesar cipher, which was famously used by the Roman Empire, and
is the ‘Hello World’ of cryptography. This lesson is aimed at students
can run Python Using iteration, lists,
• A web browser aged 11 to 14, but the introduction and Scratch components can
be taught to students as young as 9. For older students, it forms and string manipulation:
a good foundation from which to move onto modern ciphers, file
management, or to make a simple GUI-style app (for example, see
I can understand
this sample from a Year 13 student: helloworld.cc/guicaesar).
Part of the joy of this lesson is that students see that this cipher takes how symmetric
some effort to decode manually, but they can decode it instantly by encryption works
using a computer! This then really sparks their imaginations as to how
they could create a cipher that would be much more difficult to crack. In
I can develop code
the past, I have included punctuation, numbers, and upper-case
characters, but this makes the encoding and decoding of the cipher to create a Caesar
much more cumbersome. With only 26 possibilities, the cognitive cipher
demand on slower readers is much more manageable.

ACTIVITY 1: CIPHER WHEEL 10 MINUTES

Write “uhvlolhqfh” on the board and ask students if Introduce the concept of a shift, explaining that the
they know what it means. Once they’ve had time to Caesar cipher is a substitution cipher in which each
guess, give them a cipher wheel and ask them if they letter is shifted a certain number of places down the
think it will help. You can find an interactive cipher alphabet. You can now demonstrate that “uhvlolhqfh”
wheel at helloworld.cc/wheel1, or learn how to make has used a shift of three for the message “resilience”.
a physical version at helloworld.cc/wheel2 (login for
Computing at School site required). Here are the shifts:

0 uhvlolhqfh
1 tguknkgpeg
2 sftjmjfodf
3 resilience

Let students pick their own word and give it to a

partner to crack. Students should now understand
the concept of a Caesar cipher and how to
crack one using shifts.
n An interactive cipher wheel in Scratch

82 helloworld.cc
ACTIVITY 2: CODING THE CIPHER 40 MINUTES

Explain that if you have the key to a Caesar cipher, it's very easy to
crack. If you don't, however, you have to go through all 26 options in my_variable = "down"
the alphabet! With this context in place, you can now explain that an for i in myvariable:
efficient way of cracking a Caesar cipher is to produce a program in print(i)
Python to do it for you. For your reference, here is the finished code
(you can also find the source code at helloworld.cc/caesarencoder): Next, go through the flowchart of the Caesar cipher algorithm
(see Figure 1). Highlight how to convert text to lower case and
letter=['a','b','c','d','e','f','g','h','i', how to add to a string letter by letter.
'j','k','l','m','n','o','p','q','r','s','t','u' You can also provide students with a list of letters (see
,'v','w','x','y','z','a','b','c','d','e','f','g helloworld.cc/lowercase) to ensure they do not mistype them. A
','h','i','j','k','l','m','n','o','p','q','r',' list is useful here, because it is global and enables students to use
s','t','u','v','w','x','y','z'] the same list in several functions. I have done it in the past with
strings, but that led to difficulties with dealing with the scope of
def encode(plaintext,key): the variables.
cipher = "" Finally, it's also worth checking that students have a method
text = plaintext.lower() of dealing with the key when it goes beyond the 26 letters of the
for lettersintext in text: alphabet. You can solve this by having two copies of the alphabet
if lettersintext ==" ": in the list.
cipher+=" "
else:
for i in range(len(letter)):
if letter[i] == lettersintext:
cipher += letter[i+key]
break
return cipher

print(encode("resilience",3))

There are a few things worth going over with students before
they start to figure out how to write the code. Firstly, check their
understanding of 'for' loops in Python by asking them to predict
the output of the following code: n Figure 1 Flowchart of a Caesar cipher algorithm

ACTIVITY 3: QUICK SORTING EXERCISE 5 MINUTES

In this consolidation exercise, we give students code that will

enable them to crack the cipher text they have just encoded. This
means that by the end of the lesson, they will have the code to
both create and break the cipher. If you have a longer lesson or are
working with more confident coders, you might want them to make
this code without the scaffolding.

Give students a copy of the jumbled code from the image in

Figure 2. Ask them to reorder the code and the indentation
to create the decoding part of the Caesar cipher; you can find
the correctly ordered decoder source code at helloworld.cc/
n Figure 2 Ask students to reorder the decoding part of the Caesar cipher
caesardecoder.

helloworld.cc 83
 LESSON PLAN

DIFFERENTIATION

Further scaffolding
For students who really struggle with coding, I created a step-by-step video showing them how
to do the encoding (helloworld.cc/caesarvid). Students can watch and rewatch the video as
necessary, or you can use the accompanying step-by-step slides to guide them through the parts
they are having difficulties with (helloworld.cc/caesarslides). The space character is dealt with
separately so that it is easier for dyslexic students to track where words start and end.

Extensions to stretch students

n Can you disguise the space character so that it is harder to spot where a word starts and ends?
n Can you use a set of common words to guess the combination instantly? What are the
most common words in English? Which of these are likely to be suitable?
n Can you make a menu so you can encode, decode, and crack in one easy-to-use program?
n Can you create a program with a stronger method of encryption?

