Junior Cycle Coding: Series of 5 Sessions 

DATE:        5 one-hour sessions on Tuesdays – 14, 21, 28 September & 5, 12 October 2021
TIME:          7pm to 8pm
VENUE:      Zoom Meeting

Course Duration: 5 one-hour sessions. There are also video tutorials available to complement the lessons.

Prerequisite: The only prerequisite for this course is an interest in learning about computer coding.

Equipment: You must have access to a computer with an internet connection to participate.

Learning Outcome: At the end of this course, the participant will have the basic coding skills and resources to enable them to teach Coding to a Junior Cycle class.

Course Outline

Week 1/2

• Introduce basic coding concepts through Scratch coding
  • Variables, operators, loops, decisions
  • Assignment, arithmetic, comparison, Boolean combinations - arrays, lists
  • Functions / Procedures
• Design a simple ‘Lotto’ computer game in Scratch

Week 3

• Coding using Minecraft for Education
• Components of a computer system – Hardware/Software - CPU, memory, main storage, I/O Devices
• How the internet works / protocols for communication

Week 4

• Creating Apps with Javascript
• Designing a website with HTML

Week 5

• Binary/Octal/Hexadecimal Number Systems – Bits/Bytes/Switches/Pixels
• Machine Code / Assembly Language
• Algorithms and Flowcharts
• Sequential / Parallel flow of control
• Python Coding
• Coding the Raspberry Pi single-board computer

Profile – Seán Murphy

I have a Bachelors Degree in Electronic Engineering from UCC and a Masters in Electronic Systems from DCU. I also worked for 6 years as an Electronic Engineer with Parthus/Ceva in Dublin. I have many years of experience in computer hardware and coding from my academic and work backgrounds.

I changed career to teaching after completing the Hdip in Education in NUIG in 2006 and I have been teaching Maths, Physics and Applied Maths to Leaving Cert Honours level for the last 11 years in CBS Ennistymon, Co. Clare. I also teach Junior Cycle Science and Coding. I have a website www.hardsums.ie where I share my teaching resources for these subjects with other teachers/students.

From 2012 – 2015, I worked as a local facilitator for the Project Maths Development Team. This involved giving courses to Maths teachers in the Limerick and Clare Education Centres. More recently, I have given teacher courses on Geogebra in Limerick Education Centre

In my role as  chairman of the Clare/Limerick branch of the IMTA (Irish Maths Teachers’ Association) over the last 5 years I have organised events such as MathsFest 2018 in Limerick (see www.mathsfest.ie)  and TEAM Maths Quizzes for Leaving Cert students. I also maintain the website www.clareimta.ie for sharing resources with maths teachers 

I have also previously given Easter Revision Courses for Leaving Cert Honours Maths students in Ennis, Co. Clare, and at Brú na Páirce, Killarney.