Inspirational Technology for kids (of all ages) Adrian Oldknow adrian@ccite.org 6th Feb 2018

Good evening. I am very grateful to the IET and IMechE for inviting

me along this evening. It’s just a year since I met Hamish

McNaughton, David James and John Halliday in our local Wilke’s

Head pub to plan tonight’s talk. Of course much has changed in

that time, so maybe a better title now would be `Confessions of a

Volunteer Ambassador’. I just wonder if any of you are old enough

to remember James Burke and his Connections programmes from

1978? That’s really what my life has been all about: Only Connect!

I’ve brought along a few of my diaries to help steer my path through this talk. Going back to Saturday 3rd

December 2016 I find that is when my great friend Phil Moffitt, IET Schools Liaison Officer for Medway and

Kent, took me along as his partner to the SE IMechE Christmas lunch in Tunbridge Wells! Phil gave a

presentation on the iSTEM+ approach, of which more later, and we ran a hands-on workshop using a variety

of kit with the BBC micro:bit. Another of the guests at the meeting was last year’s IET President, Prof Jeremy

Watson, who lives in Worthing. On Tuesday 13th December I was the warm act before Christmas lunch with

our local retirees’ `Beta Plus Computer Club’ where I talked introduced some of the current commercial

robotic toys: Edison, Sphero & Ollie, OhBot and Meccanoid.

I also went on to talk a bit about the sorts of technology such as

Raspberry Pi, Crumble and BBC micro:bit which are being used in the

Primary and Secondary schools I am working in. We also did some

programming using `Make Code’ blocks. So that is the background to

how I come to be with you here in Crawley tonight. This is the latest gig

in what has been a very frenetic and rewarding few weeks.

So I thought I’d begin with a report on what I’m up to at the moment. Then I’ll take a look back to what got

me into all this. Then take a look forward to where it might all be heading. And from there, to have a

discussion about how we can all make a contribution to helping schools better prepare their students for a

very exciting technological future.

On 15th January I was at a workshop hosted by the Worshipful

Company of Information Technologists (where I am a Liveryman)

for the parliamentary Digital Policy Alliance (DPA). One of the

planks of Tony Blair’s `Education, Education, Education’ programme

was an `Educational Super Highway’, which went on to become the

`National Grid for Learning’. Many of the regional `Grids for

Learning’ have struggled on and are still providing connections and

services to half the schools in the country. The commercial

operators like BT, EasyNet, EE and Virgin are seeing value in having

direct connections in the educational community and the

Government is now considering investing in the newly renamed

National Educational Network (NEN) as an effective means to get

careers advice and other information into schools. I am now

working on ways to use it to help support STEM teachers in primary

and secondary schools do more to inspire their students.

The DPA secured a partnership deal in Plymouth last year to develop a digital/STEM/careers/21stC skills

centre to serve schools in and around the city, with an emphasis on cyber security. I am now facilitating

similar agreements in Portsmouth, Reading and the East of England. As part of this work I am now involved

with an educational initiative supporting the new Cisco UK `Smarter Rural and Coastal Towns’ development.

On 23rd January, I was at the University of Chichester, my

former employer, discussing the development of a centre to

serve schools in and around Chichester and Bognor – now the

home of Roll-Royce cars! The University has secured a large

investment from the Coast to Capital LEP to develop a STEM

Park at the Bognor campus, opposite Butlins. This involves an

ambitious programme of degree-apprenticeships for local

employers, starting with Software Engineering.

Along with many other potential providers, the University of Chichester has just had their application to

provide apprentice-degrees for non-Levy paying SMEs turned down.

On 24th January I made my annual pilgrimage to the BETT 2018 show at Excel, London. This was opened by

the Skills Minister, Ann Milton, and followed by a keynote on changing education by Anthony Salcito,

Microsoft’s global VP for education. I was there to meet the new CEO of the Micro:bit Educational

Foundation (MEF), Gareth Stockdale, seconded from the BBC. The Foundation has ARM, BBC, IET, Microsoft

and Nominet among its partners. I am one of the first bunch of Micro:bit Ambassadors just appointed, and

was there to present ideas about projects to get micro:bits used to stimulate STEM education in Primary and

Secondary schools. This also involved meeting the DfE’s EdTech & Digital Skills Policy team on their stand.