Extensions for confident coders

More advanced students might want to install the encryption library (helloworld.cc/cryptolib)
at this stage. Be sure to warn students that data encrypted with this library might not be
retrievable without the key!

Students might wish to be able to load and save their files. To do this, they will need an
understanding of reading and writing files (helloworld.cc/pyfilehandling).

PLENARY ACTIVITY: STRENGTHENING ENCRYPTION JAMES ABELA

5 MINUTES James is head of computing at
Garden International School in
To wrap up the lesson, start a think–pair–share Easy to crack
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He is a
discussion on the following three questions: n It uses only 26 combinations; spaces tell
Raspberry Pi Certified Educator,
you where the word is
founder of the South East Asian
n What are the limitations of this program? n The key remains the same throughout
Computer Science Teachers
n Why is this encryption easy to crack? the text
Association, and author of The
n How could you make it stronger?
Gamified Classroom (@eslweb).
Make encryption stronger
Some possible answers include: n Use a less frequently used language, such
as Gaelic or Maltese
Limitations n Use a much bigger reference guide; many RELEVANT LINKS
n It deals only with lower-case people use books as references
Roman characters n Change the key frequently, for example by You can find more Python
n It does not deal with numbers (but point using a rotor cipher, as used in the Enigma cipher activities at helloworld.
out that students can use one, two, etc.) machine (helloworld.cc/enigmarotor) cc/pythoncracking.

84 helloworld.cc
 ACTIVITY

AGE RANGE

7-10 years GENERATE COOL

USERNAMES
REQUIREMENTS

• A computer

WITH SCRATCH
capable
of running
ASSESSMENT
Scratch Discuss with your students
• Scratch 3 the need for Gamertags
(either online Young people should learn never to use and usernames and staying
or offline) safe online.
personal information in their usernames online. Take group input on new
In this project, they’ll generate fun usernames adjectives and nouns that
could be used in the project,
they can use for their online accounts and reinforce prior grammar
knowledge. Ask for examples
eing safe on the internet teams, number sequences — all of their favourite usernames
B means not giving away easily guessable or identifiable. at the end of the session and
your personal information. This project creates a useful check that the word types
Many young people have online bank of possible usernames (or are correct.
accounts for their clubs, games, passwords), which are generated
and even homework apps. For algorithmically on request by

DIFFERENTIATION
each of these accounts, they need combining multiple terms from
to generate a username that is lists created by the learner. This
personally identifiable, interesting, allows the terms to be personally
There are online non-English
and relevant, without mentioning relevant to them, while also
word generators that you can
things such as birthdates, real being unique, random(ish), and access to create new starter
names, or locations. Even as certain to contain no identifying lists for your students. Remix
adults, we often take the easy information about them. The larger the starter project, replace the
route and use the same old things the lists created by the learner, word lists with your own, and
provide the class with the link
for passwords and usernames: the more unique username
to your remix rather than the
important dates, pet names, sports possibilities are available! original starter.

MARK ‘MrC’ RELEVANT LINKS

CALLEJA
MrC is a teacher, hacker, n Project: helloworld.cc/
surfer, D&D Dungeon Master, usernamegenerator
and maker. During the
n Starter project in Scratch:
day he makes educational
helloworld.cc/username
resources for the Raspberry Pi
Foundation, which you can find n Make big lists of random
on the Foundation’s website. words to import:
randomwordgenerator.com

helloworld.cc 85
 ACTIVITY

ACTIVITY 1: GENERATE PRELOADED USERNAMES 20 MINUTES

To start, open the Scratch starter project downs to say ‘nouns’ instead of ‘adjectives’.
at helloworld.cc/username. If you have a Finally, copy the code in Figure 5 to have
Scratch account, log in and click ‘Remix’ to your sprite say the variable ‘username’.
make a copy. Test the code by clicking the sprite. You
Once you’ve opened the project, you’ll should get it to say a new username every
see two lists on the workspace — one titled time. Encourage your learners to add new
‘adjectives’ and the other ‘nouns’. We don’t items to each list to increase the variety of
really want to see the lists at this time, so in their usernames before moving on. This is
the Variables palette, click the checkboxes an excellent opportunity to reinforce some
next to those lists to hide them. You can previous grammar learning! n The Scratch Variables palette
bring them back in the same way later.
Use the ‘Make a Variable’ button in the
Variables palette to create a new variable
called ‘username’, then hide it by also
clicking the checkbox next to it when
n Figure 1 n Figure 2
it appears.
Add a sprite. Any character will do; it’s
just something to hang the code on. Let the
students pick a sprite they like and play with
its costume for a little while until everyone
n Figure 3
catches up — we’re about to start coding.
Add the code shown in Figure 1 to your
new sprite. Then add an adjective in the
first slot from the Variables palette, as
shown in Figure 2. Next, pick a random n Figure 4
adjective between one and the length
of the adjectives list, as demonstrated in
Figure 3. You’ll then duplicate everything in
the first slot of the join block and pop it into
the second slot. Copy the code in Figure 4
to change the lists in the second slot drop- n Figure 5

