Category: curriculum

Espresso Coding – Computing made simple

Espresso Coding is a new service from Espresso Education that teaches pupils to code and make their own apps to share with their friends and parents. Its also FREE for an extended period until October 31st 2014.

Espresso Coding has everything you need to deliver the coding part of the curriculum for years 1 to 6 including:

  • a comprehensive Scheme of Work linked to Curriculum 2014
  • 70+ step-by step lessons and tablet-friendly activities for pupils to create apps
  • full lesson plans for each activity by December 2013
  • a bespoke website area where apps can be published and shared
  • an introduction to coding using elements of JavaScript (an industry standard)
  • short, helpful video guides
  • additional CPD training is available

Why do I need to teach Coding?  View our FAQs to see some of the reasons all schools will need to teach this new topic.

This is the only tool your school needs to teach and learn how to code.

via Espresso Coding – Computing made simple.

Programming at Schools and Hobby Clubs | Tiigrihüpe

Modern computer and information technology studies at schools should not only focus on computers and word processing programmes. More and more technology has emerged in students’ lives, and to understand the principles of it they need to know more about programming and technology in general.

The Tiger Leap Foundation has launched a programme called ProgeTiger which teaches programming, web applications and website creation during classes or in hobby clubs to students from grades 1 to 12.

continue reading: Programming at Schools and Hobby Clubs | Tiigrihüpe.

scratch-unplugged – Scratch Programs for Computer Science Unplugged – Google Project Hosting

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.

Coding the Curriculum: How High Schools Are Reprogramming Their Classes

There are no lockers in the hallways at Beaver Country Day School. Instead, backpacks and tote bags line either side of the floor while students step over them during the mid-morning rush to class. Nearly everyone is carrying a laptop.

“There used to be lockers, but nobody was really using them,” a passing staff member tells me with a shrug.

The private school, for grades six through twelve, sits in a quiet nook of Chestnut Hill, Mass. — a suburb sandwiched a few miles between, and directly below, Cambridge and downtown Boston. It’s not far from where Mark Zuckerberg built a world-changing social network from his Harvard University dorm room just nine years ago.

Two weeks ago, Beaver became the first school in the United States to implement computer coding into each of its classes.

via Coding the Curriculum: How High Schools Are Reprogramming Their Classes.

Computer Science – Building an Operating System for CS Education – The Center for Elementary Mathematics and Science Education

Expanding computer science (CS) education is of vital importance to the United States. The scope of this challenge is demonstrated in the National Science Foundation’s “CS10K” vision. CS10K seeks to have rigorous academic CS courses in 10,000 high schools taught by 10,000 teachers by 2016. If the nation is going to achieve this goal and realize quality CS education across the country, our strategy needs to be grounded in understandings of our current capacity. Building on this foundation, CS education advocates will be able to identify the next steps to prepare, develop, and support all levels of CS teachers and advocate for the continued expansion and improvement of CS education.

The “Building an Operating System for Computer Science” (OS4CS) study was designed as a collaborative research and communication effort to establish a more comprehensive understanding of our nation’s current high school computer science (CS) teaching population, the support they have, and contexts in which they teach. The University of Chicago’s Center for Elementary Mathematics and Science Education (CEMSE) and Urban Education Institute (UEI) worked with a partnership established by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) that includes the National Science Foundation (NSF), Google, the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA), Microsoft, and the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT) to provide a wide range of information and guidance that would inform and shape CS education efforts.

via Computer Science – Building an Operating System for CS Education – The Center for Elementary Mathematics and Science Education.

Code to Joy: The School for Poetic Computation Opens – NYTimes.com

AUGUST 12, 2013, 11:05 AM By AMY O’LEARY

New computer science graduates jumped by nearly 30 percent last year, and a bevy of professionally oriented programming courses have erupted to teach start-up ready skills like, “How to Build a Mobile App.” So it makes sense that programming is widely considered to be this generation’s “Plastics” — a surefire professional skill that can bring success, security and maybe even stock options.

But fewer people talk about how programming and engineering can be used for pleasure, beauty or surprise.

Now, four people with a variety of backgrounds — in computer science, art, math and design — have banded together in Brooklyn to rethink how programming is taught.

Their school, the School for Poetic Computation, is intended to be more passionate, free-spirited and curiosity-driven than other kinds of private coding schools that have cropped up in the last few years, like New York’s Hacker School which is project-based and paid by start-ups to recruit from their student body, or Seattle’s Code Fellows, which offers practical classes with an aim to get their students a job after graduation.

via Code to Joy: The School for Poetic Computation Opens – NYTimes.com.

New Visual Tool Teaches Kids How to Code at Home | MindShift

As the conversation about education shifts towards helping students develop useful skills in life beyond the classroom, a new spotlight on computer coding has emerged. Kids are impressing adults with their creativity, with their facility in learning new technologies, and their ability to design challenging video games.

More and more, parents are beginning to see computer science and programming as the key to success for their children. And like other foreign languages, even if the child doesn’t grow up to be a computer programmer, learning to code can yield many other benefits, the thinking goes.

continue reading: New Visual Tool Teaches Kids How to Code at Home | MindShift.

Introduction to Globaloria

Get to know Globaloria, the first and largest social learning network, where students develop digital literacies, STEM knowledge and global citizenship skills through game design. Globaloria sparks students’ imaginations as they learn to design and program their own educational games through a mix of teacher-led instruction, team-based learning and online networking with experts and peers

via Introduction to Globaloria.

Why Programming Teaches So Much More Than Technical Skills | MindShift

If your local school system offers computer science courses, chances are those courses are electives that won’t count toward core science or mathematics credit. The implicit message is that, while those skills may prove important for some students’ futures, they aren’t as transferable to a wide range of occupations as, say, Algebra 2 or Biology.

But students like Sam Blazes and Wilfried Hounyo, two winners in the 2012 National STEM Video Game Challenge, say they see their passion for computer programming is potentially leading them into a wide range of future professions.

continue reading- Why Programming Teaches So Much More Than Technical Skills | MindShift.

iPads in Primary Education: Apps for Computer Science

turtleAs part of the proposed new draft primary curriculum for ICT, there is a significant emphasis on computer science. Below I’ve included a selection of apps which can be used in both Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2. The apps included range from basic skills in coding a Beebot to more advanced skills in coding games and simulations in apps such as Hopscotch and Codea

 

continue reading- iPads in Primary Education: Apps for Computer Science.