The response was swift and utterly devastating for those laggards who want to hold back progress. The AI guy said:

Books will soon be obsolete in schools. Scholars will be instructed through AI. It is possible to teach every branch of human knowledge with AI. Our school system will be completely changed inside of ten years.

We have been working for some time on educational AI. It proves conclusively the worth of AI in chemistry, physics and other branches of study, making the scientific truths, difficult to understand from text books, plain and clear to children.

That's it. We can throw away all those outdated paper books. Children will learn directly from an AI which, coincidentally, is sold by the company. We can trust their studies on such matters and be assured that they have no ulterior motive.

But, ah my friends, I have told a slight untruth. I didn't ask that question. Frederick James Smith asked the question to Thomas Edison in 1913. The question was about the new and exciting world of motion pictures.

You can read the full exchange from The New York Dramatic Mirror.

A hundred-plus years since the great and humble Edison made his prediction and… books are still used in schools! Those of us of a certain age remember a TV occasionally being wheeled in for one lesson or another. Today's kids watch more video content than ever - of mixed quality - but still rely on books and teachers.

Videos are good for some aspects of learning, but woefully inadequate for others.

I'm not trying to say that just because one technology failed, so will all others. But it is amazing how AI-proponents are recycling the same arguments with basically the same timescale. Will AI be part of education? Sure! Just like videos, pocket computers, the Metaverse, and performance enhancing drugs.

Will it be the only tool ever needed for education? I doubt it. Will vested interests and uncritical journalists continue to boost it? You don't need to have read many history books to work out the answer.

Further reading: In the Future All Food Will Be Cooked in a Microwave, and if You Can’t Deal With That Then You Need to Get Out of the Kitchen

And, yesterday, I got this...

All done!

I've got to say, it has been... an experience. I've relentlessly blogged about the process. The academic content was pretty good, but the administration by QA.com was nothing short of atrocious.

Missed deadlines, unhelpful staff, incompetent tutors, and admin staff who clearly didn't care about the student experience.

Here's an excellent example of the failure of student experience. After arguing (successfully) that they had to stick to their promised timescales for performing my End Point Assessment, I waited to find out if I had passed. I waited. And waited.

Then, one morning, I got an email from the university careers service letting me know I was eligible for their graduation services! That's how I found out that I had passed.

A few days later, QA sent my my apprenticeship completion certificate. Where they had got the name of my course wrong!

Bah!

I am so glad to be done with QA. I'm trying not to be bitter, but it seemed like they went out of their way to make the educational experience as stressful and annoying as possible.

But, now I'm done, I'm not going to dwell on them any further.

I was aiming to pass the MSc and am chuffed to bits that I got a distinction. I couldn't have managed that without the support of my loving wife. I'm also grateful to my employers - Cabinet Office. They funded this MSc, and gave me the time and space to study.

In the next few weeks, I'll publish my dissertation. It's a thrilling tale of what happens when you stick Civil Servants in the Metaverse and ask them to interact with giant datasets. Well, I found it interesting!

Right, time for a celebratory pint or two.

1. Are you faster at speaking or typing?
2. Are you faster at reading or listening?

Lots of us now use Siri, Alexa, Bixby, and the like because it is quicker to speak than type. For long-form wordsmithing - it's still probably easier to type-and-edit than it is to speak-then-edit. And the way humans speak is markedly different from how they write.

But the bottleneck has always been that listening to speech is slower than reading text.

The average reading speed is around 238 words per minute. Obviously there are a lot of caveats around the age of the reader, the difficulty of the material, whether one is reading for leisure or work. But it will do as a comparator.

The average speaking speed is around 150 words per minute. Again, that depends on the age of the speaker, urgency of their talk, familiarity with the language, and so on.

Therefore it is faster to read academic papers rather than to listen to academic lectures. Case closed!

Except…

There's a fascinating new paper out - Learning in double time: The effect of lecture video speed on immediate and delayed comprehension.

Here's the quote I found most interesting - with emphasis added:

Collectively, the present experiments indicate that increased video speed (up to 2x) does not negatively impact learning outcomes and watching at faster speeds can be a more efficient use of study time.

Thus, as long as to-be-remembered information can be effectively perceived and encoded, learning outcomes may not be affected by playback speed.

However, previous work has indicated that speech comprehension begins to decline at around 275 words per minute (Foulke & Sticht, 1969; see also Goldhaber, 1970; Pastore & Ritzhaupt, 2015; Vemuri et al., 2004) and the videos in the current study exceeded this threshold when played at 2x speed.

Although the elevated speech rates at 2x speed may initially be less comprehensible to students, researchers have been able to train participants to understand speech at rates up to 475 WPM (Orr et al., 1965).

Therefore, with practice, higher rates of speech may not be completely incomprehensible and since 85% of students reported watching lecture videos at quicker than normal speeds (see Figure 3a), they may be better able to process the material as a result of experience.

I guess this shouldn't come as a surprise to me. I tend to watch my MSc lectures at 1.75x with subtitles - and have been doing the same with podcasts and tutorial videos for years. Looks like I am in the majority.

If the average person speaks at ~150 Words Per Minute, increasing playback speed to 1.5x gives a listening rate of ~225 WPM. That's about the same as reading speed.

Going to 475 WPM means listening at 3x normal speed.

