When can we start coding with kids? Once I started working in a tablet-augmented environment, I had to find out what resources are available for coding on tablets. There are some great tools for teaching programming skills and thinking to kids as young as kindergarten. In my work I will ge getting these apps into the hands of kids and helping they think and work like a programmer
more: My Paperless Classroom: Coding with the Littles, Where to Start on the Ipad K-4.
“Thinking is like cosmic knitting,” Waldorf school founder Rudolph Steiner wrote nearly one hundred years ago. Steiner developed a comprehensive handwork curriculum for Waldorf students based on this idea, filled with knitting, sewing and woodworking, believing that “a person who is unskillful in his fingers will also be unskillful in his intellect, having less mobile ideas and thoughts.”
Today’s Waldorf students still knit socks and whittle kitchen spoons and many Waldorf schools shun the use of technology. Those two things — handwork and technology — might seem at first glance to be at odds. But there’s a case to be made that handwork and computing — and the kind of process that links the two — are more closely related than one might think.
continue reading:
The Kapor Center has collected information on 300+ programs or software that teach youth and adults elements of computer science and coding. This is not an exhaustive list, as this field is rapidly growing. As stated in the introduction, we’re hoping that the larger community will help us to frequently update this list as programs continue to launch.
The primary objective of this Coding Landscape Database is to catalogue organizations that provide some type of coding training. We’ve generally categorized the range of programs into these clusters:
Bootcamps: Intensives that prepare participants for at least entry-level developer positions.
Certifications: Trainings that result in a certification/credential, badge, or belt to identify skill development progress.
Corporation-focused: Courses that provide training to corporations or on behalf of a specific corporation.
Hackathons: Event in which individuals collaborate in a short and intense time period (typically 24 to 72 hours) to build a mobile or web application.
There are many valuable networks and support organizations that help convene and/or advocate for people who work in the tech and coding space. These organizations were not a focus of this data collection effort, and many are not captured in this database. General STEM-oriented programs were also not a focus of this effort and are largely not included. For an organization to be categorized as a bootcamp, it had to have an intensive program over a set period of time that prepares a participant for at least an entry-level coding job.
The primary objective of this Coding Landscape Database is to catalogue organizations that provide some type of coding training. We’ve generally categorized the range of programs into these clusters:
Bootcamps: Intensives that prepare participants for at least entry-level developer positions.
Certifications: Trainings that result in a certification/credential, badge, or belt to identify skill development progress.
Corporation-focused: Courses that provide training to corporations or on behalf of a specific corporation.
Hackathons: Event in which individuals collaborate in a short and intense time period (typically 24 to 72 hours) to build a mobile or web application.
There are many valuable networks and support organizations that help convene and/or advocate for people who work in the tech and coding space. These organizations were not a focus of this data collection effort, and many are not captured in this database. General STEM-oriented programs were also not a focus of this effort and are largely not included. For an organization to be categorized as a bootcamp, it had to have an intensive program over a set period of time that prepares a participant for at least an entry-level coding job.
continue reading Coding Nation | Kapor Center.
Write your apps in techBASIC on your iPad or iPhone. That’s where you use them, and that’s where you write them!
techBASIC makes it easy to write apps with interactive graphics, apps that connect to Bluetooth LE and other sensors, and apps that easily do complex math. Just of few lines of techBASIC code often replace what would take several classes in Objective C!
S4A is a Scratch modification that allows for simple programming of the Arduino open source hardware platform. It provides new blocks for managing sensors and actuators connected to Arduino. There is also a sensors report board similar to the PicoBoard one.The main aim of the project is attracting people to the programming world. The goal is also to provide a high level interface to Arduino programmers with functionalities such as interacting with a set of boards through user events.
via S4A.
These projects test the capabilities of Scratch by implementing the algorithms in the CS Unplugged activities. Possible uses:
To demonstrate algorithms without carrying out the activities.
Review the activities that were done elsewhere.
Facilitate the transition from the activities to programming.
Students looking for advanced projects can modify or extend the projects.
via scratch-unplugged – Scratch Programs for Computer Science Unplugged – Google Project Hosting.
We would like to introduce the BrickPi : a project at Dexter Industries to turn the Raspberry Pi into a robot.The BrickPi is a slide-on board that turns your Raspberry Pi into a robot. The BrickPi helps you connect LEGO® Mindstorms sensors, motors, and parts to easily turn your credit card size computer into a powerful robot.
THE CODE-TO-LEARN FOUNDATION PROMOTES
computational fluency for everyone. The Foundation supports projects that engage young people in learning through coding, enabling them to develop as creative thinkers, designers, and innovators.
The Foundation believes that young people, as they learn to code, develop new ways of thinking about the world — and new ways of thinking about themselves.
continue reading Code-to-Learn Foundation.
Rob MacDonald scrawled an equation on a whiteboard, graphed it, then asked the students in his advanced calculus class to write a formula to calculate slope at any point on the curve.
It was just the third day of school, and the seniors at Beaver Country Day School in Chestnut Hill furiously went to work, with most punching numbers into calculators and scribbling in notebooks. But one student, Lucas Cassels, turned to his laptop and a programming language called Python, which he has used to write a basic software application that can complete the assignment for him. All he had to do was input MacDonald’s equation, pick a point, and the app spit out the slope.
“Everyone should learn coding so they can take shortcuts in math class,” Cassels said with a grin.
The school agrees. Beaver Country Day has launched a program this year to teach computer coding to every student, beginning with upperclassmen and eventually expanding down to sixth-graders. With leading technology companies pressing Massachusetts to make computer science classes available in every school system, Beaver Country Day is taking an unorthodox approach: Rather than teach it as a distinct course, Beaver is integrating coding into all of its subjects, experimenting with uses not only in math and science classes, but even in English and art.
via Coding blended in school lessons – Business – The Boston Globe.