One of the projects we are discussing is code-named ROM: Robotics On Micro:bits. The idea is that every

primary school should teach students to write code for simple sensing and control applications on the

micro:bit using the powerful free Microsoft `MakeCode’ block editor. Then small groups of students would

create their own robotics projects, and present them to their teachers, parents and peers. That’s called

PROM: Primary Robotics On Micro:bits. Key Stage 3 (11-14) students in Secondary schools could then build

on the ideas with more sophistication through EPROM: `Extended Projects for Robotics On Micro:bits’.

We are planning a pilot project of 1000 UK schools as part of the Government’s `2018 Year of Engineering’,

supported by prestigious partners, including Rotary UK & Ireland. We reckon £1k would equip any primary

school with the necessary materials, micro:bits, electronics and other resources. So £20m would equip

every primary school in the UK. We are also discussing making this a global STEM education project,

supported by multinational partners including Rotary International.

At BETT 2017, Microsoft had a very big stand promoting

their new initiative called `Hacking STEM’. This was built

around a free plug-in for Excel, called Project Cordoba, to

interface it with Arduino micro-controllers. Just before

Christmas I managed to get it to work with micro:bits

using both serial and radio connections for data-logging

and control.

So I also met with Cordoba’s chief developer from

Microsoft US, David Myka – where we also discussed

using micro:bits with other Windows Applications, such as Scratch, Small Basic, GeoGebra and Logger Pro –

and encouraging GCSE/A-level/BTech students to develop their own educational apps with micro:bits using

professional tools such as Azure. This is an extension of our current Student Digital Ambassador

programme, which is built on the success of our Erasmus+ `Kids Inspiring Kids in STEM’ project in Finland,

Hungary, Spain and UK, directed by ex-BT CCITE colleague, Dr. Tony Houghton.

The Department for Education hosts Ministers of Education from around

the world at the Education World Forum. This was addressed on

January 22nd by Damian Hinds, the new Secretary of State for Education

and MP for East Hampshire. “… preparing students for success in the

fourth industrial revolution, can hardly be more apt or more timely. If

you think about all the changes going on all over the world, whether

that’s artificial intelligence, advanced robotics, face recognition, voice

computing, autonomous vehicles – any one of these things on their own

has the power to be revolutionary. Taken together, they certainly do

constitute something of the sort of magnitude to turn a revolution.”

On January 26th I was at the `Shaping Portsmouth 2018’ conference with

colleagues from Airbus Defence & Space. The final address was a tour-de-force

from the Council Leader, Donna Jones, on the future developments envisaged in

and around Portsmouth, with an emphasis on `Inspiring the Next Generation’.

I began working in the area in 2014 with Ian Potter, Head of Bay

House School, Gosport. Ian had been engaged by the Hampshire

14-19 Careers Service to lead a project to improve the educational

attainment of school-leavers through inspirational STEM activities.

Part of this was to prepare a bid to the Solent Local Enterprise

Partnership for a STEM Centre on the HMS Daedalus Enterprise

Zone to support local schools. The LEP had already funded the

development of the state-of-the-art CEMAST centre there by

Fareham College (Centre of Excellence in Engineering, Manufacturing and Advanced Skills Training).

I had already worked with Derek Peaple, Head of Park House School, to develop what we call an `iSTEM+

cluster’ of schools in Newbury to embed integrated STEM learning into the Curriculum. Derek and I were

members of the development group established by the British Interplanetary Society for a cross-curricular

`Space, Science & Technology A-level’ with DfE funding. Ian called together a group of schools, academies

and colleges in Gosport, who took the decision to launch their own `Gosport iSTEM+ cluster’ in May 2014.

There is an IET.TV video on the iSTEM+ approach and a

YouTube presentation. In July 2015 I made contact with the

Gosport MP, Caroline Dinenage, who was then Equalities

Minister in Nicky Morgan’s DfE. We met in September

when she agreed to promote the iSTEM+ approach within

the Government. Gomer Junior School developed its own

gSTEM curriculum in which every class spends one morning

a week on practical problem-solving cross-curricular STEM

projects around a variety of inspiring themes. This has had

a significant impact on the quality of learning in the school,

as well as learners’ resilience and independence.

There is a video of Caroline seeing gSTEM in action made by GCSE visual arts students from Bay House.

At the core of the approach is the Skilful

School which we have chosen to represent by

the 3D solid called a `Cuboctahedron’. You can

make this by cutting out and gluing together

the net, or by 3D printing the shape with

software such as TinkerCAD. Towards the end

of 2016 the schools in the Gosport cluster

decided to form their own Gosport & Fareham

Multi-Academy Trust (GFM).