My mate Léonie Watson is blind and has written extensively about the use of text-to-speech technology. Because she listens to a synthetic voice, with predictable and consistent pronunciation, she's able to listen at about 520 WPM! That's 3.5x faster than the speech of a biological human.

I'm not suggesting that you can speed-listen your way through any complicated topic and retain perfect understanding of subject and nuance. But it is becoming clear that synchronous teaching has limitations when it comes to efficiently teaching people. There's no substitute for being able to stop an expert mid-lecture and saying "sorry Prof, I don't get that - could you please help me understand?" But the reality is, most people never stick their hand up in class. So listening to lectures on playback - at double speed - is simply a better "user experience" for the student.

Learning, of course, isn't just listening to people drone on in front of a blackboard. The student still needs to do the exercises, write their essays, consolidate their knowledge, reflect on what they've learned, and so on.

But the ability to "speed" your way through a (well edited and professionally recorded) lecture is something to be welcomed. It gives students more time to spend on their studies with, apparently, no ill effects.

Here are a few examples I've seen recently - produced as a result of computers trying to be cleverer than humans, and humans not checking if computers are being stupid.

Curly Quotes

Is this code valid?

<a href=“example.html”>read more</a>

Yes! Let's read the HTML Specification on the syntax of attributes:

Unquoted attribute value syntax

The attribute name, followed by zero or more ASCII whitespace, followed by a single U+003D EQUALS SIGN character, followed by zero or more ASCII whitespace, followed by the attribute value, which, in addition to the requirements given above for attribute values, must not contain any literal ASCII whitespace, any U+0022 QUOTATION MARK characters ("), U+0027 APOSTROPHE characters ('), U+003D EQUALS SIGN characters (=), U+003C LESS-THAN SIGN characters (<), U+003E GREATER-THAN SIGN characters (>), or U+0060 GRAVE ACCENT characters (`), and must not be the empty string.

If you write <a href=example.html>read more</a>, the HTML parser will take you to the page example.html.

But if you write <a href=“example.html”>read more</a>, the parser will literally interpret the string and take you to the page %E2%80%9Cexample.html%E2%80%9D

Smart quotes may work - but they may also behave unexpectedly.

The same problem occurs on the command line:

That's sqlmap -u “URL” … - some command line programs will ignore the quotes - but most won't.

A grave mistake

The same issue occurs with single quotes. Apostrophes become directional.

Will this code work SELECT * FROM whatever WHERE thing = `example´; ? Nope!

We've known about these problems for decades.

When is a dash not a dash?

On the command line, it's common to write -h or --help. That's either a single or double hyphen.

The problem is, there are lots of typographical hyphens. Some website publishing systems will "helpfully" convert a humble hyphen into an exotic "en-dash". While some word processors will take -- and transmogrify it into —.

This leads to code like ./foo --scan becoming ./foo —scan

Consider this example:

Can you tell which are en-dash and which are hyphens?

For a practical example, try running this code: nmap –h - how does it compare to nmap -h ?

A small plea

Dear educators everywhere. Your students are going to copy and paste the code that you put in your examples. Before you publish that blog post, or send out that PowerPoint, please take five minutes to make sure the examples you include actually work properly.

And, to students, STOP COPYING AND PASTING CODE! You'll learn much more if you type things in yourself. By using tab-complete and judicious use of --help, you'll understand what the options are and what they do. That's much more important than mindless repetition.

This Tweet has been doing the rounds.

Aaron Ansuini 🍋🪴🌱

@AaronLinguini

HI EXCUSE ME, I just found out the the prof for this online course I’m taking *died in 2019* and he’s technically still giving classes since he’s *literally my prof for this course* and I’m learning from lectures recorded before his passing

..........it’s a great class but WHAT

---

And... I kinda agree that it might be a bit creepy, but it is obviously the future. At the moment, university students might be taught by the best lecturer on the planet. Or they might be taught by a brilliant researcher with no people skills. I was appalled to find out that my undergraduate lecturers had no teaching qualifications whatsoever. Our class of teenagers were paying huge fees to be lectured at by someone who read slides in a monotone and just told us to buy his book. Rubbish!

Right now I can go on to any video streaming site and watch the best teachers in the world give me a world-class lesson FOR FREE! With SUBTITLES! Which I can PAUSE to go to the loo! And REWATCH if I haven't grasped a point.

If you had a choice between watching Albert Einstein give a lecture or a bored TA who's mostly there to pick up freshers - which would you rather have?

Now, a good teacher isn't just about giving the lecture. As well as the admin of getting people signed up, the pastoral care, and marking assignments - they also have to teach!

Teaching isn't just lecturing. Obviously. Even the best student won't have grasped everything the lecturer said. Discussions need to be moderated. Code needs to be debugged. Theories need to be tested. Dialogue needs to happen.

Thinking back to my undergraduate degree - a billion years ago - I'm not sure that I was taught by my lecturers. Perhaps it is rose-tinted glasses. But the lectures were the scaffolding for the learning. OK, I was doing a practical degree with lots of lab work. We learned by doing, and by having patient TA's talking us through the work, and reading books.

Now, there are some downsides of video lectures.

You can't stick your hand up and interrupt the prof with your "insightful" question. But how often did you do that and get told "we'll cover that next week"? A pre-recorded lecture offers the same interactivity as most in-person lectures I attended.

