There are certain questions every KS3 Computer Science teacher eventually hears.
“Miss, is a keyboard hardware?”
“Yes.”
“Is a monitor a computer?”
“No.”
“Is Google an output device?”
And suddenly the lesson has gone somewhere nobody planned.
The strange thing is that input devices, output devices and storage devices look like some of the easiest topics in KS3 Computing.
Until you actually start asking questions.
Recognising a keyboard isn't the same as understanding input
Show most students a keyboard and they'll tell you it's a keyboard.
Excellent.
Ask:
Why is it an input device?
Things get more interesting.
Students often learn input and output devices as lists:
Keyboard = input.
Monitor = output.
Printer = output.
Which works perfectly...
until you give them something that wasn't on the list.
The real understanding comes when students realise that an input device sends data into a computer system, while an output device communicates data from it.
Once they understand the rule, they don't need to memorise every device ever invented.
Then give them a touchscreen
This is where an apparently easy KS3 Computer Science lesson gets much better.
Ask:
Is a touchscreen an input device or an output device?
Input.
No, output.
Actually...
Both.
Now they have to justify it.
The screen displays information — output.
Touching it sends information into the system — input.
Try the same thing with a:
Headset.
Multifunction printer.
Games controller with vibration.
Smartwatch.
Suddenly we're not testing whether students remember which column something appeared in on a PowerPoint.
We're testing whether they understand what the device actually does.
Storage deserves the same treatment
Storage can become another vocabulary exercise surprisingly quickly.
SSD.
Hard disk.
USB flash drive.
Tick, tick, tick.
But try asking:
Would you choose a USB flash drive as the main storage inside a gaming PC? Why?
Now students have to do something with their knowledge.
Or:
Why might someone choose an SSD instead of an HDD?
The important question becomes less:
“Can you name this storage device?”
and more:
“Can you choose an appropriate device and explain your decision?”
That's a much more useful skill.
A simple worksheet can expose a lot
This is why I still like KS3 Computer Science worksheets for topics like this.
Not as twenty minutes of “fill this in while I answer emails.”
Used properly, a worksheet can become a very quick diagnostic tool.
Give students a selection of devices and ask them to sort them into:
INPUT | OUTPUT | STORAGE
You'll quickly spot who understands the categories and who has been confidently copying the person beside them.
Then push it slightly further:
Which device could fit into more than one category? Why?
Which device would you choose for this situation?
Which one doesn't belong?
Can you add another example and justify where it belongs?
The worksheet hasn't changed much.
The thinking has.
The useful part is what happens afterwards
Once students start sorting, matching and questioning devices, misconceptions become visible.
And that's valuable.
Because I'd rather discover in Year 7 or Year 8 that a student thinks the monitor is the computer than discover much later that they've built several years of Computer Science knowledge on top of a shaky understanding of the basics.
These aren't glamorous topics.
Nobody is rushing into the classroom shouting:
“YES! STORAGE DEVICES TODAY!”
But input, output, hardware and storage are part of the language students will keep meeting throughout Computing and Computer Science.
Getting the foundations right makes everything that follows a little easier.
A ready-made way to try it
For exactly this kind of lesson, I've made a free set of 6 Input, Output & Storage Devices worksheets for KS2 and KS3 Computing.
They use identifying, sorting, matching and odd-one-out activities, so they work particularly well as a starter, recap, independent activity, cover task or quick check of prior knowledge.
The interesting part isn't really completing the worksheets.
It's watching where students hesitate.
That's often where the lesson is.
And if you'd like to try that approach, the full six-worksheet set is available free here.
View the Input, Output & Storage Devices Worksheets →