Roy Haworth, Engineering Integration

Manager for Airbus Defence & Space, is now

the C&EC Enterprise Adviser for the Trust, and

I am its STEM Consultant. Roy is pictured giving the

Royal Aeronautical Society’s lecture `The Next Space

Race’ at CEMAST on 24th January.

In January 2017, I was fortunate enough to secure

sponsorship from the Micro:bit Education

Foundation to provide Gomer Junior with 60

micro:bits.

Caroline timed a press release to coincide with BETT 2017:

“The iSTEM+ approach is an initiative to enable schools to respond to UK employers' needs

by equipping learners with STEM, digital and employability skills. It has been developed by a

team from the Cambridge Centre for Innovation in Technological Education led by Professor

Adrian Oldknow. The first iSTEM+ local cluster was established in a group of schools,

academies and colleges in the Gosport constituency in May 2015. The lead schools are Bay

House School and 6th Form and Gomer Junior School. These schools are two of the founding schools of the

new Gosport & Fareham Multi Academy Trust which opens this year. Gomer Junior School, one of the

schools in the Gosport & Fareham Multi Academy Trust, has developed its own 'gSTEM' Key Stage 2 version

of the iSTEM+ approach. School leaders will be showcasing this model at the UK's leading tech education

roadshow, BETT 2017, on 25th January at 17.10 in the STEAM village. Commenting on the announcement,

Caroline said: "It is vital that we equip our young people with STEM skills. This boosts aspiration and

broadens horizons for pupils leaving school, as well as responding to the tech skills-gap in our economy. I am

proud to have schools innovating on the STEM agenda in my constituency. This support from the Micro:bit

education foundation will help Gosport schools continue to inspire their pupils through an exciting STEM

curriculum."

In March 2017 Gomer Junior took part in the Bloodhound SCC `Race For

The Line’ model rocket car competition. Five of its teams qualified for

the Regional Finals which took place at RAF Odiham, home of the

Chinook helicopters. The cars carry micro:bits for data-logging.

Two of Gomer Junior’s Year 5 teams qualified for the

National Finals at the Santa Pod raceway in June.

Unfortunately due to transport and weather issues, they

weren’t able to get there. But some swift phone calls

redirected them to the Festival of Speed at Goodwood

instead. So they, and their teacher, Karen Digby, spent

the day teaching members of the public how to design,

build and race their own model rocket cars.

Two of the Park House School’s Year 10 Student Digital

Ambassador teams did take part in the finals. One pair was

asked to run the `Race For The Line’ workshop for Computing

teachers at the Computing At School conference in Reading in

July. Adam and Ben are shown here with the winning

teachers. Ray Buckland and I are STEM Ambassadors through

the Winchester Science Centre. Aulden Dunipace was the

Director of Education for Bloodhound SSC, and we also have a

couple of Army rocketeers.

This year the `Race for the Line’ competition is only open to schools entering their whole Y7 intake. Nearly

500 schools will be competing with over 10,000 students. The schools have been provided with STEM

learning materials for use in Science, D&T, Computing and Maths lessons alongside the practical project. Bay

House and Brune Park have entered, and their race day will be organised by the Royal Navy in Portsmouth

Dockyard on March 6th. The project for 2018/9 will be for schools entering all Y8 classes for a lighter-than-air

drone project sponsored by Airlander. For 2019/20 it will be on robotic handling of materials for Y9 classes

sponsored by the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy. So the students will be learning about TOKAMAKs.

Similar projects are under development for Primary Schools. The first celebrates 100 years of the RAF and

involves designing gliders inspired by the Tornado Eurofighter. These are among the first large scale projects

designed to embed STEM across the KS2/3 curriculum to enhance teaching and learning for all students.