ACTIVITY 2: SAVE YOUR FAVOURITE USERNAMES 10 MINUTES

In the Variables palette, use the ‘Make a sprite selected). Add the following code to You can export the list of saved
List’ button to make a list called ‘names the new sprite: usernames to a text file by right-clicking
I like’ (or ‘favourites’, ‘liked’, ‘saved’ — on the ‘names I like’ list on the stage,
anything you want, really, as long as clicking export from the pop-up menu, and
it makes sense), which will appear in choosing where to save the list as a file.
your workspace. From here, you can stretch your students
Add another sprite to your project, by encouraging them to work out how they
which will be used as a ‘save’ button. Make Test your code by generating a username might join a number onto the end of their
sure you can see the new sprite in the and clicking the new save button sprite. generated usernames, add another word
workspace, and that you have it selected You will see the current username added to type, or create customised costumes for
below (rather than having your original your ‘names I like’ list. their project.

86 helloworld.cc
 ACTIVITY

AGE RANGE

LEGO REMOTE-
11—14 years

REQUIREMENTS

CONTROLLED CAR
• Raspberry Pi 3 or 4 and Raspberry
Pi Build HAT
• BuildHAT Python library (sudo pip3
install buildhat)
MARC ®
• LEGO Education SPIKE™ Prime Set
SCOTT Use LEGO and Raspberry Pi Build HAT to build your
® ®
or two LEGO Technic™ motors
Marc works for
• An Android phone or tablet
the Raspberry Pi own remote-controlled car and learn how to use
• Five AA batteries and a holder pack,
Foundation as a
Bluetooth communication in your Python projects or a 9V battery with barrel jack
senior learning
manager. He • Thonny or your preferred IDE
t the end of last year, backwards, and to turn. The car will
focuses on the A Raspberry Pi collaborated be controlled from an Android device,
• The Blue Dot Android app
production of and Python library (sudo pip3
with LEGO® Education, launching using Bluetooth.
educational install bluedot)
the Raspberry Pi Build HAT to The project is an excellent
resources for
easily integrate LEGO® Technic™ introduction to simple robotics, and
the Informal SAFETY REQUIREMENTS
motors and sensors with Raspberry the perfect way to extend the use of
Learning projects
Pi computers. the LEGO® Education SPIKE™ Prime Ensure that you are powering your
at projects.
In this project, your students can Sets, using the power and versatility Build HAT and Raspberry Pi from
raspberrypi.
learn how to build their own remote- of Raspberry Pi computers and the a single power source. If you are
org.
controlled car. Its motion will be Build HAT. Students will learn about powering the Build HAT using a
determined by two separately driven basic motor control and how to bring barrel jack, you do not need to power
motors placed on either side of the Bluetooth communication into their Raspberry Pi separately.
car, allowing it to move forwards and Python projects.

helloworld.cc 87
 ACTIVITY

ACTIVITY 1: BUILD YOUR LEGO CAR 10 MINUTES — A FEW HOURS

This is where your students can express 1. Their car will need a place for
themselves creatively and put their Raspberry Pi and the Build HAT to sit.
engineering skills to the test. There is no 2. Their car will need to accommodate a
single correct way to build a car, and they battery pack that can be plugged into
could opt for a minimalist design to keep the Build HAT.
things simple, a scaled model of a real 3. Their car will need to accommodate
car, or just let their imaginations run wild two LEGO® Technic™ motors that can
and create whatever they like. Learners also be plugged into the Build HAT in
can use whatever LEGO bricks they can ports A and B.
get their hands on and be as imaginative
as they like. There are a few design In the images to the right and on the next
requirements that your students will need page, you can see examples of LEGO cars
n An example model car with two LEGO® Technic™motors,
to take into account, though: that we came up with. Raspberry Pi, and Build HAT

FUN FACT ACTIVITY 2: CONTROL THE CAR’S MOTION 30 MINUTES

The name Bluetooth was Students now need to learn how to control the have positioned and connected up their
proposed in 1996 by Jim Kardach two LEGO® Technic™ motors so that they can motors to the car:
of Intel. At the time of this drive their car forward and backwards, make it
proposal, he was reading Frans turn on the spot, and, most importantly, stop. def forward():
G. Bengtsson’s historical novel To do this they will code a set of functions in motor_left.start(50)
The Long Ships about Vikings Python, each of which will drive the motors in motor_right.start(-50)
and the tenth-century Danish a particular way. To begin with, they need to
king Harald Bluetooth. Bluetooth import the BuildHAT library (rpf.io/buildhat), def backward():
was King Harald’s nickname, and then set up their motors: motor_left.start(-50)
and he united the Danish tribes motor_right.start(50)
into a single kingdom, just as from buildhat import Motor
Bluetooth unites devices in a motor_left = Motor('A') def stop():
single communication protocol. motor_right = Motor('B') motor_left.stop()
motor_right.stop()
Next, they can write five functions to control
the direction of the motors. Encourage def left():
your students to experiment with different motor_left.start(50)
values for the speed and direction that the motor_right.start(50)
motors will turn. Positive values turn the
motors one way, and negative values will def right():
reverse them. The speed of the motors can motor_left.start(-50)
range from 0 to 100. When the learners motor_right.start(-50)
run their program, they can use the Python
shell to call the different functions and When they run their code, they can then use
observe how the motors behave, then the Python shell to test out their functions by
edit the values until the car drives in the calling them:
direction and at the speed they need.
Here is some example code, but the values >>> right() #test if the car turns right
your students use will depend on how they >>> stop() #test if the motors stop

