Computer Recommendations - 2020

We’ve all been thrust into a brave new world over the past few weeks. Computer hardware is hardly the biggest area where adjustment is needed, but it is the one people have been asking us about, and it’s one of the few areas where we can actually offer meaningful advice.

Our devices at home have probably never been under as much sustained demand as they are currently, with every adult and child in every house dependent on technology to communicate with the outside world and to participate in work, school and play.

Our most common request is something like “I want a windows laptop that’s really cheap/mid-range/future proof”. Let’s take those one at a time.

Budget buy (<€250)

The HP Stream 11 has been our go-to ultra-budget machine for a while now. 2GB of RAM and 32GB storage are both quite limiting, but at €240 it’s a very attractive deal, and a quoted 13 hour battery life is very decent (albeit probably not quite achievable in reality.

(As with all the links in this piece, we don’t explicitly endorse any retailer, and we aren’t taking a cut. Shop around!)

Mid range (€400-700)

If you can stretch a little more you can get a lot for your money in the €400-700 range. We’d always recommend looking for 8GB of RAM and an SSD (solid state drive - a modern alternative to the old-school, spinning disk HDD) with a bare minimum 128GB of storage, preferably more.

Processor-wise you should ideally look for an Intel Core i3 or Core i5 (or Core i7 if you’re pushing the budget a bit further), or any of the AMD Ryzen chips. The difference between all of these chips is obviously important as you move to more expensive machines, but at the this price point any of them will fit the bill. Less desirable are the older/cheaper Intel Celeron/Pentium/Atom chips and the AMD A-series chips.

That’s all a bit much for the non-technical, so let’s get specific. Adrian Weckler had a recent piece (worth reading in its entirety) where he recommended this Inspiron 15 3000. At €599 it ticks a LOT of boxes: i5 processor, 8GB RAM and a massive 512GB SSD. There are slightly cheaper versions available too - this €499 version looks pretty good to us too. Both come with Full HD screens.

Bigger budgets (€700+)

Our favourite ultra-premium recommendation is the Dell XPS 13 - expect to pay well upwards of €1000, and don’t bother with any of the lower specced models (there are a few with 128GB SSDs which really aren’t worth the money). The 15” model (the XPS 15) is also a powerhouse.

That recommendation is tempered slightly by the new trend for ultra-premium laptops to dispense with standard USB ports in favour of the new flavour, USB C. While USB C is undoubtedly the future, you may want to budget for a few adaptors while we’re waiting on that future to arrive!

Coming into this price range also brings Apple computers into your price range, and in spite of recent keyboard issues with some of the Macbook Pro models there is scarcely a bad machine available from Apple - but you’ll need to get your wallet warmed up first!

The new Macbook Air, from €1229, has been very well received, and is probably the go-to model for most people. Like the XPS 13 it has ditched the old school USB ports, but it has at least dispensed with the derisory 128GB storage options. The base model, with 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD, is probably the one to go for, and should be more than capable of any office or education task for years to come. The 10+ hour battery life is not to be sneezed at either.

Then there’s the generally excellent Macbook Pros. Ignoring the model with 128GB of storage you’re looking at anything from €1,799 for the 13” model up to €3,299+ for the high spec 16” version. If you need them, great, but probably overkill for most of our students.

Other options

Buying a new laptop is in many ways the easy option, but there are other choices too. When we were adding 20 machines to our mobile lab we went to RefreshedByUs.com and bought refurbished laptops with upgraded RAM and SSDs. Again, 8GB RAM and an SSD is your golden rule here! You may have to settle for something a bit bulkier than a brand new system, but this Dell Latitude E6420 is only £268 (~€300) with those upgrades, and if portability isn’t a concern would make a great home computer.

If you have the space you could of course also consider a desktop PC. While it may seem like everyone these days buys laptops, when we were kitting out our new office in 2017 we opted for desktop computers with huge, 28” 4K monitors. You can get a LOT more for your money when you aren’t cramming it into a laptop case, especially if you’re willing to buy the parts and assemble yourself. But that’s probably a post for another day…

The Grading System - a Rapidly Improving Work in Progress

Back in September we wrote a little bit about what we were planning for the year in terms of our grading system. As the year has gone there have been a good number of changes (“everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”, as the saying goes). Most importantly we’ve learned a lot about how this iteration of our planned curriculum works in the classroom environment, and made course corrections accordingly as we’ve proceeded through the year.

As we reach the end of the year, it now comes time for us to roll out our grading program for the year. Students will be awarded badges and certificates in respect of the grades they have completed, as well as (in some cases) for specific modules they have completed within a given grade. Before we set out that plan, a quick high level recap is in order.