Through Roy, and the Solent LEP’s Enterprise Coordinator, Jade Fuller, the GFM has recently been awarded a

prestigious Enthuse Partnership award by STEM Learning. So on Thursday I took Gomer’s Head, Georgina

Mulhall, out to lunch to celebrate. This involves working with STEM Learning and Tomorrow’s Engineers

colleagues. Ian, Georgina and I are meeting with BAE Systems on Friday to discuss

support for the iSTEM+ Innovation Hub at Bay House. The GFM already has a Lego

Innovation Studio. Airbus is sponsoring IET Faraday Challenge events in the Solent,

and Bay House is hosting one of these this term. This will bring in some of the

Fareham Schools including Cams Hill and Henry Cort. In October, I met the Fareham

MP, Suella Fernandes who was then PPS to Treasury Ministers. She is very keen to

see an iSTEM+ Hub established in Fareham. Roy and I are now leading discussions in

Portsmouth with the City Council, University, UTC and others about forming a DPA

digital/STEM/careers/21stC skills centre to support Portsmouth schools.

In November, Pete Marshman launched the Thames Valley/Reading

iSTEM+ Hub at Leighton Park School. He assembled a star-studded

cast of inspirational speakers including Clare Riley from Microsoft,

John Abel from Oracle, Rohini Beavon from Pfizer, Tom Varley from

Enabling Enterprise, Aulden Dunipace from the Learning

Partnership, Alex Warner from Activate Learning and Eme Dean-

Lewis from Cisco. John Abel is leading a major big-data project for

schools sponsored by Oracle in connection with the upcoming runs of the Bloodhound Super-Sonic Car in

South Africa as it prepares for its 1000mph world land speed record. This will stream live data from sensors

on the car, together with 3D video, geographical and environmental data. I have been a Bloodhound SSC

Education Ambassador since the outset and met John with Richard Noble at our briefing in Avonmouth on

3rd September as Bloodhound was being prepared for its first public outing at Newquay.

Another of the speakers at the launch was Annie Beglin, who is one the national network of industry

sponsored Teacher Coordinators for the Royal Academy of Engineering’s

`Connecting STEM Teachers’ initiative. She showed some of the very high quality

project resources for STEM which the Academy is developing, such as one on

Drones. We discussed their intention to develop more resources to support

embedded STEM at Key Stage 2. Shortly afterwards I was asked by one of the CAT

primary schools in Portsmouth, Flying Bull, to help them resource some work on

drones. So Annie kindly put me in touch with the RAEng’s Education Programme

Manager, Scott Atkinson. Scott had been a Teacher Coordinator himself while he

ran the DT department at Midhurst Rother Academy in West Sussex. He joined the

RAEng full-time in May. We met for lunch at IET HQ in Savoy Place on December

14th. It turned out we already had one connection in common.

The RAEng had commissioned a report called `Thinking Like An Engineer’ from the Centre for Real-world

Learning at the University of Winchester, led by Bill Lucas. Rhys Morgan, Director of Education and

Engineering at the RAEng invited me to its launch in May 2014 to meet Bill. Soon afterwards, the RAEng

funded a research project to put the report’s findings into practice in groups of schools around Winchester

and Manchester. I joined the Winchester group which included schools and colleges in East Hampshire,

Portsmouth, Reading and West Sussex. The project’s report `Learning To Be An Engineer’ was launched on

March 30th 2017. “The report finds that by creating a culture in which engineering habits of mind flourish,

learners across all subjects demonstrated improved literacy, numeracy and communication skills, deemed

vital for an engineering career. By equipping teachers with ways to better engage children as engineers, the

methods outlined in `Learning to be an Engineer’ could help inspire more students into the profession and

address the well-documented shortage of professional engineers faced by the UK.

My main role across the project was to be the techie guy to provide input on promising new technological

developments, such as Raspberry Pi, Crumble and the BBC micro:bit, and to support teachers using them in

the classroom. The Manchester group took this fully on board and created their own primary school project

called `Tinker, Tailor, Robot, Pi’. In Gosport in Autumn 2015, Georgina raised the funding for every teacher

and pupil at Gomer Junior to be equipped with a Crumble micro-controller, and I provided professional

development for all the teachers to be able to program Crumbles for simple control applications.

In 2015, Rhys hosted a workshop at the Royal Academy of Engineering for members of the Computing At

School Group CAS and the Design & Technology Association DATA to produce guidance on `Applying

Computing in D&T at KS2 and KS3’ to which I contributed.

On 5th May 2017 Rhys hosted a workshop for school

leaders to consider management issues in embedding

Engineering Habits of Mind (EHoMS) into the

curriculum. That’s where Scott and Georgina met.

Here is Georgina’s visual account of Gomer Junior’s

gSTEM Journey. This is adapted from the presentation

which Karen Digby and Sharon Toone gave at BETT

2017 that January when gSTEM was showcased in the

STEAM Village.