88 helloworld.cc
ACTIVITY 3: CONTROL THE CAR WITH RELEVANT LINKS
BLUETOOTH AND ADD PORTABLE POWER 30 MINUTES n More about this project:
Blue Dot allows you to control Raspberry Pi def move(pos): helloworld.cc/legorobot
projects wirelessly. With the Blue Dot library if pos.top: n More LEGO projects on the
installed on Raspberry Pi and the app installed forward() Raspberry Pi Foundation’s
on an Android phone or tablet (rpf.io/bluedot), elif pos.bottom: projects site: helloworld.cc/
your students can remotely control their car. backward() legoprojects
They will first need to pair their Android elif pos.left: n LEGO® Education SPIKE™
device with Raspberry Pi, then open the left() Prime Set: helloworld.cc/
Blue Dot app. To do this, make Raspberry Pi elif pos.right: legospike
discoverable using the Bluetooth menu, then right()
n Blue Dot documentation: rpf.
pair it using your Android device.
io/bluedot
To use the Blue Dot library, you will first The three additional lines of code below will
need to import it at the top of your students’ detect if the dot has been pressed, if a finger n Build HAT documentation: rpf.

programs and create a dot object: has been moved to a different location on the io/buildhat
dot, or if fingers have been removed from the
from bluedot import BlueDot dot altogether. Different functions can then be
dot = BlueDot() called, depending on the action:

Once this code is run, students should be able dot.when_pressed = move

to see the Raspberry Pi connection when dot.when_moved = move
they open the Blue Dot app. The app is very dot.when_released = stop
simple to use. It detects where the large blue
dot on the screen is touched and sends that Next, students can add a battery pack to supply
data to Raspberry Pi. Different functions can power to Raspberry Pi and the Build HAT. The
be called in a Python program, depending on battery pack can be connected to a minimum of
where the Blue Dot was touched; if you touch five AA batteries or a single 9V battery. Either
it near the top, the function to drive the car will need to be connected to a barrel jack so it
forward can be called. can be used to power the Build HAT. Students
Students then create a function to move the can now run their programs, then remove the
car in different directions, depending on where USB cables and HDMI cable from Raspberry Pi,
they touch the dot, using the following code: and drive their cars around the classroom!

DIFFERENTIATION
You can provide younger
students, or those who are
not accustomed to using a
text-based language, with the
Python code for this project.
Let them instead focus on the
engineering and creativity that
comes with building their own
unique remote-controlled car.
n Another example model car with two LEGO® Technic™motors, Raspberry Pi, and Build HAT

helloworld.cc 89
CONVERSATION INSIDER’S GUIDE

MAKING THE MOST

OF HELLO WORLD
Hello World offers educators support, inspiration, and a network of like-minded peers.
Alan O’Donohoe shares his suggestions for making the most of the magazine

ears before there was a national curriculum for computing, Thankfully, ten years later, the situation has improved
Y Hello World magazines, or England’s National Centre significantly. Even with increased research and resources, though,
for Computing Education, I had ambitious plans to overhaul our there can still be a sense of being alone. With scarce prospects
school’s ICT curriculum with the introduction of computer science. of meeting other computing teachers, there are few people to
As the subject team I led consisted mostly of non-specialist be inspired by, bounce ideas off, celebrate achievement with, or
teachers, it was clear I needed to be the one steering the change. share the challenges of teaching computing with. Some teachers
To do this successfully, I realised I’d need to look for examples habitually engage with online discussion forums and social media
and case studies outside our school, to explore exactly what platforms to plug this gap, but these have their own drawbacks.
strategies, resources, and programming languages other teachers It’s great news, then, that there’s another resource that teachers
were using. However, I drew a blank. I couldn’t find any local can turn to. You all know by now that Hello World magazine
schools teaching computer science. It was both daunting and offers another helping hand to computing teachers searching for
disheartening not knowing anyone else I could refer to for advice richer experiences for their students and opportunities to hone
and experience. their professional practice. In this Insider’s Guide, I offer practical
suggestions for how you can use Hello World to its full potential.