Subjects might get out of date quickly. But have the fundamentals of compiler design changed in the last 10 years? What about the symbolism of Shakespeare? If the underlying theory changes - does it make sense for a hundred lecturers up and down the country to update their slides, or just to do it once?

You need to be disciplined to watch the lectures - and it's really easy to get distracted if you're at home. But, of course, no student ever slacked off a lecture with a hangover, right? And a lecture theatre full of your peers isn't exactly a distraction free environment...

In a practical degree - like nursing - you probably want someone there to show you how to physically do the thing.

I once went to an undergraduate lecture at Boston University in the USA. Whereas my UK university had a few dozen students per class, this lecture theatre was bursting at the seams with hundreds of students. I've no idea if that's typical of American institutions - but none of those students were getting a personal service.

As we round off a full year of remote lecturing, it seems obvious that there's no need for hundreds of professors each delivering individual lectures. Yes, I'm sure that your area of research is unique and students choose the university because of your reputation. But the majority of students don't care about the individual lecturer.

When I was at uni, I paid the same fees as as a friend who went to a university with much better lecturers. Of course, I went to university before YouTube. If I could have watched better lecturers, you bet your arse I would have.

So perhaps that's the new model. Watch pre-recorded lectures from the best lecturers on the planet - whether they're at your university or not. Discuss what you've learned in a class moderated by a teacher. Have practical sessions lead by a practitioner. Have the admin handled by administrators. And let researchers get on with researching.

The current model doesn't seem to be working for students or lecturers.

At the start of the Gregorian calendar 2021, I'll begin an MSc Digital and Technology Specialist. My resolution is to get my coursework in on time. That's it.

It has been so long since I formally studied anything that I'm a little nervous about how I'll get on. I'm going to spend some of the Xmas break brushing up on my stats, doing what pre-reading I can, and working out a study schedule. But I'm conscious that the last time I started a university course was before the new millennium!

I am incredibly fortunate that this course is being offered by my employer as an apprenticeship. As an apprentice (what an unexpected thing to type!) I'll get 20% of my work-week dedicated to study. That'll be tricky to work around all my regular meetings and obligations. But there are plenty of employees working flexibly at GDS - so I'm sure I'll work it out somehow.

Of course, with the-virus-which-must-not-be-named, all the teaching is virtual. The course is run by QA.com, who seem reasonably competent at such things. The degree is accredited by Northumbria University. I've no idea how challenging this is going to be - but I'm going to give it my all.

I'm also ridiculously lucky that, because it is an apprenticeship, work will pay the tuition! If I can stick it out for two years - and complete the final assessment - I'll be nearly as clever as my wife.

Because of this, I'm probably not going to carry on blogging every single day. But I'm sure I'll find some things to talk about.

If you're on the course - or have done something similar - do say hi!

BBC News Technology

@BBCTech

Computer science exam had coding errors bbc.in/2eHHa0Cbbc.co.uk
SQA admits 'coding errors' in computer science exam
Scotland's exam body admits to a series of mistakes in one of this year's computer science tests.

---

As a professional computerist, I was intrigued to see what our fine young minds are being tested on. My memories of "computing" at school was being taught MS Word Version 2 (yes, I am that old). So, let's take a look at the paper - and its criticisms.

The original paper is available to download as a PDF. As a small disclaimer, I've not studied for this exam, and haven't been taught in a school for many years. The answers are how I would answer - without reference to a search engine.

1 Convert the decimal value 227 into the equivalent 8-bit binary number.

Bit of a tough start! For only one point? Good to get the fundamentals in early though.

Do they have a calculator? Hmmm, my conversion is a little rusty. It'll be 128 + 64 + 32, that gets us to 224. So add 3.

00000011
00100000
01000000
10000000
=
11100011

2 Explain why it is important that program code is readable.

Frankly, anyone who can answer this question - and then apply it to real life - is doing better than most professionals. I'm answering "It makes it easier for others to understand what you are trying to accomplish."

3 Explain why a database should not be stored in ROM memory.

I'm assuming the answer is "ROM means Read Only Memory. This means your can't update your database." Not the last "trivia" style question.

4 Give one reason of using this type of selection.

You can argue whether UI elements are computer "science" - but it's a fair question for a single mark. Radio buttons allow you to select one - and only one - answer from a list.

5 State the function of a processor’s registers.

Whoa! OK! Bit of a departure from the last question. Off the top of my head I'd say something like "Extremely short term memory built into the processor where numbers are directly manipulated." Is that right? Damn...

6 Anti-virus software may be included in a security suite.

State two other types of software which should be included in a security suite.

Again, computer science vs ICT raises its head. Incidentally, "Firewall" is the first thing that jumped to my head. And then... Errr... Spam filter? That feels like a weak answer.

7 Criminals can steal your identity by using keylogger programs. State two other ways in which identity theft can be carried out.

Little bit of infosec here! I'm going to say "shoulder surfing" and "Man-in-the-middle attacks".

8 A novice is one type of user of an information system. State one other type of user.

Errr.... "Expert"? Bit bemused as to why this question is here. Seems out of place with the others.

9 This code design monitors the temperature of food as it is reheated.

Line 1 RECEIVE temperature FROM (REAL) 
Line 2 WHILE temperature < 82 DO
Line 3   SEND “temperature too low: continue to reheat” TO DISPLAY
Line 4   RECEIVE temperature FROM (REAL) 
Line 5 END WHILE

Explain what will happen in lines 2 to 5 if the sensor detects 63°.