On 29th January I drove up to Wokingham

for a workshop Annie had set up at

Evendons Primary School. The school is a

new Free school, which had an

Outstanding Ofsted inspection report in

the Summer. A new STEM block has just

been completed and will be in

commission before the end of the month. The Head, Patrick Pritchett, is a former military vehicle mechanic!

Annie has recruited a group of 25 Wokingham STEM teachers from both primary and secondary schools. She

had invited me along to head up a workshop on micro:bits. The school provided a set of wireless

Chromebooks, and Annie bought along enough micro:bits from her own school for every teacher to have

one. A decided to try to put across some of the things I have recently been learning myself about `Event-

driven computing’.

We started with a `thought experiment’ about the variety of noises we might hear around the house, and

what actions they might trigger. “What do you do when you hear the doorbell?”, “What do you do when the

phone rings?”, “What do you do when the cooker’s buzzer sounds?”… These are all actions triggered by a

particular human sensor – the ear. We could put these into a standard sort of code such as “On hearing

doorbell, shout for someone to open the door”, “On hearing phone ring, pick up phone and answer it”, “On

hearing cooker buzzer, switch off oven”…

We then discussed some of the sensor systems on modern cars which perform functions automatically, like

turning on the lights, wiping the windscreen, checking your seatbelt, warning when the fuel tank is low,

making sounds as you reverse, adjusting the temperature... We then had a quick look at the back of the

micro:bit to locate some of its on-board sensors, such as light, temperature, accelerometers and

magnetometers. Then some of the key blocks in the `MakeCode’ editor such as Basic, Input, Music, Loops,

Logic, Variables, Math, Functions. My challenge was to create some simple smart devices for their bikes.

I showed a few simple templates to give some clues using the micro:bit emulator.

Tomorrow I am back with the Technical Studies Group of our local retirees’ `Beta Plus Computer Club’ near

Chichester where we will be working at extending these templates.

On the drive home, Scott and I discussed a whole range of collaborative work involving the Royal Academy of

Engineering, the Micro:bit Education Foundation and STEM teachers’ professional associations, such as the

Design & Technology Association, where I am also an Ambassador. My Bio there gives some of the

background to how I come to be doing what I’m doing, and talking to you about it tonight.

“Adrian studied mathematics at Oxford and Computer Science at Brunel Universities. He worked in

secondary schools, FE colleges and HE between 1967 and 1996, when he retired as Emeritus Professor of

STEM Education at the University of Chichester. Between 1996 and 2010 he worked as a freelance

consultant. He advised Tech companies including Casio, HP, Intel, Promethean, RM, SMART and TI, as well as

organisations such as Becta, DfE, Ofqual, QCA, SSAT, TTA and the World Bank. He plays an active part in

professional organisations including the ASE, ATM, BCS, BIS, CAS, DATA, IET, IMA, IoP, MA, RSS and WCIT. His

research interests are in the fields of computer graphics and pure geometry. He was part of the research

team for the Royal Academy of Engineering’s `Thinking like an Engineer’ project which enabled him to

develop his passion for playing with gadgets like Arduino, Crumble, micro:bits and Raspberry Pi. As well as a

being a DATA Ambassador, Adrian works in schools as a Bloodhound Ambassador, STEM Ambassador,

Micro:bit Ambassador and IET volunteer. He founded the Cambridge Centre for Innovation in Technological

Education https://ccite.org which has been the incubator for the iSTEM+ approach, Skilful Schools, Student

Digital Ambassadors and iSTEM+ local networks and Innovation Hubs https://tv.theiet.org/?videoid=10786.

What it doesn’t say is that I went up to Oxford with an Open Scholarship in Maths and came down with a 3rd,

with no idea about possible careers! As a kid I played with my father’s wind-up HMV portable gramophone,

a Meccano set 8, Dinky toy cars, Triang 00 electric trains and maintained my E F Russ lightweight racing bike.

While I did Maths and Physics to S-level, no-one ever suggested engineering as a career. First degrees in

Computing didn’t exist It wasn’t until I had a sabbatical at the Computer Aided Design centre (CADC) in

1981 that I actually did any work in industry. I wrote papers on bi-arc splines for CADCAM, on set operations

on polygons for 2D computer graphics and on volume modelling for 3D computer graphics. I was even

offered a job with Malcolm Sabin at Finite-Element Graphics Systems (FEGS), but chose to return to the

security of my HE post (and pension). That was during the period when Acorn won the contract for the BBC

micro, and I worked with members of the team including David Johnson-Davis of Acornsoft.