Put an article into practice

Teachers have often told me that strategies such as Predict–Run–
Investigate–Modify–Make (PRIMM) and pair programming have had
a positive impact on their teaching after first reading about them in
Hello World. Over the five years of its publication, there’s likely to have
been an article or research piece that particularly struck a chord with
you — so why not put the learnings from that article into practice?
You may choose to go this route on your own, but you could
also persuade colleagues to join you. Not only is there safety in
numbers, but there are also shared rewards and motivation that
come from teamwork. Start by choosing an article. It could be an
approach that made an impression on you, or something related
to a particular theme or topic that you and your colleagues have
been seeking to address. You could then test out some of the
author’s suggestions in the article; if they represent something
very different from your usual approach, why not pilot them first
with a teaching group that is fairly open to trying new things?
For reflection and analysis, consider conducting some pupil
voice interviews with your classes to get their opinions on the
activity, or spend some time reflecting on the activity with your
n “Hello World helps me keep up with the
current trends in our thriving computing colleagues. Finally, you could contact the author to compare
community” — Matt Moore
your experiences, seek further support, or ask questions.

90 helloworld.cc
 HELLO WORLD RESOURCES
n Back issues of Hello World can be downloaded as PDFs for annotating
and printing: helloworld.cc/issues
n A selection of Hello World articles to read in your browser: helloworld.
cc/articles
n Hello World podcast: helloworld.cc/hwpodcast
n A collection of Insider’s Guide articles: exa.foundation/press
n Subscribe to Hello World magazine: helloworld.cc/subscribe
n Suggest your article idea: helloworld.cc/writeforus
n Buy back issues of Hello World in print: helloworld.cc/buy

Strike up a conversation
Authors generally welcome correspondence from readers,
even those who don’t agree with their opinions! While it’s
difficult to predict exactly what the outcome may be, it could
lead to a productive professional correspondence. Here are
some suggestions:

nE
 stablish the best way to contact the author. Some have contact
details or clues about where to find them in their articles. If not,
you might try connecting with them on LinkedIn or other social
media. Don’t be disappointed if they don’t respond promptly; I’ve
often received replies many months after sending a message.

IF AN ARTICLE MADE AN
“ IMPRESSION ON YOU, PUT THE
LEARNINGS INTO PRACTICE
n Hello World is five years old this year!

nO  pen your message by introducing yourself, then move onto

some positive praise, describing your appreciation of the article
and points that resonated deeply with you.
n If you have already tried some of the author’s suggestions,
you could share your experiences and pupil outcomes, where
appropriate, with them.
n Try to maintain a constructive tone. Even if you disagree with the
piece, the author will be more receptive to a supportive tone than
criticism. If the article topic is a work in progress, the author may
welcome your suggestions.
n Enquire as to whether the author has changed their practice
since writing the article, and whether their thinking has
developed.
n You might take the opportunity to direct questions at the author,
asking for further examples, clarity, or advice.
n If the author has given you an idea for an article or project on
a similar theme, they’re likely to be interested in hearing more.
Describe your proposal in a very short summary and see if they’d
n “Professionally, writing for Hello World provides recognition that you know what you’re talking about and
that you share your knowledge in a number of different ways” — Neil Rickus be interested in reading an early draft or collaborating with you.

helloworld.cc 91
CONVERSATION INSIDER’S GUIDE

If you’re reviewing a whole issue, suggest pages likely to be most

relevant. If you’re reviewing a single article, you could make it
WRITE FOR US! easier by removing all other pages from the PDF and sending it as
an attachment. Print-only subscribers should remember that you
“We strongly encourage first-time writers. My job is to edit your work and can also download back issues of Hello World as PDFs, which you
fix grammar and punctuation - so don’t worry if this isn’t your strength! can then edit or print.
Remember that as an educator, you’re writing all the time. Lesson plans, Encourage your attendees to share the aspects of the article
end-of-term reports, assessment feedback ... you’re more of a writer than that appealed to them, or areas where they could not agree with
you might think! If you’re not sure where to start, you could write a lesson the author or perhaps struggled to see working in their particular
plan, or contribute to our ‘Me and my Classroom’ feature.” setting. Invite any points of issue for further discussion and
- Gemma Coleman, Editor explanation — somebody in the group might volunteer to strike
up a conversation with the author by passing on the feedback
from the group. Alternatively, you could try inviting the author of
Start a reading group the article to join your meeting via video conference to address
Take inspiration from book clubs, but rather than discussing works questions and promote discussion of the themes. This could lead
of fiction, instead invite members of your professional groups or to developing a productive friendship or professional association
curriculum teams to discuss content from issues of Hello World. with the author.
This could become a regular feature of your meetings where
attendees can be invited to contribute their own opinions. To
WRITING AN ARTICLE FOR
achieve this, firstly identify a group that you’re a part of where this
is most likely to be received well. This may be with your colleagues, “ HELLO WORLD CAN BOOST
or fellow computing teachers you’ve met at conferences or training
days. To begin, you might prescribe one specific single article or YOUR CAREER PROSPECTS
broaden it to include a whole issue. It makes sense to select an
article likely to be popular with your group, or one that addresses a
current or future area of concern. Propose an article
To familiarise attendees with the content, share a link “I wish!” is a typical response I hear when I suggest to a teacher that
to the issue for them to read in advance of the meeting. they should seriously consider writing an article for Hello World. I
often get the responses, “I don’t have enough time,” “Nobody would
read anything I write,” or, “I don’t do anything worth writing about.”
The most common concern I hear, though, is, “But I’m not a writer!”
So you’re not the only one thinking that!
Help and support are available from the editorial team. I for one
have found this to be extremely beneficial, especially as I really don’t
rate my own writing skills! Don’t forget, you’re writing about your

n “Hello World gives me loads of n “I love Hello World! I encourage my teaching
ideas that I’m excited to try out in students to sign up, and give out copies when I can.
my own classroom” — Steve Rich I refer to articles in my lectures” — Fiona Baxter