OK, so this is pseudo-code. Probably a good idea - unless the entire syllabus has standardised on a specific language.

I suppose the answer is "Because the temperature is lower than the condition, the instructions on the inner loop will be carried out. If the temperature stays at 64, the loop is never ended.

10 Lucy is looking for a summer holiday on-line. She wishes to leave on 22nd July from her local airport, and early in the afternoon.

State which database operation is being carried out as she uses the website.

I'm not sure Lucy cares about the back-end system, but let's see. As there's only one line of space, and one point, I'd answer "A search". Although perhaps "An SQL SELECT ... WHERE search" is better?

11 Translators are used to convert high level languages into machine code. Identify each type of translator.

This translator program reports errors at the end of translation.

This translator needs to be present in memory each time the program is executed.

Compiler and Run Time. Useful to know, glad to see this is being taught.

12 A running group has 16 members. They are taking part in a marathon.

Using pseudocode or a programming language of your choice, write the code which will take in each runner’s time for the marathon.

Do I get bonus points if I write this in Assembler?

This is a slightly weird question. How are the times being entered? Should there be any error checking? Should the data be stored?

Anyway

for ($x == 0; $x <= 15; $x++)
{
   $time = get_input("Please enter the runner's time");
   insert_into_database($x, $time);
}

That'll take in 16 times and do something with them.

Writing pseudocode is a useful skill. I'd like to have seen a bit more of it in this paper. Or at least on a more challenging problem.

13 Before launching the website below, it is tested. The testers complain about the effectiveness of the website’s navigation.

Identify two examples of poor navigation, stating what could be done to improve the situation.

No worse than some of the production websites I've seen ;-) Also, no real way to know if alt tags have been used, ARIA etc.

I count...

• Nav bar at top doesn't have understandable text. Should be in English.
• Login box doesn't say what should be entered in each field. Placeholder text should say what each field is for (username, password, pin, etc).
• Down arrow has no context. Should have text explaining where it will take the user.
• Radio buttons and check boxes have inconsistent designs. Make them recognisable.
• Radio buttons and check boxes are visually indistinct. Use a unified design.

A good exercise for anyone interested in web design. Keeping a critical eye is crucial.

14 State the type of network which has no centralised storage.

Eh? What? Bit of a curve ball... Ummm.... Dare I utter the words "Blockchain"? Wait, is that technically a network? Errr... I don't know what they're getting at here. I vaguely remember network topology from university. Token Ring? Surely they're not teaching that obscure piece of tech?

I'll go out on a limb and say "Star Network". It's good to teach about different network types - but this question really needs something more to test the student's knowledge.

15 FlightCrazy is a new company offering a flight booking service to business customers. They want to set up a database to store flight details. A researcher starts to gather information from airport timetables about available flight times.

Oooh! A good clutch of Database questions.

(a) If the full database is created as a flat file, explain why “RouteID” is not a suitable primary key for the table.

Primary keys should be unique.

(b) Describe two problems in creating this as a flat file database.

Hmmm... Are they asking for problems with flat files specifically or in the way this has been created?

I'll punt with "Flat files can't be optimised for searching". And inconsistencies in naming - for example "Monday" and "Mon".

(c) FlightCrazy decide that using a flat file database is not suitable. State a more suitable type of database.

Relational? I mean, I'm guessing they don't want NoSQL?

(d) State the field type that should be used for “Aircraft Code”.

Integer... No! Wait! There are some strings in there. VARCHAR(3)? But what if later codes have more than 3 characters. Let's settle for String.

And the questions keep on coming!

(e) During the development of this database the following input form is created.

(i) State one suitable type of validation for the Departure Airport field.

I'm stumped by what they're asking here. Is it as simple as "if exists"?

(ii) Complete the table below to show suitable data values to test the Number of travellers field.

Say what now? I've never heard of exceptional and extreme data.

I assume "exceptional" means something like typing text into a numeric field.

I also assume that "extreme" means trying an SQL injection.

(f) During the testing of the completed database all the flights from Glasgow to all airports in London on the 8th June were found. The following output was produced.

Describe how the above results have been sorted.

Oooh! A good one. Naively you could say "by price" - but how are the duplicate prices sorted? It's not by airline. It's not by Journey time. It's not by Destination. It looks like it's "First by price, then by time."

Might have been a good idea to ask how the SQL query should have been formed.

And that's the end of the Database section. Some fairly good questions for a 16 year old audience there. Nothing too taxing, although I'm confused by some of the terminology (which may well be my outdated learning).

Now it gets tougher!

16 A Maths game is designed for primary school pupils to test number ordering. In the game the pupil is asked to enter two integer numbers. A third integer number is then randomly generated and shown to the user.

The user must then state if the random number is:

• lower (l) than the two entered numbers
• higher (h) than the two entered numbers
• in the middle (m) of the two entered numbers.

A design for the code is shown below.

SEND randNum TO DISPLAY
GET guess FROM (CHARACTER) KEYBOARD
IF guess = “l” AND randNum < numOne THEN
   SEND “Correct it is lower” TO DISPLAY
   SET score TO score + 1
END IF
IF guess = “m” AND randNum >= numOne AND randNum <= numTwo
   SEND “Correct it is in the middle” TO DISPLAY
   SET score TO score + 1
END IF
IF guess = “h” AND randNum > numTwo
   SEND “Correct it is higher” TO DISPLAY
   SET score TO score + 1
END IF

Youch! That's a lot more info than any previous question. Here we go!

