The BBC microbit officially begins rolling out to a million students today. Somewhere in a class is a student who will be the next big deal in technology entrepreneurship. You may have the next Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Clive Sinclair or Satya Nadella sitting in your class right now. It might be this moment that leads them on that career path, Daunting thought isn’t it?

Those students have who managed to get their hands on a microbit have already made a start. Here is a great example from Ross Lowe (you will have heard him mentioned in this blog before). Not only has he written the resources supporting the Block Editor on www.microbit.co.uk , but has found time to set up his own company, undertake R&D and bring a product to market.

Here is that product.

Introducing the Go! Invent Kit for the BBC Micro:bit!

After playing around with the Micro:bit for a few months we decided to create an expansion board for students like usto take their code from the Micro:bit and bring it into the physical world.

We developed a small circuit board with LEDs, crocodile clip pads, a Light Dependent Resistor, Piezo sounder, and diodes. To extend the sensor capabilities of the micro:bit. The kit also includes crocodile clips as well as more components – a variable potentiometer, toggle switches, tilt switches, and more! The kit also features full instructions for invention ideas – make a cuckoo clock, room alarm, smart watch, clever plant sensor, and anything you can think of – the kit has been designed to connect straight to the Micro:bit so you can conveniently code even more cool stuff with the Micro:bit.

How to order.

Order a Class set at of £5.00 per board – minimum order 30 or order individually at £15.00 inc p+p.

We’re taking preorders now – so get in touch before the first round is gone!

Find us on @BrossKits or brosscomputing@gmail.com

You can hear Ross Today on Radio 4 – Today Programme (catch it on iPlayer), talking about the micro:bit to John Humphries

BROSS computing, the next big thing? You heard it here first.

If you have a student micro:bit project that you would like to share then send me details on twitter @innovativeteach.

This unbelievable piece of information landed on my desk this morning and it is so exciting, I thought I would share it with you before 12.00pm

Ross Lowe, microbit evangelist and entrepreneur has just ported a version of Minecraft to his microbit. I don’t have the full details yet, but he used the Javascript Orientated Kernel Edition of Minecraft and a coding language call Lirpa Loof (a derivative of Block editor apparently) to create a pseudo world that allows you to enjoy Minecraft. Ross will be releasing how he did this shortly.

As you can see from the image attached it is not too far away from an Ender.

You can find loads of great ideas of what to do with your micro:bit at www.microbit.co.uk

What will you do?

At the BETT show in January, we announced a new version of Minecraft for education called Minecraft: Education Edition. Since then the Minecraft team have been busy working on features, and partnering with educators, students and administrators to get feedback on their priorities and what they need to use Minecraft for teaching and learning.

Our Simon Baddley was able to give his feedback: @simbadd64

“As an English teacher using Minecraft for storytelling, one of my main challenges was how to evidence student learning and projects outside of the game. The new camera and portfolio tools are going to be great features, allowing students to be able to export these shots directly from the students’ portfolio into a specified OneDrive folder is a major step forward and allows much easier integration with other applications.”

Simon Baddeley, English Teacher in Wakefield,

Teachers have helped prioritize the most valuable features of MinecraftEdu, and what else they’d like to see in Minecraft: Education Edition.

Dates for your diary

In May, a Beta program starts with over 100 schools from 30 countries around the world to experience Minecraft: Education Edition, share more detailed feedback on the product with us, and help us fine-tune the experience across a diverse set of learning environments.

In June, we will release Minecraft: Education Edition with an early access program for educators to download, try for free,
and give us feedback. Minecraft: Education Edition early access will be available in 11 languages and 41 countries. During the summer months, we are also going to be focused on working with educators on building out lesson plans, sharing learning activity ideas, and creating re-usable projects.

If you are new to Minecraft, or if you aren’t sure where to start in bringing Minecraft into your classroom and incorporating into your curriculum, the early access program is going to be a great way to familiarize yourself with Minecraft: Education Edition.

At the conclusion of our early access program, Minecraft: Education Edition user licenses will be available for purchase through direct and volume licensing channels.

