Computer Programming
Computer Programming - Parents, Teachers, Students
I often get inquiries from parents whose children are disappointed with computing as it is taught in many schools. With large class sizes and, often, a considerable spread of interest and ability it is difficult to provide support and stimulation for the more able programmers in the class, who may be quite far ahead of their peers.
After school and weekend programming activities
Here at Croydon Tutorial College, which is closely affiliated with First Technology Transfer, we run individual and group programming classes. Typically a class lasts 90 minutes and consists of two 40 minute sessions with a 10 minute break in between. The topics covered depend on the particular needs and interests of the group or individual. It is not uncommon to combine computing with maths when appropriate, sometimes very insightful, questions are asked. The languages and tools we cover include Snap (the successor to Scratch), Python for both the PC and for the BBC Microbit and the RaspberryPi, and JavaScript for web application development. We have run, on request, courses on C and C++ programming, Java programming and C# programming for either young programmers with a special interest in one of these languages, or from teachers planning to introduce programming in one of these languages as part of teaching the A Level Computer Science syllabus. Courses have also included practical robotics programming sessions e.g. using Lego Mindstorms robots, or Vex Robotics Kits.
Courses and Workshops for Parents and Teachers
We run programming courses for parents, home educators and teachers who need to get more proficient in their computer programming skills so that they can better teach their children, or teach and understand what is required of them in the current computer science curriculum. For example we have run some courses for lecturers at Carshalton College and for teachers in the local area on Python programming for the RaspberryPi. Recently we ran two weeks of training for staff at Port Talbot College to bring them up to speed in RaspberryPi programming in Bash (a shell scripting language) and Python. Even more recently we have had a teacher from Papua New Guinea (where he is on the staff at one of the international schools) for a course on C programming for the Arduino.Undergraduate and Postgraduate Students
Sometimes students on a university course run into problems either with a final year project or with a particularly tough programming assignment, where, sometimes, sadly the lecturer has not explained everything as clearly as they might have liked and who are struggling with their assignment. An example at undergraduate level was a very bright student who, based on work experience, had undertaken as his final year project the implementation of a "web page scraper" in C# that would extract salient marketing and advertising features from targetted web pages and then feed that data into a Microsoft SQL server database. We do not write or help write code or text for such assignments. In this case what was needed was an intensive 5 day course that covered various approaches to tackling the problems that needed to be solved, and filled in gaps where certain topics had simply not been covered as part of his course. Another case involved a student on a tough masters course in numerical analysis. He had been set an assignment at relatively short notice, and it was apparent from the course lecture materials I read that some of the more subtle issues associated with using C++ to solve partial differential equations had simply not been covered. An intensive one day course filled in any gaps in his knowledge and gave him the confidence to complete the assignment.
Follow up
For more information call us and leave a message or send and SMS or send an email
Mobile tel. no.: +44 7739 642996
Send an email to andrew dot eliasz at gmail dot com