Note also that this structure applies specifically to our evening and weekend classes. Our after-school “Tech Clubs” do NOT operate off this system, nor do our in-school programs.

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Existing Grades

Grade 1:

Otherwise known as “pre-coding”, this has yet to be rolled out.

Action shot! Students hard at work at Coolmine Easter Camp, 2019.

Grade 2:

For students of 2nd-4th class, this course combines introductory computer skills (mouse, keyboard, saving files, etc) with basic Scratch and HTML coding.

Grade 3:

Following on from grade 2. Rolling out September 2019.

Grade 4:

The entry point to our course for anyone from 5th class upwards. Students at this level will learn to write code in Processing (a Java-based graphics framework) and also basic HTML.

Grade 5:

A continuation of grade 4. Students at this level will solidify their understanding of Processing, including a greater understanding of code structure and different types of variables. It is possible for some students to complete both grade 4 and grade 5 in the space of single year.

Grade 6:

Students at this level understand a wider variety of code structures and coding concepts, including how to use external code libraries and developing their own approaches to solving coding problems.

Another student at our Coolmine Easter Camp, 2019

Grade 7:

Students will study code structure (including object-oriented programming) and data structures. External libraries will be used more often, and students will also complete a module in Computer Vision using OpenCV.

Grade 8:

Advanced code structure, introduction to assembly language, string processing, error handling and more. Rolling out September 2019.

Grade 9:

Building larger projects, including integrating with external services (web services, databases, etc). Rolling out September 2020.

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Grading for Summer 2019

Not all grades were delivered this year. The “core” modules were grade 2 and grade 4, and these were delivered to both beginners and some returning students.

At the higher end of the scale there was a lot of consolidation going on. Some students have been with us 18 months, some 24, some 36, while some have done no summer camps and others attend two (or more) every year. Along with ensuring that students were happy and always moving forwards, the other key for us this year was to fill in any gaps in their knowledge, so that heading into September everyone knows where they stand in relation to the grading system, and what next year will be like.

Work in progress - badge design for Grade II student award

Grade 2 Assessments

Grade 2 is largely assessed informally, and attendance is a significant part of the criteria as well. Students have completed several smaller, informal assessments throughout the year. Given the comparatively young age of these students, an emphasis is placed in grade 2 on engagement with material throughout the year, rather than a capstone assessment on which the entire year will be judged.

Grade 2 students also completed a game design module using a block-based Python language. For students who completed that portion of the module there will also be a separate “Game Developer - Grade 2” badge awarded at the end of the year.

Grade 4 Assessments

As with grade 2, grade 4 has its own HTML module and award which has already been delivered and assessed, and the appropriate badge will be awarded to those students who completed this at the end of term.

Grade 4 also has a number of more informal assessments, which have been delivered throughout the year to ensure students are broadly on track. The year will conclude with a multiple choice assessment, testing students’ understanding of the core concepts from this term (variables, if statements, coordinates, shapes and colours). There will also be a small number of “bonus” questions, giving students the opportunity to show extra knowledge they may have picked up from early finisher tasks and extra challenges throughout the year (see “Grade 5 Assessments below”).

Work in progress - badge design for Grade IV “Web Designer” student award

As with any assessment, there may be those who fail to reach the required level. They will be given a second chance to show what they’ve learned during the end of year project, where our tutors will also have a chance to work with them to address the key gaps in their learning for the year. If they are still finding the work particularly difficult at that point we will suggest that they would be best served repeating grade 4 again next year, to ensure they are fully comfortable with the material before progressing to grade 5.

For grade 4 we may also award completion badges based on attendance and classroom participation even to those not ready to progress to grade 5. We feel it’s important at this stage to recognise effort as much as outcome - there will be plenty of outcome-focused assessments later in the curriculum.

Grade 5 Assessments

In most cases grade 5 was not specifically delivered this year. The grade 5 material was delivered as part of the grade 4 classes through a series of “extra tasks” within each lesson. While many students, particularly those who joined this year, will not have had a chance to complete these yet, the grade 5 assessment gives those who have been running ahead of the class a chance to leap past grade 4 and 5 in a single academic year.

Those who reach the required level in the grade 4 multiple choice assessment will also have their end of term projects assessed, and where they can demonstrate a solid understanding of grade 5 topics (advanced variables, maths of collision detection, defining and using functions) they may be awarded the grade 5 badge and progress directly to grade 6.

Grade 6 Assessments

Students who have been with us more than a year will in some cases have been working towards grade 6 for some or all of the year. Grade 6 involves understanding object oriented programming, use of loops, use of external code libraries, and quite a bit more besides.