92 helloworld.cc
 This reduces the need for additional work and adds a level of credibility.
If that isn’t enough to persuade you, for contributors based
outside the UK (who usually aren’t eligible for free print copies),
Hello World will send you a complimentary print copy of the
magazine that you feature in to say thank you. Picture the
next Hello World issue arriving featuring an article written by
you. How does this make you feel? Be honest — your heart
flutters as you tear off the wrapper to go straight to your article.
You’ll be impressed to see how much smarter it looks in print than
the draft you did in Microsoft Word. You’ll then want to show others,
because you’ll be proud of your work. It generates a tremendous
sense of pride and achievement to see your own work published in
a professional capacity.
Hello World offers busy teachers a fantastic, free, and accessible
resource of shared knowledge, experience, and inspiring ideas.
When we feel most exhausted and lacking inspiration, we should
treasure those mindful moments where we can sit down with a
n “One of the things I love about Hello World is the huge number of interesting articles that represent a wide
range of voices and experiences in computing education” — Catherine Elliott cup of tea and make the most of this wonderful publication created
especially for us.
own practice, something that you’ve done in your career — so you’ll
be an expert on you. Each article starts with a proposal, the editor
replies with some suggestions, then a draft follows, and some more ALAN O’DONOHOE
refinements. I ask friends and colleagues to review parts of what Alan has over 20 years’ experience
I’ve written to help me, and I even ask non-teaching members of my teaching and leading technology, ICT, and
family for their opinions. computing in schools in England. He runs
Writing an article for Hello World can really help boost your exa.foundation, delivering professional
own professional development and career prospects. Writing development to engage digital makers,
about your own practice requires humility, analytical thinking, supporting computing teaching, and
and self-reflection. To ensure you have time to write an article, promoting the appropriate use of
make it fit in with something of interest to you. This could be an technology (@teknoteacher).
objective from your own performance management or appraisal.

YOUR HELLO WORLD PROBLEMS ANSWERED!

I no longer receive print issues. I used to, so I don’t know why! 17), it’s not meant for your pupils. However, your students will, of
In spring 2021, Hello World emailed all print subscribers and asked course, benefit from the magazine indirectly when you try some of the
them to resubscribe. If you didn’t respond, this could well be the reason different approaches with them.
why. It’s not too late — you can go now to helloworld.cc/subscribe and
subscribe again. All back issues are available as digital downloads, or I’m a teacher with 20 years of experience. Hello World has nothing to
you can buy old print issues at helloworld.cc/buy. interest me.
If you don’t feel that your teaching would benefit from fresh ideas or
I wish I had the time to read the magazine. Past issues are gathering recently published research, and you know you have nothing to learn from
dust on my desk in school! other education professionals, then you’re probably right. Would your
Take these magazines home or better still, have them delivered to your students agree with you, though? Perhaps you could use your talents to
home. Try keeping some in your car or bag when travelling. Hello World support other teachers, sharing some of your insights, experience, and
doesn’t need to be read from cover to cover in one sitting; try dipping in the solutions you have developed in a future article for Hello World. You’re
and out at your leisure. You can also read a selection of articles on Hello guaranteed to get a kick from seeing your work in print, even if you have
World’s blog or listen to the Hello World podcast on the move. already had other work published.

My students told me they didn’t think the magazine was for them. If only there were a Hello World podcast! I would definitely listen to that.
That’s right! Although there are a few articles designed to be shared Great news — there is! Search for “Hello World podcast” in a podcast player,
directly with older students (for example, the data science jobs or listen in your browser at helloworld.cc/hwpodcast. There are other
profile in issue 16 and the healthcare research profiles in issue similarly titled shows, so look for the Hello World logo and subscribe.

helloworld.cc 93
 BEBRAS PUZZLE

THE BEBRAS PUZZLE PAGE n Students taking part

in the UK Bebras
Each issue, Chris Roffey shares a computational thinking problem for students Challenge

THE PROBLEM: BREAK THE CODE

Data compression
In a prefix cipher, letters are (‘ in some of the blue boxes codes is useful in information
transformed into a code made below in such a way that the decoding, because there is DOMAIN
up of one or more digits, and digits that are then enclosed in no need to have separators
no code starts with another brackets could represent the between single codes. Data, data structures, and
code. For instance, if the letter letters of the word ‘Bebras’. Computer scientists often try representation
A is transformed into 12, the This problem was originally to find a prefix code for a given
letter B can be transformed written by the Russian Bebras text, which makes encoded
SKILLS
into 2 (because 12 does not team. Solution on page 96. messages as short as possible. Abstraction, decomposition,
start with 2). In such a case, This is a task often required for evaluation, and generalisation
the letter C can be transformed Further information archiving data, i.e. decreasing
into 11 (because both 12 The prefix cipher described its size while keeping all of its AGE
and 2 do not start with 11), in the task is an example of a information. The method of
14-18 years
but not into 21 (because 2 prefix code, in which objects obtaining an optimal prefix code
has already been used for are transformed into codes with is provided by Huffman coding.
DIFFICULTY RATING
B) or into 121 (because 12 the requirement that none of Prefix codes are widely used,
has already been used for them can start with another including in popular media Ages 14-18 hard
A). Add bracket symbols ‘) code. This property of prefix formats such as JPEG and MP3.

