Secondary – Free Digital Content, App or Open Educational Resources
BBC Education – Bitesize KS3
BBC Bitesize is the BBC’s flagship educational website, offering educationally approved, curriculum relevant self-study and home-learning resources which are used by 76% of secondary students.
BBC Bitesize has recently relaunched its KS3 core subjects, by publishing 100+ new guides covering English, history, geography, biology, chemistry and physics – all linked to the KS3 curriculum. This is the first phase of a remake of our content for 11-14 year olds in England, which will see over 400 guides in the sciences, humanities, maths and English launched by the end of the school year.
Authored with expert teachers, the new guides are more interactive and engaging. In response to research with students and teachers, our new KS3 content has been designed to help students with homework and class tests as well as revision and to support progression from year 7 to year 9. Each guide is step-by step and structured and guides are linked together into brand-new teacher-defined courses to make links, which help learners to progress.
Craig’n’Dave YouTube Channel
Since 2015 Craig Sargent and David Hillyard, aka Craig’n’Dave, have supported teachers and students with their ad-free YouTube channel. They are subject specialists and experienced classroom practitioners in computer science. Hundreds of freely available videos deliver the content of the GCSE and A Level specifications. The AQA, Edexcel and OCR computer science courses are covered in depth, each with their own unique set of videos. This ensures a pin-sharp focus on what students need to know to be successful in examinations. Even the subtle differences between the courses are carefully considered. Unlike other YouTube channels, these videos have been created for flipped classroom delivery, for students to use outside school, inside school, for learning the content of the course for the first time and to assist revision. With supporting notes, they also provide an excellent summary and are great for supporting non-specialist teachers and absent students too. In addition, their channel provides tips on examination technique and pedagogical discussions. Find their content at: youtube.com/craigndave
Educational Recording Agency – ERA BBC Shakespeare Archive
Bringing Shakespeare to classrooms across the UK, the BBC Shakespeare Archive Resource on the ERA website provides online access to over 900 programmes relating to Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets, perfect for teaching about the Bard and his work. The Shakespeare Archive also includes adaptations, documentaries, comedies and interviews relating to Shakespeare’s work. This fantastic teaching resource is presented via a streamlined, searchable platform from which educators can easily access Shakespeare content to support teaching, learning and research.
From Kenneth Tynan’s classic 1955 production of Othello (the first ever to be televised) to contemporary interpretations such as Polly Findlay’s The Merchant of Venice, first broadcast in 2020, alongside insightful and enlightening critical analyses of Shakespeare’s work, the BBC Archive is a clear illustration of the immense educational value of broadcast recordings to the education sector.”
Mathigon – Polypad
Polypad is the ultimate mathematical playground: allowing students to explore and discover, be creative, collaborate and learn problem-solving. Hundreds of tools and features cover the entire mathematics curriculum and Mathigon also provides an extensive library of free lesson plans, tutorial videos and regular online workshops.
The unique manipulatives are incredibly intuitive to use and seamlessly work together. Students can create tessellations and other art, or the net of a polyhedron which then folds into an interactive, 3D solid. The virtual dice can be placed on a balance scale to create random arithmetic problems. You can create a parallelogram, cut it into two pieces, rearrange those to make a rectangle, and finally use the virtual ruler to measure its width and height. Our prime factor circles allow you to “pull numbers apart” into their factors, the tables and statistics tools make it incredibly easy to generate data visualisations, and there’s built-in graph plotting and dynamic geometry. Teachers can also create interactive worksheets, assign them through our class management systems, and then review their students’ work. Or you can just have fun with one of the many puzzles and games in our library of examples. The possibilities are endless!
Seeed Studio – CodeCraft: a graphical programming platform for Embedded Machine Learning
Codecraft is a graphical programming platform based on Scratch 3 0 language, it supports programming interactive games or animations, Embedded Machine Learning, and a variety of common hardware devices.
The main feature of Codecraft is that it simplified Embedded Machine Learning(TinyML) into 4 steps only:
Step 1 – Model Creation
Step 2 – Data Acquisition
Step 3 – Training & Deployment
Step 4 – Programming
All the steps are visualized by block coding and come with detailed instructions, making it a super friendly platform to TinyML beginners even to people with no programming background.
In addition to TinyML, Codecraft integrates Microsoft Azure IoT central, which perfectly combines Machine Learning and IoT together, making start Machine Learning and connect to the cloud (AIoT)easy and fun.
The hardware that Codecraft – TinyML requires is Wio Terminal, this is a device developed by Seeed that can not only be programmed by Scratch based language but also supports Arduino, Micropython AT Firmware,
Visual Studio Code, which allows the hardware to be used in all levels of learning starting from zero background to advanced level.
Abundant free educational resources are provided to get started with your Embedded Machine Learning/ AIoT journey！
YourGamePlan
Danny Heath, founder of YourGamePlan, became aware of the lack of support and knowledge young people were receiving about career opportunities and the common transferable skills desired by employers when previously working within recruitment. Danny wanted to break down these social barriers and share insight into as many careers as possible to set young people on the trajectory for a successful future career path.
These factors encouraged him to make it his mission to start up a company that brings about positive social change and encourages social mobility.
In summer 2020, he launched YourGamePlan – the digital career coach for students’ back pockets. It’s designed to ensure that every student has the confidence and support they need to make the right decision about their future when they leave school, no matter what their social background, ability, ethnicity, or gender.
