The national strategy for Key Stage 3 is mounted by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) and supported by a national team. The aim of the strategy is to raise standards by strengthening teaching and learning, developing cross-curricular skills such as literacy and numeracy, helping pupils who come into...

This lengthier activity involves designing and creating a simple computer game using the free Microsoft Kodu platform. It is expected that the children will have some prior experience of Kodu, or that a basic tutorial is offered before commencing this activity. Worksheets are provided that help children through the...

In this multi-lesson project pupils design and code a computer game. It uses a rainforest theme but can be adapted to any topic, with learners of varying age or ability.

The project includes:

• Decomposition of the elements of a game
• Designing the game
• Creating assets for the...

This book unravels the fascinating area of our psychological responses to everyday objects and the environment in which we live. Why are things designed the way they are? Why do they give pleasure? Why is the desirable object of one generation neglected or scorned by the next? 

Developed by the National Centre for Computing Education, these question banks can be used with key stage 3 computing and GCSE computer science students.

The question banks linked below focus on design and development.

How to use these question banks?

Two sets...

This Challenge Pack, from the British Science Association, aims to give students aged 11-16 and their teachers and educators support to create a science, technology, engineering or maths (STEM) project that they can enter into the National Science + Engineering Competition.

Through creating a project, young...

This resource contains 6 presentations on various aspects of Networks and Network Management including

The Internet (DNS servers and IP addresses)

How Networks Communicate (IP addresses and packets)

Types of Network (Network topologies)

Peer-ToPeer vs Client/Server, LAN and WAN)

...

This book is part of the Archive Collection which is available to view at the National STEM Learning Centre.

A booklet containing lots of generic programming theory. The topics include:

• What is a program?
• High level languages and machine code
• Design methodologies
...

This four-lesson sequence teaches students to create multimedia for a given purpose. Using digital cameras and special desktop publishing software, students create a comic-book representation of the life of William Shakespeare. They are required to plan and execute the project from the beginning and to evaluate...

The Computing at School newsletter is published three times a year. It is full of practical ideas for teachers of computing in primary and secondary schools, with articles contributed by a number of CAS members. With input from teachers, academics, advisors and industry professionals, it provides a varied source of...

The aim of this activity is to raise awareness of human interface design issues. In a world where poor design is rife, people have become accustomed to dealing with problems caused by the artifacts with which they interact, sometimes blaming themselves instead of attributing the problems to flawed design. The issue...

How can you consistently pull off hands-on tinkering with kids? How do you deal with questions that you can't answer? How do you know if tinkering kids are learning anything or not? Is there a line...

This resource for VEX IQ Modkit helps students to understand the basic principles of using blocks of code to create a programme. The Modkit blocks have been reproduced so that they can be printed and used by students for discussion and when planning their code. This resource contains a classroom presentation...

Focusing on how designers use drawings in communicating their ideas and how they 'converse' with them as their designs develop, this book shows how experienced...