Students at this level will complete a project based assessment in weeks 16 and 17 of term. It’s important to note that for many this will be more of a “mid term” assessment, as they may not have been working towards grade 6 since September, but rather progressed on to this material during the school year.

Students who reach the required level will progress to grade 7 in September, while those not yet fully through the grade 6 curriculum will start back in September 2019 to a freshly baked, brand new grade 6 curriculum for 2019/2020.

Grade 7 Assessments

Students at this level have already completed informal assessments for their Computer Vision module, which will be a separately awarded badge.

For their capstone project they will complete a similar project to grade 6 over the course of several classes. In addition to what is assessed at grade 6, students at grade 7 will be expected to display quite a high level understanding of object oriented programming, data structures, and code structure more broadly.

By grade 7 we expect our students to be writing code which wouldn’t be out of place in a 2nd or 3rd college course, and this is the standard to which they will be held in the assessment.

What’s Next?

From September 2019 all evening and weekend students will be explicitly following a grade level on the curriculum. This will be communicated to parents at the start of the term, along with some key learning outcomes for the year.

For later grades (grade 6+) we will also be assigning homework for the first time from September. Grade 8 and 9 students will also need to bring their own computers to class. We’ve avoided this up to now, but by requiring students to have their own computers there’s a whole new world of software tools opened up which just aren’t practical to use on a shared computer. In particular, using the students own laptops will mean we can introduce industry standard source control tools and IDEs, as well as facilitating things like local test servers for running web apps, and installation of image editing and sound editing tools that can be prohibitively difficult in a school computer lab setting.

Finally we’re working on a series of other events and partnerships to keep our more advanced students interested and engaged with the wider tech community. We want to show our students how exciting the world of tech can be, and how much bigger it is than what goes on in our classrooms. As always: watch this space!

Computer Science as a Leaving Cert Subject

Computer Science for Leaving Cert students is finally here! Students from 40 schools across Ireland will be the first to take part in the pilot Computer Science Leaving Certificate curriculum, due to be examined for the first time in 2020. 

The program will be the first of its kind, allowing students to learn computational thinking, to read and write in various computer languages, to design web pages, animations and games, and to learn about the role of technology in society. 

In making the announcement, Minister for Education Richard Burton commented that  “this is a very exciting time for education in Ireland. There is a digital revolution taking place which is having a transformative effect on our economy, workplace, and lifestyle.

“The introduction of this new subject will teach our young people flexible, solution orientated thinking. It will teach them to be creative, adaptable learners”.

Having engaged with the Department of Education during consultation events last year, we are extremely excited to be seeing the work done by all those involved coming to fruition. We’re looking forward in particular to hearing from our colleagues in the 40 pilot schools who are already hard at work preparing to deliver the new course. 

For our part, we look forward to getting involved more directly in the wider rollout in 2020, and look forward to adding Leaving Cert Computer Science classes to our growing roster of evening, weekend and in-school coding and technology classes.

As always, our goal in all of this is to introduce kids to the endless possibilities of a life of IT literacy. Not only are coding and advanced IT literacy growing necessities for professional careers, but they are also a deeply fun and satisfying set of skills to develop. The wider integration of these skills within the context of mainstream schooling represents part of a hugely positive shift for future generations. Indeed, this announcement is a timely and vital support for Ireland’s position as the prominent technology hub in Europe, a position which has already earned us huge economic windfalls through the presence of major multinationals such as Google, Microsoft, Twitter and Facebook.

While the overall thrust of this announcement is hugely positive, there are challenges to be overcome yet. Resourcing schools and teachers to keep at the forefront of technological advancements will be a major challenge for the Department of Education, while sourcing appropriately skilled teachers in the first place will not be easy.

Another concern which has surfaced is around the possibility that this intervention could do more harm than good when it comes to driving more students to study computer science at third level. This has been the experience in other countries, and is a concern which we shouldn’t dismiss lightly. Dr Mike Brady, the Director of Undergraduate Teaching and Learning in Trinity’s School of Computer Science and Statistics, expressed fears to the college’s University Times newspaper that the subject would become a prerequisite for college-level courses. “I would really dislike a situation where we were turning away really good students who didn’t do computer science. Someone with very good maths or physics or numeracy in general who, for one reason or another, perhaps because it wasn’t available, didn’t choose computer science.” 

While we still await the publication of the finalised curriculum, there is much to be excited about. This announcement marks the latest step in a long-awaited development in Ireland’s education system, and we look forward to seeing where it brings us next.

Happy coding!
 

