Welcome James to our Education Team

If you visited us at the Bett Show in January, or came to Picademy in October or February half term, then you will recognise James Robinson as one of our education team volunteers. He is a well-established member of the Computing At School community, as both a CAS Master Teacher and CAS Hub Leader for Cambridge. He is also a Raspberry Pi Certified Educator and a frequent attendee of Cambridge Raspberry Jams.

james-r-start

I’ve known James for roughly a year now. He is a hugely successful and experienced teacher whose opinion I have sought on regular occasions. We also seem to keep bumping into him at Computing education events like the CAS Conference, and PyconUK as well as at community events like Piwars. It seemed like we were destined to work together!

James says:

I have always enjoyed tinkering with technology and understanding exactly what’s going on under the surface. To learn more, I studied Computer Science at university, and graduated with first class honours. This enhanced my passion for the subject, and I worked at IBM for a while. I initially trained as a maths teacher, but within a term I was leading an ICT department in a middle school, and offering training to non-specialists. Most recently I worked at Soham Village College as lead teacher for Computing. I am very excited about the introduction of Computing to KS3 and 4, and enjoy testing and developing projects with students. My current interests and projects include: using Raspberry Pi in the classroom, Minecraft Pi, Sonic Pi and High Altitude Ballooning. Looking forward to working on the weather station and getting more schools involved with Pi in the sky!

As part of the Foundation’s Education Team, James will be writing educational resources for the website (especially schemes of work for teachers of KS4), as well as continuing to assist with Picademies and other outreach. James has the best case I’ve ever seen for all his Raspberry Pi bits and bobs, and as soon as I saw it I knew he would fit in around here.

james_lego.JPG

james_lego1

37 comments

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Wow! Super – “la famille s’agrandit” (the family is getting bigger)

Congratulations James and the Foundation. Fantastic news. Will be excited to hear what you’ll get up to ;o)

@+,
Alan.

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James is amazing – we’re really lucky to have him. (I have to say this because he’s sitting close enough to me to throw things.)

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You wouldn’t want any of your ink pots to get knocked over ;-)

Congrats James, looks like you’ll fit in well.

James Robinson

Don’t worry Liz, my aim is awful ;-)

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You ole flirt!

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Exciting stuff!!

Congratulations James, loving the box of bits! Look forward to seeing new additions to the resource library.

Pete

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Is it only me, or is there an obscure terry pratchett reference in that Mr. Robinson’s box (of fun pi stuff)?

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yes!

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Glad to see you join the team James, looking forward to even more great resources.

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Yaaayy!

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Welcome Mr. Robinson!

James Robinson

Thanks everyone! Been a busy couple of days trying to get up to speed with everything that’s going on. Having great time though, everyone here is slightly mad!

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“Slightly mad”? I take exception to that remark – I for one am completely barking, and so are most of Engineering… ;-)

Welcome on board!

James Robinson

Slightly mad being the entry requirement, you are something else Simon :-)

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I think you’ll agree that Simon and I are the heart and soul of ‘completely barking’ in the office. Although at least I am tamed by chocolate we’ve yet to discover how to return Simon to his less barking form…

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“Tamed”? Since when was crouching on all fours in the middle of the office shouting for more theobromine and slavering slightly “tame”?

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Welcome James. :-)

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A worthy addition to the Pi team. Looking forward to seeing more KS4 resources! :) we’re the only centre around doing Linux / Pi as A452 assignment! But loving it.

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Being a non-teacher, I didn’t know what age-range KS4 covers, but Wikipedia told me :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_Stage_4
“… when pupils are aged between 14 and 16.”

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Excellent news & well deserved James! Love the case too!

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HUGE congratulations to James and Pi Towers – a really great addition to the Pi family!

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Congratulations James welcome back we are very good guy and a good teacher thanks

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Welcome to the best corner of the office, James!

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There are still corner offices available there??? Why didn’t anyone say so? I’m on my way! (the townspeople scatter, screaming in horror, returning with torches and pitchforks ;)

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No corner offices – merely corners *of* the office. :D

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Welcome James from another (although only my Mom used that name when I was in trouble)! Now, get to work! :D

It is seriously (who, me???) great that you have both a CS degree and great teaching skills as there are waaaay too few of us Out Here trying to get students, let alone the In-Duh-Viduals who “run” things, to understand that computing (not just coding) isn’t just a nice-to-have bell/whistle to use to lure gifted and talented students to charter/magnet/tech schools, but something that _everyone_ needs to understand at least the fundamentals of so that they don’t create information security gaps wide enough to fly a 747 through, not to mention being employable in the 21st Century.

Language arts teachers complain that it’s hard to get kids to write anything, especially with the Siren call of mobile devices distracting them every second of the day. However, sit those same distracted kids down in front of a Pi running Minecraft Pi Edition with the Python API handy in another window and the next thing you know, not only have they mastered conditional branching, but they’ve created an entire story line as to how and why they managed to poop flowers on just the grass blocks as they traipse around their world, not to mention creating an entire world to their liking.

I won’t belabor the obvious STEM teaching advantages the Pi brings as I know I’d be preaching to the choir, so let me just say that I am very much looking forward to working as closely with you and for as much as you can stand (Liz and Eben can explain what that means – the adjective “intense” has been used to describe my passion for being both a SillyCon Valley tech developer and educator :)

I assume you won’t be coming out for Maker Faire in San Francisco, but that doesn’t mean you can’t hide in the luggage (preferably carry-on so you avoid hypothermia and oxygen deprivation ;) of those who are coming (as Yoda said, “Try not … DO!!!”). In any case, please let us know how we Out Here can help and feel free to contact me any time (literally – I’m on-line _almost_ as much as Liz, but I bow before her omnipresence across all time zones on this planet, plus those on other planets, I’m beginning to suspect! :)

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Hi Mr. Robinson, hope your settling in well. We should probably be doing coursework now but hey ho. Anyway have fun at Raspberry Pi. Mr. Robinson 2.0 is getting suspicious. By the way, if we don’t both get A*s, you’re to blame.
Lots of love,
Matt and John xox

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oh Mr Robinson, i’m your biggest fan! I’ve been so inspired by your work as a teacher! Please hit me up on my email!

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woo hoo go sir!!!

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Good luck in your new job sir.

James Robinson

I thought I’d escaped you lot :-D, I’ll come back in and visit some time soon.

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cool :)

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yay we even got an emoji XD

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sir, can I have your email, I have made something really funny I want to show you :)

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You’ll never get rid of us sir. Don’t you worry!

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I guess James will have fewer people calling him “Sir” in his new job! ;-)

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definately

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