Category: Uncategorized

Code Monster from Crunchzilla

Code Monster from Crunchzilla is live Javascript programming for fun. The focus is on action. Code changes immediately yield visible results.

Projects start with simple boxes and colors, rapidly progressing into exciting experiments with simple animation and fractals. Important programming concepts like variables, loops, conditionals, expressions, and functions are introduced by example.

Code Monster is a gentle and fun introduction to programming concepts. It is a first step in learning to program. It is not intended to teach all of computer science and programming.

Code Monster is based in Seattle, WA. It is part of the Crunchzilla suite of game and educational projects developed by Geeky Ventures.

via Code Monster from Crunchzilla.

Code School – Code School

Code School is an online learning platform that teaches a variety of programming and web design skills. Courses range from beginner to advanced levels and you get to earn rewards and badges as you learn.

Our courses use screencasts and interactive exercises to guide you to better code. Each course has at least five levels. Each level begins with a 10-15 minute screencast, followed by a series of code challenges you must solve to make it to the next level.

via About Code School – Code School.

Calico – IPRE Wiki

The Calico Project is a framework for learning, doing, and playing with computation. At its core is an integrated editor, interactive console, and social interaction framework for exploring computer science through modern, dynamic languages. It is designed to be a simple, yet powerful, integrated development environment (IDE) for students, teachers, researchers—and regular humans, too! It runs on most any operating system, including Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. All sources for the Calico Project are open and free—freely available and you are free to use them in various ways.

via Calico – IPRE Wiki.

DevTech Research Group at Tufts University

CHERP (Creative Hybrid Environment for Robotic Programming) is a hybrid tangible/graphical computer language designed to provide an engaging introduction to computer programming for young children in both formal and informal educational settings. With CHERP you can create programs for robots like the LEGO Mindstorms RCX and Lego WeDo, as well as the KIWI research prototype. CHERP was developed with funding from the National Science Foundation ( NSF grant # DRL-0735657 ) by the Developmental Technologies Group at Tufts University

via DevTech Research Group at Tufts University.

6 Tips To Get Your Kids Excited About Coding — THE Journal

By Jen Mozen 10/23/13

Teaching kids how to code is top of mind for many people these days. With all the discussions about bolstering STEM education in the United States (not to mention STEM+ and STEAM) and with all the changes to the economy that have pushed technology companies to the forefront, it’s clear that large-scale change is in our future, and coding could someday very well become as integral a part of early education as reading, writing, and math.

Fortunately, you don’t have to wait for “someday” to get your school coding. Here are six tips to help you spark and sustain a child’s interest in programming inside and outside the classroom.

via 6 Tips To Get Your Kids Excited About Coding — THE Journal.

#hack4good | Geeklist International hackathon series

The Geeklist #Hack4good series run and power hackathon events around the world to present problems, form teams and solve the problems using each of our individual strengths in technology. We are comprised of software engineers and hackers, ui/ux designers, product developers and founders, leaders, thinkers and civic minded organizations. We give products built at our hackathons perpetual life and help move them live on and progress beyond the event. Participants completing the event also become immediate members of our Geeklist Corps of Developers. “Hack a better world with us.”

via #hack4good | Geeklist International hackathon series.

Go Ahead, Mess With Texas Instruments – Phil Nichols – The Atlantic

Why educational technologies should be more like graphing calculators and less like iPads. An Object Lesson.

PHIL NICHOLS AUG 30 2013, 11:03 AM ET

Last year, while cleaning out the basement of my childhood home, I discovered a plastic storage bin marked “Calcusoft.” Inside were piles of notebooks filled with sketches, storyboards, and lines of code, and buried beneath it all, a TI-83 Plus graphing calculator.

I bought the calculator the summer before eighth grade, when it was included on a list of required supplies for students entering algebra. At the time, owning a graphing calculator was a small but significant rite of passage for a junior high student. It was a sign of academic sophistication. It announced to younger peers that the equations you were expected to solve outpaced the primitive features of meager, four-function devices. But most importantly, graphing calculators were programmable, which meant they were equipped to play games. While possession of a traditional handheld gaming system constituted a brazen breach of school rules, playing games on a calculator maintained the appearance of genuine scholarly work. A graphing calculator was like having a school-sanctioned Game Boy.

continue reading Go Ahead, Mess With Texas Instruments – Phil Nichols – The Atlantic.

Education Week: Computer Coding Lessons Expanding for K-12 Students

Educators develop creative ways to teach coding through gaming

By Michelle R. Davis

South Hills High School teacher Saleta Thomas bills her class as a digital game-design program for students. But once students opt to take the class, they start learning computer coding through basic programs like Alice, then move on to Flash, JavaScript, ActionScript, and other coding languages.

Since the students in the Fort Worth, Texas, school are focused on digital-game creation, often they don’t even realize they’re learning computer coding, Thomas says. The “marketing” ploy of labeling the course digital-game design has had an impact, she says. Computer science wasn’t a popular course at the low-income school, which has struggled over the past few years to bring test scores up, but the digital-gaming elective has gone from 22 students its first year to 45 this school year, and 81 are projected for the next school year.

continue reading: Education Week: Computer Coding Lessons Expanding for K-12 Students.

OPINION: Learning to Code Isn’t Enough | EdSurge News

Shuchi Grover

The 2020 Science report released in 2005 observed that science was changing in a subtle but fundamental way–from the use of computing to support scientific work, to integrating Computer Science (CS) concepts and tools into the very fabric of science. One only has to look at how data science played a role in the Obama win in 2012, or what movie-making has become today, to realize that the science of computing is changing the face of many fields in equally dramatic, if not quite as fundamental, ways.

continue reading- OPINION: Learning to Code Isn’t Enough | EdSurge News.