I had already become an overnight expert on micro-electronics in education – “In the land of the blind, the

one-eyed man is king!” I ran a course for 50 Heads and Deputies in the South from Kent to Dorset and the

IoW to Oxfordshire in 1978/9 on the `Educational Implications of Micro-electronics’ where we learned about

the Mighty Micro (Chris Evans) and were informed by experts from BBC, BT, GEC, IBM, Mullard, Schools

Council, SPRU etc. At the end of the course in March 1979 we had a discussion with a senior official in the

Department for Education who told us that Shirley Williams was about to announce a Microelectronics

Education Programme (MEP) in which we would be at the

cutting edge! In May 1979 Margaret Thatcher became Prime

Minister and the MEP was axed! But Sir Keith Joseph, then

Industry Secretary, persuaded her to take positive

intervention to encourage growth in the UK microelectronics

sector and to do a U-turn! So, by December 1979 the MEP

had been relaunched with a longer time span and larger

budget. When Sir Keith became Secretary of State for

Education he set up an Advisory Board for the MEP and

invited me to join. I’m the one with the beard!

Ken Baker had been appointed the first Minister for IT in the Department for Industry. Research Machines,

set up by Mike Fischer and Mike O’Regan in Oxford, was already supplying their 380Z computers to schools

in authorities such as ILEA and Birmingham. Acorn Computers had been established in Cambridge by

Hermann Hauser and Chris Currie, alongside Clive Sinclair’s Sinclair Research. In 1982 the BBC launched its

`Computer Programme’ based on the BBC Micro and aimed at (better off) families. Ken Baker was

responsible for the `Computers In Schools’ initiative which gave secondary schools half the cost of buying a

BBC Model B, an RM 380Z or a Sinclair ZX-Spectrum computer. He commissioned the National Council for

Educational Technology (NCET) to produce the `Input Pack’ to help schools introduce computers across the

curriculum.

I had written some software called `Glass’ based on a program which the

CADC wrote for glass designers at Dartington. The original version used

graphics terminals and light-pens, but mine just required the user to enter

(x,y) coordinates for the control points for the cubic natural splines. So it

was a DT application which made kids use maths skills to control the

shape. Needless to say I was pretty chuffed when it got included in the

Input Pack.

I was then approached by Tony Hill of Heinemann who asked if it could be developed as a CADCAM

application by Tony Clements for Fiveways Software. They used it drive a hot-wire cutter to shape a cylinder

of expanded polystyrene – a primitive lathe. Unfortunately arsenic was released into the air in the process,

so the apparatus had to be housed in a fume cupboard. It was not a commercial success!

The other major milestone of the period was the Government’s Technical & Vocational Educational Initiative

(TVEI) of 1982 from Lord Young, then Chairman of the Manpower Services Commission (MSC) in Norman

Tebbit’s Department of Employment. Lord Young is still actively involved in education through the Careers &

Enterprise Company (C&EC), and Lord Baker through his Baker-Dearing Educational Trust (BDET) and the

University Technical Colleges (UTC).

The BBC has continued its engagement with education following the `Micro Programme’ of the 80s. It set up

its `BBC Bitesize’ site initially with GCSE revision guides in many subjects. This has been massively expanded

at all levels and now includes up to date internet security advice as well, under the `OWN IT’ brand. In 2005

the BBC announced its new `Digital Curriculum’ under the brand `BBC Jam’. I was part of the group which

won the contract for the Key Stage 3 Maths curriculum. Sadly we had not long got underway when the

whole project was axed in 2007 after several UK publishers threatened legal action.

In Autumn 2009 I was invited by the British Education

& Communication Technology Agency (Becta) to join

its `Fit For The Future’ programme and to be a

member of its `Future Skills’ think-tank. After the

2010 election, Becta was scrapped, as was the

`Building Schools for the Future’ programme.

Effectively STEM and digital skills in schools then went

on the back-burner for 5 years. I was on the Council

of the Mathematical Association MA at that time, and

we decided to form a working group with the

Association of School & College Leaders ASCL,

Association for Science Education ASE, the

Association of Teachers of Mathematics ATM,

Computing at School CAS, the Design & Technology Association DATA, the National Society for Education in

Art & Design NSEAD and the Youth Sports Trust YST to create our own grass-roots approach for schools to

respond to the STEM and Digital Skills crisis.