94 helloworld.cc
COMPUTING KEYWORD SPOTLIGHT:
DATA COMPRESSION
Defining everyday techniques used by problem-solvers

Data compression is the ever-increasing importance in in total, 10 million kB of data. that are outside the normal
process of modifying data our modern world. The amount If we can reduce the image range of human hearing.
to reduce its size. Data of space that individuals and size to 10kB, this will save Data, though, is all essentially
compression techniques are of organisations require, for us from sending out 9 million stored as bits, so there are
example for archiving data, is kB of data. We actually did further techniques of data
an obvious place where this this with many of our images, storage that can be applied
ABOUT BEBRAS
may be important. There are and thus drastically reduced to all data. These can be
also advantages of reducing the load on our servers. This divided into lossy and lossless
Bebras is organised in over 55 the size of the data stored enabled us to provide a better compression techniques. In
countries and aims to get students in data centres and in data service, while also reducing our lossy compression, data is lost
excited about computing and transmission. For example, carbon footprint. from the original data source
computational thinking. Last last November, 303,552 There are many ways of and the quality of the output
November, over 300,000 students students took part in the UK compressing data, and these may be reduced so that data
participated in the UK annual Bebras challenge fortnight depend on the type of data transfer is at an acceptable
challenge. Our archived questions with, at times, more than 7000 source involved. Video data speed. In comparison, lossless
let teachers create their own auto- concurrent users all requesting can be compressed by cutting techniques, such as Huffman
marking quizzes data and sending data from out the number of frames per coding, find ways of reducing
at any time during the UK to our servers in the second; images can be reduced the space required to store
the year. To find Netherlands. This required a in size by looking for areas all of the information from
out more and lot of bandwidth. Suppose that of the image with the same the original. The only cost
to register your an image is stored as a 100kB colour and avoiding storing involved is that the computer
school, head to SVG and that this is requested information for every pixel; and receiving the compressed data
bebras.uk. 100,000 times. This means that sound files can be compressed may have to work harder to
we would have to transmit, by losing the data for sounds rebuild the original artefact.

© Sashkin/stock.adobe.com

n Data compression techniques are important for

reducing the size of data stored in data centres

helloworld.cc 95
CONVERSATION SURVEY RESULTS

SURVEY
RESULTS BEBRAS PUZZLE SOLUTION
(PAGE 94)

hank you to everyone who took the time to Starting from the beginning, if B is encoded with
T complete our annual survey at the end of last the two characters 12, then letter E has the code 1,
year — 1025 of you gave us your thoughts about Hello which is not possible because the code for B starts
World and we’ve really enjoyed reading through your with the code of E. It is impossible for B to have a
suggestions. The results are so valuable to us: your code longer than 2 (121, 1211, 12112, etc.) because
feedback guides the direction that the magazine takes. this letter should repeat, but there are no repetitions
of these sequences. Thus the code for B is 1.
The letter E is followed by a B, thus it can only
I don't think I can get the print copy in the USA — I'd be encoded as 2, 21, or 211223332. It cannot be
be happy to pay for it! 2, because the word would then start with BEBB.
It cannot be 211223332, because the word would
At the moment, we can only send free print copies to then be BEB. Thus the code for E is 21. At this
educators in the UK. If you're outside the UK, we sell point, we know that (1) (21) (1) is the encoding for
print copies to a select number of countries for a small BEB and we need to separate 2233321. Similar
price at helloworld.cc/store. You can see whether we reasoning can be used to establish the codes for
ship to your country at helloworld.cc/shipping. the letters R, A, and S.

I would love to know what type of articles we can

write. Like do we write them and then submit, and
hope it fits your theme? It would be good if you could print a QR code as a
direct link to the podcast.
We’re always looking for new and interesting articles,
especially from first-time contributors! Please send Our survey made us realise that many readers still
us your article ideas first at helloworld.cc/writeforus, don’t know about our podcast. We’ve got 15 episodes
rather than sending a complete draft — that way, we out so far, featuring conversations with educators on a
can support you better on your writing journey. This variety of computing education topics. You can find out
year, our remaining issues are going to be based on more about the podcast (including a QR code to send
the themes of ‘Computing and Sustainability’, and you straight there!) on page 20 of this issue.
‘Networking and Systems’. Your article ideas don’t
have to be based on these themes, though — read
our fantastic Insider’s Guide on page 90 for tips and
suggestions on writing for us. I wonder if there is a possibility of moving towards
more video content?