The first release of Minecraft: Education Edition will run on the latest versions of Windows 10 and Mac OS X El Capitan. To prepare for using Minecraft: Education Edition,

• Upgrade your computers to Windows 10 or OS X El Capitan
• Sign up for a free Office 365 Education account using your school or district email for each educator and student

For more information and resources on Minecraft: Education Edition, and to sign up to be notified when the early access program becomes available, please visit education.minecraft.net.

Many of you will know Nicki Cooper (nee Maddams) and her award winning work with Kodu. I suspect many of have used or are using her great Kodu resources that earned her the nickname ‘Queen of Kodu’. Her blog http://www.interactiveclassroom.net/ is still one the best teacher resource you will find. Many of you have asked me where Nicki has been lately, she has been a little busy with her new family.

Blogs can offer welcome help and support in all aspects of our education based lives, but sometimes it’s useful to step outside and re-adjust our perspectives on our perceived challenges Nicki has given us so much with her support for Kodu and Computer Science. I thought I would like to reciprocate by sharing Nicki’s experience, a worthwhile cause and her latest blog project.

Nicki has found time to setup a new blog http://miraclebabies.co.uk . It has been designed to offer support, guidance and hope to parents of premature babies going through the rollercoaster journey of neonatal intensive care.

Nicki and her husband Kevin spent 16 weeks under the care of the amazing team at the Oliver Fisher Neonatal Intensive Care Unit with their son Henry, who along with his twin brother, Archie, was born at just 23 weeks gestation. Archie sadly lost his battle on day 2 but Henry fought on and came home one week before his due date, on 18th April 2016. This has been the inspiration for this new blog.

You can read and share Henry’s journey, which is joyful, yet heart-breaking at times, but I am just going to share this post from Nicki herself.

‘the really exciting thing about having a baby home that has spent time in hospital is that you appreciate everything they do. Kevin and I get excited every time Henry does a burp after feeding, we both enjoy changing nappies, no matter how smelly, and when Henry has me up for several hours during the night I just think of it as an opportunity to catch up on the cuddles we missed out on while he was in hospital, because leaving him there every night was the hardest part.’

Congratulations Nicki and Kevin on your beautiful family from us all.

http://miraclebabies.co.uk

The Computing At School #include Diversity in Computing Education Conference 2016 will take place at the University of Manchester on 11th June 2016. This year our aim is to bring together the teaching expertise of classroom teachers with the knowledge and experience of industry professionals and academics to create opportunities for all to learn practical strategies to teach children Computing from across our five strands of Gender, Ethnicity, Disability, Socio-Economic Status and SEN.

This event is ideal for any teachers, assistants, governors, parents, advisors, academics, industry experts working with both mainstream and special schools from primary through secondary to higher edu level. The day will include a mixture of talks and hands on workshops led by industry experts, classroom teachers and academics. You will be able to choose which sessions to attend throughout the day and gain an insight into how to promote inclusion in your chosen area.

Get you tickets here – https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/diversity-in-computing-education-conference-2016-tickets-24541140211

Why would I want to come to this event?

• CPD & Resources – Develop knowledge of how to adapt the computing curriculum for students in our five target groups: SEN and disabilities, diverse ethnic backgrounds, different genders and pupil premium.
  
• Swag – We have cool swag to give away, including prizes! We’ll also throw in a tasty lunch and snacks while you hack!
  
• Play – Get hands on with Raspberry Pi, Code Bug, BBC micro:bit and more.
  
• Tools – Gain experience in using tools to teach computing to students in our five target groups.
  
• Helping other people – Meet other teachers, some of whom are specialists in one of our five strands and share good practice.
  
• Childcare – Use our free onsite creche for children aged up to 6 and our child friendly workshops for ages 7 upwards. (*We can only run this facility if we find a sponsor and there is enough interest. Please let us know if this is a service you would like to use.)
  

  Sessions include:
  

• Engagement with EBD and ASC children in a special school environment
  
• Using Minecraft on the Raspberry Pi to engage autistic and ADHD children in programming
  
• Simple ways to encourage girls to take computing
  
• Wearables and physical computing workshops
  
• Unplugged computing sessions