We networked widely and wildly to be able to find out what was

happening on the ground to bring together sustainable examples

of best practice as well as information on upcoming

developments. That is how I first met Howard Baker, BBC’s

Innovations Commissioner in 2010 at BBC White City. He told me

about their plans for a new programme `Make IT Digital’

influenced by the success of the BBC micro in the 1980s

accompanied by a new, cheap and user-friendly programmable

device. The service was launched in 2015.

“Nicknamed the ‘Micro Bit’ as a working title, the BBC has

partnered with over 25 organisations to create a small

programmable hardware device for every year 7 child (age 11-12)

in the UK. Building on the legacy of the BBC Micro, the Micro Bit

aims to help transform a new generation from passive consumers

of technology to creators and innovators in the digital world. The Micro Bit helps younger children to start

learning basic coding and programming, acting as a springboard for further learning and more advanced

products like Arduino, Galileo, Kano and Raspberry Pi. It is still in development and will become available

from autumn 2015, with 1 million devices given away freely, including to each child in year 7 across the UK.

More information is available here.”

One of the pilot schools where the micro:bit was trialled was Park House School in Newbury which is the

lead school in the Newbury iSTEM+ Hub. At the time there was little documentation about many of the

features of the micro:bit or how to access them. The main editing tool was the on-line `Microsoft Touch

Developer’ editor which had originally been created to support App development for Windows 8 phones.

This did not then support many of the micro:bits’s functions such as sensors and I/O pins. So the level of

coding was pretty much restricted to the 5x5 LED display for text, numbers and graphics, and the push

buttons A and B. I have to admit I was not greatly impressed by what I saw, and formed the incorrect

assumption that the micro:bit would not have anything resembling the impact of its BBC micro predecessor.

The aim was to get a micro:bit in the hands of every 11-year old pupil in state education by the end of

summer term 2016. But there were inevitable delays due to redesign for safety, as well as logistics. In the

event, many secondary schools received boxes of micro:bits with just a week or two left of the summer

term. So, many schools did not pass on the micro:bits to their students. They had not received any advice or

resources on how they might be used to support teaching and learning in the STEM subjects. Consequently

many of the schools I work with in Kent, Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire still have stocks of micro:bits in

cupboards which just get used for the odd Computing lesson.

Immediately after the educational units were finally shipped, the product came on general sale for c£15

including batteries, VAT and delivery. Microsoft also released the new `Programming eXperience Toolkit’

PXT editor for the micro:bit, with frequent updates revealing blocks of code for more advanced functions

such as Input, I/O pins and Radio. As these came online I started learning a lot more about the potential of

the micro:bit as a catalyst for technology-enhanced teaching, learning and doing in the STEM subjects of

Science, Computing, DT and Maths – and became an enthusiastic convert. I wrote a series of `First Steps’

guides which are on the BBC Micro:bit group’s pages at STEM Learning. The IET has been a partner in the

Micro:bit project since the beginning, and there are some great video case studies such as of Abbie Hutton,

an engineer in the Airbus Defence and Space’s ExoMars

Rover project team.

So that more or less takes us back to where I began the talk. Here is the proposed menu to use the micro:bit

as a catalyst for promoting cross-curricular STEM learning, teaching and doing at KS2/3/4. So far I have

illustrated some examples from the ROM section. There is also an exciting new resource just published by

two lady authors from Hampshire, Elbrie de Kock and Tracy Gardner: `micro:bit In Wonderland’. This will be

followed by Looking-glass and Jabberwocky resources which will cover PROM and EPROM across KS2/3.

In order to develop control applications it is helpful to use some of the

excellent ready-packaged kits and components now available from

suppliers such as Kitronik.

Using Bluetooth, the micro:bit can

be paired with mobile devices such

as tablets and smart-phones to

provide remote control. The `Blog’

contains many helpful examples of

ideas and techniques for developing

control and robotics applications for

micro:bits. Suppliers, such as

Kitronik, also develop their own

blocks for devices not included in

`MakeCode’ such as NeoPixel arrays.