(a) When the two numbers are entered the program should ensure that numTwo is always a higher number than numOne.

Using pseudocode or a programming language of your choice, write several lines to represent this input validation for line 2.

Hmmm... Are we assuming an integer, or something else?

IF (numTwo.type == number AND numTwo > numOne)
   (continue)
ELSE
   SEND "Second number is less than first number" TO DISPLAY

Is that enough?

(b) When the pupil enters their answer it is stored in a variable called “guess”. State the data type stored by the variable “guess”.

Again, tricky. I want to say take it in as a string, then turn into a float.

(c) The program is run with the following data. State the output from the program.

Correct. 10 is between both. Useful to see if people can step through program code.

(d) The program will have to make use of a pre-defined function.

State the pre-defined function used and describe its purpose.

The only thing I can think of is the random number generator. Am I missing something? Would we count comparison operators? Probably not.

(e) Using line numbers, describe how the code could be adapted, allowing the user to play the game 10 times using the same values for numOne and numTwo but a different random number each time.

Well, between line 2 and 3 we want to insert a WHILE loop which counts up from 0. And an incrementing counter at the end.

17 John has been asked to design a website to promote an event being held to raise money for charity.

The organisers of the event provide this diagram showing the pages required and how they should be organised.

(a) What type of navigation structure is required for the website?

Tree. I think... I've never really had to think about it.

(b) State a design notation that John could use to design the layout of the pages.

I'd usually just use path-names. Is it that simple? Or do they mean a notation like UML?

(c) The homepage contains hyperlinks. Describe the function of a hyperlink.

A communist plot by TIMBL to enslave the western world!

To be fair, you could write a decent essay on all the uses of a link - semantics, usability, data structures. But as this is a one-point question, I think they just mean "to allow a user to easily navigate to another web destination."

(d) John begins to build the website and stores all the files and resources on his hard disk. Here is the file structure for the website.

(i) State the type of data you would expect to be stored in the dance.avi file.

Bah! I hate these style of question. Besides, .AVI is such an ancient format. It's a container for video and audio.

(ii) State the relative address John should enter on the display.htm page to link to dunk.gif.

resources/dunk.gif - note the lack of / at the start. I suppose an alternative might be /activities/resources/dunk.gif. Might have been a good idea to ask why /resources.. wouldn't work.

(e) John wants to include an external link to the charity and asks the event organisers to find out the URL.

(i) Explain what is meant by an external link.

A link which will navigate the user away from the domain they are currently on.

(ii) State what the letters URL stand for.

Poor question IMO, IDK when I last needed to know what it meant.

The words "Uniform Resource Locator" is a silly phrase.

(iii) The organisers give John a photograph file from the charity which measures 5 inches by 7 inches with a resolution of 600dpi and 24-bit colour depth. Calculate the storage required for the photograph.

State your answer using appropriate units. Show all your working.

MATHS! FINALLY! Bit of a cumbersome way of phrasing it, but let's give it a go.

Total number of pixels = (5 * 600) * (7 * 600) = 12,600,000 pixels.

Total number of bits = 12600000 * 24 = 302,400,000 bits.

Bytes = 302400000 / 8 = 37,800,000B

KB = 37800000 / 1024 = 36914KB

MB = 36914 / 1024 = 36MB

I'd expect to see something here about lossy vs lossless encoding. Or why this filesize is problematic for use on the web.

18 A software development company decide to review staff knowledge of computer related legislation.

Mikal is asked to create an app covering a range of legal issues.

(a) When Mikal records an introduction using audio software, he is prompted to select the sample rate.

Select sampling rate:

• 22050 Hz
• 44100 Hz
• 96000 Hz

(i) Describe the effect on the size of the sound file if the highest sample rate is selected.

I've no idea what this has to do with legal issues. The higher the sample rate the larger the file.

(ii) After recording, Mikal exports the file as a compressed file. State a suitable standard file format he may have used.

I'd write .MP3 on here - I'd be worried that they wouldn't know what FLAC, OGG, or any other esoteric codec was.

(b) Mikal develops an interactive quiz for the app to test the staff’s knowledge of legislation. The first question is about this recent article from a newspaper.

(i) State the offence that has been committed under the Computer Misuse Act in this article.

OK! Now this is a legal issue! But which specific offence? I've no idea. I'm guessing "Unlawful access" - which is a bit question begging. I hope they're not looking for the exact reference!

(ii) Describe another offence under the terms of this Act.

Proper little Wikileaks going on here. This is taxing my knowledge. My first thought is "changing data without permission" - but that's too similar to the above. I'll go with "intentionally disrupting the performance of a computer without permission" - for example sending a DDoS.

I love that kids are being taught about the law. Excellent idea.

(c) The next question that Mikal creates for the quiz is about another article.

"A man was arrested after he cloned his neighbour's phone."

Name the law which may have been broken in this case.

WTF? OK, learning the law is good - but this isn't computer science. I've zero idea which specific law is broken.

(d) In line with Health and Safety legislation, the company provides adjustable seating and guidelines on maintaining good posture.