Leaving Cert Computer Science - One Step Closer

It's been a long time coming, but with the publication by the NCCA earlier this month of a draft curriculum (PDF) it seems as if Leaving Certificate Computer Science might finally be close to becoming a reality. The current "fast track" timetable puts the first exam appearance by the subject in June 2020, meaning it will be available for those entering 4th year this coming September (or those sitting the Junior Cert this coming June and skipping Transition Year). 

From our perspective, there's a lot to like about the proposal. The focus on practical applications is promising, and the 30% of marks allocated to coursework seems appropriate. There appears to be plenty of technical depth in the proposed curriculum, including study of CPU hardware, character sets, algorithmic complexity and sorting and searching algorithms. The course also includes a broader study of computers' impact on society, including sustainable development (this last part seems a little incongruous at first, but as part of a broader approach to including sustainability in all curricular strands it makes perfect sense).

There are also some areas we believe can be improved or need further work. Two in particular jump out at us from this draft of the curriculum proposal. The first is the heavy reliance on group work, which forms the backbone of the practical portion of the curriculum. It is envisaged that in this portion of the course “[s]tudents assume different responsibilities in each project, rotating between the roles of team leader, project manager, communications manager, and programmer”.

There are of course real benefits to group work, but it is our opinion that in the context of introducing computer programming to students for the first time it is counterproductive to give some students an “opt-out” from the coding portion of the assignment. Indeed it appears from the description that only a quarter of students will actually be coding during each 6 week project block. Even with rotation between the roles for each project, it is not at all clear to us that this approach will yield better educational outcomes than individual projects, and certainly not when that is measured in terms of computer science learning outcomes.

The second area in need of attention is not one which is within the scope of this recently published document, but it is an area which will ultimately the determine the success or otherwise of this initiative, and that is the actual delivery of this curriculum. It has long been our concern, backed by frequent communication with a wide range of schools, that most principals intend to either a) not offer the course at all, or b) press their physics/maths/technology teacher into service as a computer science educator. It is our strong view that neither solution is satisfactory.

The latter in particular could do serious damage to the reputation of the course, resulting in teachers delivering the course who, through no fault of their own, are neither skilled nor qualified to do so, and learning outcomes suffering accordingly.

We look forward to hearing what proposals will be brought forward to address this, and engaging with the NCCA and the Department of Education in developing solutions to address this problem.

Overall, with those small caveats out of the way, we are beyond excited that this step has finally been taken. It represents the culmination of literally decades of lobbying effort (for which the lobbyists in question are owed a debt of gratitude from us all), and a major leap forward for our education system. Getting student studying computer science at Leaving Cert level will inevitably broaden the range of individuals applying to proceed to third level education, as well as those who carry the skills of computer science into a wide range of other career tracks.

We look forward to being part of this bold new frontier in Irish education.

New Grading System at the Academy of Code

Grading students at the Academy of Code has always been something we've tried hard to get right, and generally it's been something we've struggled with. The nature of coding is that the material will immediately click with some students, while others will need more time to engage with it before they are ready to move on to the next concept. Over the course a single term this can mean vast gulfs emerging even within a class of the same age group, never mind one with a 3 or 4 year age spread (as many of our classes have).

In an effort to alleviate the issues this causes (boredom on one side, and frustration on the other) we generally allow a certain amount of leeway for students to progress at their own pace. This works well, and allows many students to thrive, but something we've heard from many parents is that they would like some sort progression for students, so that they always have something to work towards. 

That's why we've introduced our new grading system, as of the start of our summer camps this year. Pictured above are two returning students, who received beginners (white), junior grade I (red) and junior grade II (yellow) bands at the end of their week with us this summer.

This also coincides with our adoption of class booklets (previously we distributed lessons one at a time, as the previous lesson was completed - this was both inconvenient for students, who were limited in the work they could do at home, and also a nuisance for us, as it meant keeping a huge stack of paper on hand, and transporting it to each class!). Class booklets have a progression chart on the back, to be dated and signed by teachers as each lesson is completed and checked. 

For later grades there will also be more onerous grading requirements - the unassisted completion of some significant piece of coding, demonstrating understanding/mastery of specific areas of coding.

We're excited about this, as it will give students a clear, multi-year path to developing their coding expertise with the Academy of Code. Students seem excited too (although perhaps as much for the new fashion accessories and bragging rights as anything else!)

We will have more information about these grades in the coming weeks and months, especially the later grades which will require much more commitment to reach than the first few, and which may also include developing websites, working on hardware (arduino/picaxe/raspberry pi/lego mindstorms), and much more besides. Watch this space!