Problem solving in maths is about more than getting the right answer.
Visualisation, discussion, reflection and curiosity all help pupils develop stronger mathematical thinking across the key stages.
ow.ly/Ytkf50Z4yKo
Had a great time teaching the computer science of algorithms by teaching magic tricks in Dundee as part of the Digital Schoolhouse Festival of Play. How can you do a magic trick, moving a card invisibly from one place to another when you don't know how you did it? www.abertay.ac.uk/news/2026/fe...
What do you do when you have run out of funds to build your revolutionary machine that will change the world? Charles Babbage turned to game AI. Find out why he gave up having decided he could build it in our latest blog...
cs4fn.blog/2026/06/11/b...
My latest cartoon for @newscientist.com
Want to think about how artificial intelligent agents could work together? Try reading Shroud by @aptshadow.bsky.social Actually about alien intelligence, as with his other books, it explores other forms of intelligence (and consciousness) in a gripping way.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shroud_...
Just saw the really inspiring Royal Shakespeare Company musical "The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind" about William Kamkwamba, the young teenager who worked out how to make a wind turbine from scrap to bring electricity to his Malawi village. Here is a CS4FN article about him
cs4fn.blog/2026/06/07/w...
en.wikipedia.org
Introducing problem solving as playful exploration
Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay Victorian Innovator, Charles Babbage, had big ideas. He intended to build the first ever general purpose computer, despite living in the age of steam …
cs4fn.blog
William’s wind turbine made from local wood, scrap metal and a destroyed bicycle by CS4FN [SPOILER ALERT] “The boy who harnessed the wind” is a new musical from the Royal Shakespe…
As an aside dry running was what Ada Lovelace was doing finding Babbage's famous bug that led to her tag as the first programmer (she was not programming as such though, and it was not a program but a trace table she wrote, so not the first programmer but the first dry-runner)
Education Endowment Foundation
Computer Science for Fun (CS4FN)
Computer Science for Fun (CS4FN)
Computer Science for Fun (CS4FN)
Computer Science for Fun (CS4FN)
Tom Gauld
And with two colour tiles (dark and light or face up, face down) you could make mazes and write step and turn instructions to follow to get to the centre, or explore maze following algorithms: Hit a dead end? Then go back to the previous junction turning tiles over behind you to seal off that path.
Pedagogically as a learning activity (as opposed to a debugging activity) doing dry runs by hand yourself is better than using trace tools that do it for you. It actively embeds understanding of semantics rather than watching it happen more passively.