Mikal finds graphics on a website that he can use to illustrate his next quiz question.

(i) Explain why he might need to seek permission to use the graphics legally.

Actually, talking about posture might be good on a CS exam. Physical issues are a real pain to deal with.

Anyway, let's go with "The copyright owner of the image may sue for misuse of their intellectual property." Incidentally, I hope my critique of this paper falls under fair use!

(ii) Mikal uses the graphics to create question 3 for the app.

Question: 3 Total Score: 2

Using pseudocode or a programming language of your choice, write the code to show how the total score is calculated when the user answers question 3 correctly.

Errrr.... This is one of those questions that people complained about. How many points is each correct answer worth?

$answer3 = get_input();
if ($answer3 == "A")
   score++

(e) When the staff member takes the finished quiz, the app sends their details and their total score to a database file.

State two rights that the staff member has under the Data Protection Act with regard to their own data.

Another rapid switch! I mean, it is great that the DPA is being mentioned, but a bit weird to do it here.

I'm going with "Right to examine the data held about them" and "Right to correct any mistakes."

Blimey! Still not at the end of the paper. I'm not sure I'd have got this far in the allotted 90 minutes.

WARNING This is one of the questions which attracted a lot of complaints. See if you can work out why!

19 Gillian designs a program to calculate how much it costs to get her dog Penny groomed. The design is shown below.

SET total = 0
DECLARE all costs INITIALLY [35.00, 36.00, 40.00,35.00,42.50]
FOR EACH cost FROM all costs DUE
   SET total=total+cost
END FOR EACH
SEND “The total cost = £“&total TO DISPLAY

OK, that program is a bit weird - but it is pseudocode, we don't expect syntactic brilliance.

(a) Describe the data structure that has been used to store the individual costs.

It's an array.

(b) Gillian writes and tests her program. It works perfectly calculating a correct total of 188.50.

(i) With reference to line numbers, explain how the program calculates the final total.

Line 1 initialises a variable and sets it to zero. Line 3 loops through the array of costs and adds each to the variable.

There are three points available, so I think I've missed something.

(ii) Describe how the contents of the variable total would be stored in the computer’s memory.

WHAT? I don't care! I'll let the compiler take care of that. It is good to get some low-level stuff in the exam. For two points, I'm guessing... "A block of memory of a specific size is reserved for the variable."

(iii) Gillian edits the program with the following data: [35.00,36.00,40.00,35.00,42.50,45.00]

The output is still 188.50.

A Explain why the output is still 188.50.

B State how this error could be corrected.

Debugging is a vital skill - but I really can't see what's going wrong here. Perhaps DUE should be DO? I don't know.

(c) Concatenation has been used in line 6. State the purpose of concatenation.

It... it sticks strings together...? Err... Let's try "It allows a variable to inserted into a string which can then be displayed."

20 Sue uses a website called “Check your Defences!” to learn more about keeping her computer and data safe.

aside I totally love the retro browser screenshot!

(a) Explain the purpose of a firewall.

Keep the Wildlings out of King's Landing? No! That's an ice wall.

A firewall detects whether a connection to or from the network is authorised.

(b) Explain how encryption can help keep data safe.

More Wikileaks! Encryption ensures that only people with the decryption key will be able to view the data. Modern encryption is resistant to brute-force attacks.

I'd have expected a bit more of a technical question - this seems rather basic.

When Sue tries to download the mobile app onto her tablet PC, she gets the following message:

"This app is incompatible with your device - Check your Defences!

System requirements Android 4∙4 or higher, 1∙6 Ghz, 2Gb RAM, 32Gb"

(Gb? Gigabits? A genuine mistake, or designed to trip us up.)

She checks the specification for her tablet PC.

• Size: 267 x 187 x 8 mm
• Weight: 65 kg
• 1∙83Ghz/2GB RAM/16GB
• Battery life: up to 8 hours
• Display: 8∙3” full HD, 10 point multi-touch
• Operating system: Android 4∙1
• USB 3, micro HDMI, microSD card slot 3∙5 MP camera
• Microphone
• Stereo speakers
• Headphone jack
• Wi-Fi

(WHOA! A 65KG tablet. Not exactly portable!)

(c) (i) Sue’s tablet has a range of input and output devices. Identify one of each of these items on Sue’s tablet.

Inputs could be the touch screen, the camera, the mic. Theoretically you could transmit some data back via HDMI, but I would class that as a "showing off" answer. Outputs are the display, the speakers, the headphone jack.

This is back to the basic ICT questions which I hoped we'd left behind. Not very encouraging.

(ii) Identify one interface type on Sue’s tablet.

Again, I'm left in confusion as to what's being asked here. The Universal Serial Bus is an interface - but so is the touch screen...

(iii) Describe one function of an interface.

What? This seems poorly worded. I think they want me to say "To allow data to be exchanged from one device to another."

(iv) Give two reasons why the app is incompatible with Sue’s tablet PC.

Her tablet has a lower version of the operating system. I assume that the 32Gb on the requirements means storage space - but her tablet has 16GB. To my mind sixteen gigabytes is a lot more than 32 gigabits... But I think I'd take a punt and assume there's a mistake in the question.

(d) Sue’s friend Jack views the website on his smart phone but the home screen looks different to the desktop version Sue had been using.

Describe one reason why the user interface on the smartphone version is designed differently to the version Sue had used on her desktop.

