Welcome to the autumn 2011 newsletter

This newsletter contains details of changes that have been made to the icthomework site over the past term.

Programming exercises

We have added a new exercise section to the site entitled, Programming. This section contains eleven new exercises. These are listed below:

1.	Communication and Control
2.	Stored Programs
3.	Constants and Variables
4.	Conditional Statements - 1
5.	Conditional Statements - 2
6.	Repetition - 1
7.	Repetition - 2
8.	X,Y Coordinates
9.	Collision Detection
10.	Message Passing
11.	Using Lists

The first three exercises introduce programming in a very general way. Exercises four to eleven are supported by examples of Scratch programs.

A number of exercises include links to Scratch program files. Students are able to download these files to extend the exercises.

Details of Scratch support for the exercises are listed below:

4.	Conditional Statements - 1	Quiz Program
5.	Conditional Statements - 2	Number Guessing Program using IF statements
6.	Repetition - 1	Scratch examples mimicking Logo drawing
7.	Repetition - 2	Number Guessing Program using looping
8.	X,Y Coordinates	Scratch Bat Animation
9.	Collision Detection	Bat Shooter Program
10.	Message Passing	Animal Tricks Program
11.	Using Lists	Role-playing Animal Rescue Program

National Curriculum levels

We have added a table to the site which shows the links between the site exercises and the National Curriculum ICT level descriptors. Colleagues will be able to use this table to search for exercises which support particular level descriptors.

The NC level descriptors table can be seen by clicking here.

Changes for students

Students have been given two new pages on the site.The first of these introduces students to the NC ICT level descriptors in relation the site exercises. Fig 1 shows part of this page:

Introduction

Fig. 1

The second new page for students is a report, which shows students which level descriptors they have accrued as a result of doing the site exercises. See fig 2 below.

Student levels Fig. 2

Student reports are now showing grades as well as marks. The grades correspond to the grades that are reported to students when they complete individual exercises. See fig 3 below.

Student results Fig. 3

New Developments

We are developing a new set of exercises to support Health and Safety issues associated with the use of ICT. These are due to be published in the New Year.

We would welcome your suggestions on further developments. To do this, you can either use the suggestions page on the site or you can email directly to: