Top twenty computing resources

An interactive quiz for the whole class through an IWB, which can be used as a starter or plenary. Covers cyber bullying, using social media responsibly, copying information from the internet and avoiding infecting your PC with viruses.

Title: Scratch – Ultimate Space Game
Level: KS3 (Y7-Y9)
Duration: 1 – 1.5 hours (allow two lessons)
Applications: Scratch 1.4, MS Word
Description: A challenging and fun tutorial enabling students to create an exciting arcade-style Space Game using Scratch. All sprites, sounds, and background images are already pre-loaded into the Scratch (.sb) file provided, allowing students to add scripts to provide functionality. On completion there is a worksheet to assess students’ understanding of the programming techniques involved, by ‘reverse engineering’ the game. The tutorial also contains a numeracy element, as students develop an understanding of the x/y coordinates used in Scratch. Please leave positive feedback if you enjoyed using this resource.

A set of starters that can be used with any computing class. Each image is in alphabetical order.

20 computing plenaries for KS3.

Wonderful resource that can save a great deal of time!

This is a topic based approach to Computing at KS3 that provides a balanced and fun curriculum incorporating the DfE 2014 KS3 curriculum outline for Computing.

We have collated the new NC computing objectives and created skills maps for each year group with self assessment sheets.

Worksheets and active games for a fantastic full session.

A full and interesting lesson. Worksheets, active learning games, extension tasks, this resource has it all!

Designed for use with KS3 groups.

It covers all the key words related to GCSE Computer Science course. It can be used as a quick revision guide. Mainly useful for KS4 groups but can be used in KS3 as well .

Homework strategies for KS3 computing.

A short section of strategies for KS3 computing.

It is recommended to buy this resources as part of the bundle
KS3 computing - without the planning.

A short section of strategies for GCSE computing, designed for OCR GCSE (9-1) J276

It is recommended to buy this resources as part of the bundle GCSE Computer Science for OCR (9-1) J276 lessons without the planning.

This lesson teachers pupils about how bitmap images are created and processed and includes topics such as grid size, colour depth and compression techniques.

The pupils practice creating simple bit map images and then find an image and practice saving the files in different formats to see the difference between lossy and lossless compression.

Suitable for GCSE Computer Science classes and KS3 Computing and ICT classes.

For more resources visit www.nicholawilkin.com

Introduction to computer science, historical development and key term breakdown. KS3

A fun interactive PowerPoint based quiz which can be used by the whole class or by individual pupils as either a starter or a plenary.

There are 20 questions (shown below) about the inside workings of a computer, each with 4 possible answers. The pupils pick the answer and are immediately told if they are correct or wrong and then the quiz moves onto the next question. At the end of the quiz they are told how many they got correct.

This quiz includes a lifeline where the pupils can remove one incorrect answer but this lifeline can only be used once in the game.

Ideal to use as a progress check where the quiz can be given at the start of the unit, then again at the end of the unit to see the difference in score.

PLEASE NOTE: This quiz uses VB Macros which will need to be enabled for the quiz to work correctly. Please only purchase this quiz if you are sure your school will allow macros to be enabled.

Questions included:

1) What is the main circuit board that connects all of the computer’s components together?
2) Which part of the computer works as the “brain”, processing all information?
3) What stores information that the computer reads from and writes to, but is erased once the computer is turned off?
4) What provides electrical power to the computer?
5) What uses laser light or electromagnetic waves to read from or write to?
6) What is the name for the places on the outside of the computer case where you plug in hardware?
7) What is the correct name for the circuit boards that are plugged into the motherboard and allow the ports to work?
8) What is read as either a 1 or a 0 by the computer?
9) What is meant by volatile memory?
10) What type of memory would magnetic and optical disks have?
11) Which is the fastest kind of memory for the CPU to access?
12) What is virtual memory?
13) How does data travel between the processor and the computer's RAM?
14) What is 'cache'?
15) What does CPU stand for?
16) Out of what material are computer chips made?
17) What is a CPU’s clock speed?
18) What is a problem that every CPU manufacturer needs to overcome?
19) What are the main components of the CPU?
20) In which order is the CPU cycle?

For more resources visit www.nicholawilkin.com

Ideally printed on A3, students write about each part of the computer shown in the boxes and label the parts they can see.

Space for teacher feedback and a gap task/extension/homework task to find one more part of the computer and define/label it.

I've used this with year 7, but equally would suit up to GCSE and as low as year 5/6. Enjoy!

A complete set of labels, display title and explanations that can be used to make an interactive wall display to show the internal components of a desktop computer. Apart from the labels you will need an old computer that can be taken to pieces and mounted on a classroom wall which makes an interesting activity for a group of techie students. The display explanations that are light green in the image have had self adhesive velcro tape stuck to the reverse. These are then stuck onto the display in the appropriate locations. Why on velcro? I give the labels out to students on the way into the classroom and they have to work out where their label has to be stuck. This is a simple way of getting students to associate the explanations and components.

A presentation to help pupils name the different keys on a keyboard.

An interactive lesson - including teacher PPT and all additional resources required.

This lesson gives an overview of all hardware components including;
Motherboard, CPU, Heat Sink Fan, RAM, Hard Disk and Graphics card.

It has been used with KS3 and KS4 (to introduce hardware/systems architecture units).

Compares the hardware components to the human body for relatable comparison (has been very effective in improving remembering function of hardware).

I have used these with yr 7, 8 and 9 and they work well together as a SOW or as individual lessons. lesson: 1. Hardware 2. Operating systems 3. Binary 4. Little man computer 5. Networks

Take all the misery out of creating engaging starters with these 7 word searches on key terms. There is one for each half term of lessons. They are printable, and cover terms such as: Logic, Algorithm, Assembly, Buffering, Boolean, Bus, Decryption, Debugging, Database, Hyperlink. Suitable for key stages 3 and 4, possibly 2.

A detailed model of computer architecture (CPU, RAM, input/output, buses) showing how an assembly language program is stored in RAM and how the fetch decode execute cycle works to run the program. Includes macros and VBA code written originally by Brian Pizzey.