There's only one point on offer here. Pity, this would be an excellent chance to write about progressive enhancement, media queries, responsive design.

I'll stick with "Mobile users interact using a finger, this is a less precise interaction than using a mouse, so link targets should be bigger."

LAST QUESTION ALERT!

21 A software developer is creating an online booking system for a bowling alley. Customers can book a bowling lane for a maximum of 4 people playing a maximum of 3 games.

The developer has used a flow chart to produce the program design. Part of the design is shown below.

a) (i) State one benefit of using the design notation shown above instead of pseudocode.

Flowcharts! Yay! I might be going delirious at this point...

"Flowcharts allow people to easily visualise how a program works and, hopefully, spot any mistakes."

(ii) Name the algorithm illustrated in the bowling alley program design.

Grrr... More trivia! And, frankly, it is hardly an algorithm. Frankly, I've no idea what they want as an answer. Nor why it is relevant.

Using pseudocode or a programming language of your choice, complete the conditional statement at Line 3 below to implement this section of the design.

__________  numPlayers __________  and numGames  _______
SEND “Booking Accepted” TO DISPLAY

This is VERY CONFUSING!

Perhaps IF numbPlayers <= 4 and numGames <= 3?

(c) The program is tested using a set of test data.

(i) Complete the table below to show three examples of test data types and the expected result for each type.

ARGH! Back to testing. I mean, yay testing, but what are the test data types again? Extreme and Abnormal?

The last one has a result of Booking rejected. But I've no idea what the data types are. I'm guessing "normal" and "abnormal"?

(ii) The character “£” is entered as a test value for the number of players. This causes the program to crash. State the type of error that would cause this crash.

Depends on the language. I'd say "Type exception" maybe "Cast exception"?

(d) Error detection and correction in a program is easier if the code is readable. State one technique that can be used to ensure readability of code.

And we're back where we started! I'd go with "Clear variable names which don't use abbreviations." I wonder if they'd value an extended discourse on tabs vs spaces?

And Breathe!

That was a lot tougher than I expected. I wasn't doing it in exam conditions, but I felt the pressure.

The obvious mistakes didn't help my nerves but, guess what, the real world isn't perfect either. Computer Science is the art of trying to fit the messy analogue world into a pure state of binary bliss.

Conclusion

I think that's a pretty good computer science paper - especially for students who may only have studied it for a couple of years.

I think it leans slightly too far towards ICT but I'm pleased with the mentions of usability, good design, security, and the law.

There are a few "Trivia" questions. The "What is this thing called" style - I'm not a big fan of them. Far better to test the understanding of the design, not the name. Similarly, the legal questions veer into the obscure.

Some of the technology is a little out of date - but it's such a fast moving space, talking about file-formats which have only recently become popular might disadvantage people without the time to keep up.

So, are the mistakes "a disgrace"?

There should be spaces between array elements - but part of computer science is reading poorly written code.

Some of the pseudocode is typed incorrectly - but that's the nature of pseudocode.

The unit confusion is annoying, and could trip up someone with an eye for detail. That's a shame, but not a showstopper.

I'm not a teacher - and I have no idea what is on the syllabus. All that said, I've met Computer Science graduates who would struggle with some aspects of this paper.

I think us geeks often over-estimate how much we knew when we were kids. When I was 16, I thought I was 1337 (back when that meant something). I wasn't. I couldn't have passed a paper of similar complexity.

I think this represents an excellent foundation for anyone wanting to studying computing.

My Score

You can read the marking instructions online as a PDF

I scored... 59/90. Yikes!

Most of the dropped points were where I over-thought the question, and a few where I was missing basic knowledge (mantissa!). Perhaps I'd have picked up a few points if the marker knew the subject well.

Some, I just screwed up the answers. I wasn't specific enough in saying that the database results had been sorted in descending order.

Based on the published grade boundaries, I think I just about scraped an A.

How did you do?

I remember being at OpenTech in 2010 and listening to one of the speakers talk about her work with young people. One of the teenagers she worked with had ambitions to be a TV presenter.

"Well," she said, "Let's see your show reel." "Haven't got one, miss." came the truculent reply.

She then patiently explained to the young man that he had a camera phone and a YouTube account - that was all he needed to get started.

There are some jobs where you undoubtedly need day-to-day practice in a professional environment. But for the majority of jobs, the web now seems like the perfect school for anyone motivated enough to take control of their own learning.

(I'm aware of the inherent privilege problems here - not everyone has the time to study, or the resources to access the web or get professional equipment.)

Whether you want to learn guitar or how to be a lawyer, there are resources out there to help you get started. It's true that you will need to test your mettle at some point - and possibly pay for a professional qualification - but there's nothing to stop you getting started.

In the online / digital space it's even easier. As Rachel points out above - very few of us have formal qualifications in the areas in which we work. Building a portfolio is perhaps the most important thing you can do - in any field of work.

If you're a teenager - get a GitHub account, start blogging, participate in the professional usergroups, save a record of everything you do, engage in personal SEO. When people like me come to interview you, the first thing we'll do is search for you online - have something ready to show us.

This is the blog version of the discussion I lead.

Kids And Phones

Kids love their phones. Can we use that love to encourage them to learn how to code?

Here's a great stat about teens and mobile phone ownership:

Two-thirds (65%) of children aged 8-15 own a mobile phone

• 49% of 8-11s
• 82% of 12-15s.