There is already a range of tools for data-logging, such as

Martin Woolley’s excellent `Bitty data-logger’ for Android

and Apple. My own `First Steps with Micro:bits for data-

logging and modelling’ collects several of these ideas

together. More recently I have been exploring how to

exchange data between micro:bits and Windows Excel using

a serial cable. Microsoft’s `Garage Project’ has developed a

number of interesting ideas to support STEM education.

One of these is a free plug-in for Excel called Project

Cordoba.

I mentioned earlier that Microsoft introduced its `Hacking STEM’ project at BETT 2016 using Arduinos. Since

then it has been updated to support the micro:bit.

`First steps in using micro:bits with PCs’ explains how to connect a single micro:bit for data-logging and

control via a serial cable. Also how to connect a second micro:bit to the first using Radio commands

(Bluetooth Low Energy BLE) for wireless telemetry.

These are examples of what we have code-named MIDAS: Micro:bits In Data-Analysis for Science. So

between ROM (Robotics On Micro:bits) and MIDAS we can cover Computing/DT at KS2/3 and Science/Maths

at KS3/4. Excel is not the only Windows application which can work with data gathered from micro:bits

using internal or external sensors. Once the data is in Excel, it can be copied and pasted into other modelling

software such as GeoGebra or Logger Pro.

In the Computing Programme of Study at KS1/2/3 students are expected to create programs in two

languages. The most common language for Primary Schools is MIT’s Scratch which can be run through a

browser or via an offline editor. Clive Seager of Revolution Education (PicAxe) has developed a free App to

connect micro:bits wirelessly with Scratch, called `S2Bot’. This is also documented in the First steps in using

micro:bits with PCs guide.

Secondary schools vary widely in the text-based language they choose which can include JavaScript, Python

and C++. Quite a few Hampshire schools have chosen Microsoft’s free `Small Basic’. The latest version

includes support for the Kinect sensor bar. So we are currently discussing with Microsoft developers in the

US whether it can be modified to support input from, and output to, micro:bits. There is already a free

version of Basic, `Fuze Basic’ which supports micro:bits.

Of course there is plenty of scope for 3rd party developers to produce Apps for Windows and/or mobile

devices to extend the ways in which micro:bits can be used by learners and teachers inside and outside

schools – preferably free ones. Maybe some of you here tonight could take up that challenge?

Schools and colleges catering for learners 14-19 may well have students interested in careers as software

developers and who are taking courses such as GCSE, A-level and BTech (and soon T-level). An idea we are

also discussing is supporting `Students Creating Applications for Micro:bits’ (SCAM). This could involve using

professional developer tools such as Microsoft’s Azure. Again there could well be scope for some of you

here tonight to help mentor such students who are developing their own skills while giving something back

to their peers at school.

It is widely recognised that schools have great difficulty recruiting and retaining staff with up-to-date skills in

the key technological subjects of Science (especially Physics), DT, Computing and Maths. So we are keen to

develop and support a community of `STEM Teachers Using Micro:bits’ STUM. I very much hope that the IET

and IMechE can collaborate (maybe with STEM Ambassadors and RAEng Teacher Coordinators) to help STEM

teachers gain confidence and improve their own technological skills to the benefit of future generations.

Yesterday I heard from Phil Moffitt and Hellen Ward, who runs the STEM Ambassador Programme for Kent,

Sussex, Surrey and Essex, that we will soon have new iSTEM+ Hubs in Dover and Medway. We already have

iSTEM+ Hubs running in Banbury, Gosport, Newbury and Reading, supported by Emily Thorpe-Smith and the

STEM Ambassador Programme for Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Isle of Wight,

Oxfordshire, Portsmouth and Southampton. New iSTEM+ Hubs are being formed in Basingstoke, Chichester,

East Hampshire, Fareham, Farnborough, Guildford and Portsmouth. While put the finishing touches to the

talk this morning, I had an e-mail to tell me that Microsoft in Reading has agreed to host our first iSTEM+

Conference on 12th June.

A year ago, when I first discussed tonight’s talk with Hamish, David and John I had no idea just what lay

ahead in the intervening year. I had just planned to show a few of the toys which I’d brought along to the

Beta Plus’ Christmas talk in 2016. But I am absolutely surprised, amazed and delighted just how things have

moved on in the intervening 12 months.

Whatever else happens, it is clear that we have the inspirational technology to revolutionise the educational

experience of our young people.

We just need to figure out how to help them get the greatest possible benefit from it.

Once that’s sorted, maybe Tony and I will have a bit more time to spend with our wives, and our Jags?