Thank you for the suggestion. This isn’t something

I would like to read inspiring stories of teachers in that we’re likely to have time for this year, but we will
South America or other continents of the South. definitely consider it in the future. In the meantime,
do check out the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s YouTube
We would love this too! We want Hello World channel at helloworld.cc/rpfyoutube, where you
to represent as many of our readers as possible, can find videos about young people’s digital making
so please send your ideas and stories to us. projects, code-alongs, support tutorials, and more.

96 helloworld.cc
 REVIEWS BOOKS

ESSENTIAL READING
Three books that focus on cybersecurity

THE FIFTH DOMAIN

VISIONS OF EDUCATION BY Richard Clarke and Robert Knake

PUBLISHER Penguin
PRICE $18.00
A book to make you think about how you think ISBN 9780525561989
URL helloworld.cc/fifthdom
BY Tom Conlon | PUBLISHER The Word Bank |
IN FO
PRICE $19.87 | ISBN 9780993054488 | URL helloworld.cc/visions Written by two cybersecurity
experts, including the USA’s first
cyberczar, this book explores how
Lorna Gibson The book presents a collection of governments, businesses, and
academic papers written by the late citizens can confront and defend
against cyberwar.
ften, you pick up a book Tom Conlon, who can comfortably be
O with the expectation of called a computer and education
learning something new or visionary. You might find it surprising THIS IS HOW THEY TELL
improving your understanding of a that, although some of the papers
ME THE WORLD ENDS
particular topic. And while this shared are nearly 20 years old, the
book offers plenty of opportunities sentiments are just as relevant, if not
BY Nicole Perlroth
to extend your knowledge, it offers even more powerful, today. At the heart PUBLISHER Bloomsbury
something bigger, too. This book is of Conlon’s work was his passion for Publishing
PRICE $30.00
about thinking, and as such, enabling all learners (students and
ISBN 9781635576054
encourages you to think about the teachers alike) to develop and use
URL helloworld.cc/worldends
bigger picture: how do we think, effective tools for learning, including
how do we structure our knowledge presentation tools such as Written in the style of a
thriller, this non-fiction book
knowledge to improve our thinking, decision trees, and mapping tools such discusses the cyberweapons
how is this taught or modelled in as argument maps. He encourages arms race. It explores the
enormous potential for harm
schools, and is this way working? learners to use these tools to build a caused by ‘zero-day’ software
vulnerabilities in the hands of
solid foundation to their knowledge, so hostile nations or criminals.
that this knowledge can be questioned,
extended, and reasoned with, and
ultimately, support the learner in the CYBER WARS
development of critical thinking skills.
One particularly poignant quote is, BY Charles Arthur
“The model that matters in education PUBLISHER Kogan Page
is not in the computer or the expert PRICE $19.99
ISBN 9780749482008
system, but is the one that the learner
URL helloworld.cc/cyberwars
builds inside her own head.” Gems
such as this encourage the reader to
Ideal to use as real-life case
reflect on the tools they use or interact studies in class, this book
covers significant cyberattacks
with, in the classroom and beyond. on businesses, including the
This is not a book for bedtime; it is one techniques hackers use, the
consequences, and the lessons
to be digested one chapter at a time, we should learn from them.
with a long walk in the countryside to
think it over.

helloworld.cc 97
 “HELLO, WORLD!” Everything you need to know about our computing and
digital making magazine for educators

Q WHAT IS HELLO WORLD? Q WHO MAKES

Hello World is a magazine and accompanying
HELLO WORLD?
A podcast for computing and digital making The magazine and the accompanying podcast
educators. Written by educators, for educators, the A are produced by the Raspberry Pi Foundation.
magazine is designed as a platform to help you find
inspiration, share experiences, and learn from each other.

Q WHY DID WE MAKE IT?

There’s growing momentum behind the idea of
A putting computing and digital making at the heart
of modern education, and we feel there’s a need to do
more to connect with and support educators, both inside
and outside the classroom.

Q WHEN IS IT AVAILABLE?
Your 100-page magazine is available three times
A per year. Check out our podcast at helloworld.
cc/podcast, too, to get more great Hello World content
between issues.

IT’S FREE!
Hello World is free now and forever as a Creative
Commons PDF download. You can download every
issue from helloworld.cc. Visit the site to see if
you’re entitled to a free print edition, too.

98 helloworld.cc
 WANT
TO GET
INVOLVED?
There are numerous ways for you to get involved with the magazine —
here are just a handful of ideas to get you started

Give us feedback Tell us your story

Help us make your magazine better — Have you had a success (or failure) you think the
your feedback is greatly appreciated. community would benefit from hearing about?

Ask us a question Write for the magazine

Do you have a question you’d Do you have an interesting article idea? Visit
like to share? We’ll feature your thoughts helloworld.cc/writeforus to submit your idea.
and ideas.

GET IN TOUCH
Want to talk? You can reach us at:
[email protected]

FIND US ONLINE NEXT

ISSUE OUT
www.helloworld.cc JUNE 2022
@HelloWorld_Edu THEME:
fb.com/HelloWorldEduMag COMPUTING AND
SUSTAINABILITY

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 helloworld.cc

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