Pretty stunning stuff, I'm sure you'll agree. The only problem is, those statistics are from 2006!

Ofcom has been commissioning studies into phone ownership for several years. They give us a great insight into phone usage among kids.

For example, more recently, we see this gem of a stat.

The correlation between age and mobile phone use is particularly strong, with the proportion of children using a mobile almost doubling between the age of 9 (52%) and 15 (95%).

[...] children are acquiring mobiles at a younger age and using them more.

Again, wow! 95% of kids have a mobile. Oh, that stat is from 2008!

Let's go bang up to date with the most recent Ofcom study.

Smartphone ownership in 2010 comprised

• 3% of 5-7s,
• 13% of 8-11s,
• 35% of 12-15s.

A third of kids have smartphones. I'm not sure that we need a whole bunch more statistics to tell us that mobile phones - especially smartphones - are highly desirable to kids. Both boys and girls.

Click to Embiggen.

Social Exclusion

PC ownership isn't as rare as it once was - but it's still a pretty big barrier to entry. Especially if you have to fight parents and siblings for time on a shared computer.

Phone ownership is fairly wide across all levels of society. As this report shows. Click to embiggen.

Which Phone?

Before running off into discussions about what should be taught - let's take a look at which platform is the best for kids.

Taking into account kids' smartphone ownership rates, we get a chart like this. While BlackBerry is very popular at the moment, Android has already started to eclipse it.

The rise of Android is unstoppable when you consider how cheap the phones are getting.

This is the Huawei Ideos:

The Ideos currently retails for US $80 in Kenya. Eighty bucks for an Android 2.2 smartphone. With 3G, Wifi, GPS, touchscreen, and all the other fun stuff the more expensive phones have.

Here in the UK, we're seeing more handsets come in at the sub £100 mark. There are going to be a lot of these cheap but capable smartphones in Christmas Stockings this year.

However, even at £100, that's still too expensive for many students. But I don't think it's too expensive for schools.

Back in the mists of time, when I was a child, our family was lucky enough to own a BBC Micro. This was one of the first mass-produced computers intended for educational user. Most schools had at least one kicking around. But they weren't cheap.

In 1981, the BBC Micro Model A cost £235. The B Model cost £335. (Source: Wikipedia's BBC Micro Page

Adjusted for inflation, that's £750 and £1,050 respectively. A huge quantity of money.

At £80 per phone, a school could quite easily buy a couple of Android handsets to go in each computer lab - and, perhaps, let them be loaned out to students.

Android Advantage

There are two other app development platforms worth considering; BlackBerry and iPhone.

While BlackBerry is popular (for now) it is an absolute pig to program for. It has a level of complexity that is just painful. Added to the problem is its ridiculous signing requirements and you end up with a platform with is quite unusable for kids.

iPhone is the darling of the industry - and very easy to code for - but has three very serious drawbacks.

1. Expensive. iPhone ownership is low because the hardware costs are so high.
2. Limited platform. You can only create iPhone apps on a Mac. If your school has a few hundred Windows XP computers - you'd have to replace them all with expensive Macs.
3. Hard to distribute. If you've written an iPhone app, it is relatively hard to put it on a dozen iPhones - unless you want to get it certified by Apple, which could take a while!

So, Android has the upper hand.

1. The development kits is available on Windows, Mac, and Linux, and will run on very modest computers.
2. Android programming is done in Java. Lots of free tutorials out there.
3. 3D programming is available with OpenGL.
4. There are no distribution restrictions. If a kid has written a fart app - they can spread it round the school to their heart's content, using nothing but BlueTooth if they wanted.
5. Opportunity to make money. If you want to distribute or sell your app through the Android Marketplace, the registration fee is only $25. A school or club could easily register and get all their kids work up on the global stage.

So, how do we capitalise on that and get them interested in coding?

I think that, rather than getting kids to program big boxy computers - where they can only make use of their creations in the computer lab, or a PC they share at home - we should get them writing apps.

Not Angry Birds (although that's great from a physics & mechanics perspective), and not FourSquare clones (although, again, great for geography course work), and not InstaGram filters (could be useful in an art class, I guess), and certainly nothing like Rosetta Stone (may be useful if they're learning a foreign language, perhaps)...

Ahh.... you see, apps can be useful in most classes. Not just for an optional "programming" module.

More than that, they're cool. I don't know if kids still say "cool" - but apps have a high social cachet. "What's that app you're using?" "Oh, just something I wrote!".

Yes, we can start off on "Hello World", then fairly trivially move on to inputs, then conditional statements, then reading sensors, then drawing graphics...

Before you know it, kids have built an app which plays a Justin Beiber clip every time they answer a question correctly in a history test - but only while they're in the playground.

Isn't Someone Already Doing This?

Indeed they are! The CDI AppsForGood team go in to inner city schools and get kids to design apps which will be useful to them and their peers.

I was rather dismissive of the idea when I first heard about it - but I have since seen the error of my ways.

So, my CodingForKids pledge is two-fold

1. Work with AppsForGood to help them achieve their aims. Be an expert advisor to their students. Involve the companies I work for with the project.
2. Find and promote Android programming resources specifically designed for kids. Promote apps which have been built by young students.

We Need You!

If you want to get involved, please visit the CodingForKids Wiki and see how you can help.