These 5 Kits Can Teach Kids About Computers and Coding #etechbc. As adults and parents, we’re quick to point out how much simpler—and therefore better—things were when we were young. Instead of iPads, we had books. Instead of Nerf Blasters, we had Nerf footballs. And instead of Lego’s Jurassic World Raptor Rampage set, we had, well, just a bunch of Legos. But there’s no debating that today’s tech-teaching toys are immeasurably better than the junk we had growing up.
These 5 products can help teach curious young ones about the ins-and-outs of electricity, coding, and computers. Kano Computer Kit Building a wild structure in Minecraft is great for kids’ creativity. The $149 kit’s open source nature lets little ones wander without borders, and peripherals like speakers and Wi-Fi dongles can let you gradually add capabilities to the system (or take them away, if the sound effects are grating on your adult nerves).
LittleBits Learning the science of circuitry can be a snap — at least that’s what the makers of this versatile kit hope. Lightup Makey Makey. Interactive Mini-quizzes and Tutorials to Teach Students Coding. September 1, 2015 Besides the various coding apps and tools we have shared here in the past few months, today we are featuring another two important iPad coding apps that have recently made the news in the EdTech world. The apps are ideal to use with your students to introduce them to the world of programming and coding through the use of interactive tutorials and engaging mini-quizzes. Both of these apps are free to install and the introductory tutorials are also free but to unlock other content you will have to do an in-app purchase. 1- Swifty Swifty provides over 200 simple interactive tutorials to help you learn everything you need to start programming.
The tutorials range from the basics, and advances topics like classes, optionals and tuples. The first chapter is free. Unlock all others with a single in-app purchase! 2- Lrn Len is an iPad app that teaches you coding through interactive min-quizzes. Coding for the Common Core: 15 iPad Coding Apps for K-5+ Check out These Fun iPad Apps for Helping Young Students Learn About Coding, Logic, Math, & More! Dr. Leslie Suters is a faculty member in the College of Education’s Curriculum & Instruction Department at Tennessee Tech University.
She will present the session “Coding for the Core: Using the iPad to Develop Computational Thinking and Mathematical Practices” at the 2015 Teaching and Learning with the iPad Conference this November in Raleigh, NC. Yesterday we published the article, “Coding for the Common Core – Apps for Integrating Coding With Math and ELA“, in which we shared numerous programmable robots and insights and lesson plans that offer ideas for how they can be used in classrooms teaching various subjects. Today, we share 15 different iPad apps (many of them are free!) Scratch Jr (Free, Ages 5 to 7):itunes.apple.com/app/scratchjr/id895485086 Bee Bot (Free, Age 4 and up):itunes.apple.com/app/bee-bot/id500131639 Kodable (Free, Age 5 and up):itunes.apple.com/app/kodable/id577673067. Back to school: Canada lagging in push to teach kids computer coding. Armed with rope, pictures and elephant headbands, it looks like this group of nine-year-olds is setting up a huge game of hopscotch.
But they're really laying out the biggest thing to hit British schools in a century. As the students direct each other through the grid they've built, they're learning the basic fundamentals of computer coding, in the process moving beyond how to use computers to how computers work. "We're actually enabling them and empowering them with skills and capability so that they can choose how they solve problems using technology," says Peter Gaynord, a teacher at Histon and Impington Junior School near Cambridge, England. This class is far from unique. In fact, every single school in England — all 16,000 primary schools and 3,500 secondary schools — have been put firmly on a high-tech path. It's arguably nothing short of an education revolution. "I'm really surprised that administrators and teachers and parents are not saying, 'But what about our kids here?
'" StumbleUpon. Coding on iPads: Beginner to Pro. Code and programming may not be the most important topics on the planet but it is an area of study that sufferers two major problems. one: an industry with millions of unfilled job positions and two: a world where not enough teachers feel confident to run programming projects. The iPad can offer a solution in these situations. There’s an app for that (and a generation) Fortunately, the world of code education is getting easier and more self-sufficient every month. When I say self-sufficient, I mean such that having an expert in the room is not longer a requirement. Initially, many code teachers in the world were skeptical about whether the iPad had any role to play in code learning and thought of it as just a consumption device. Here’s a summary of some of the apps on offer and the level they cater for: Where do I start and end this journey? Here I will attempt to summarise the various levels of learning and the apps that sit at each stage.
Stage one – Single procedure Journey as a team. 3 Myth-Busting Reasons to Start Coding Even at an Older Age. Old people are out of touch with technology. That’s the stereotype, anyway. With adages like “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks” and “He can’t change, he’s already set in his ways”, many of us assume that certain pursuits are for young people only — and programming is no exception. It’s easy to see why this mentality is so pervasive.
As a relative youngster myself, the programming world evolves so quickly that even I find it difficult to keep up. Most of what I learned in school was obsolete by graduation. So if youngsters like me have trouble, is there any hope for the older generation? Yes! I think you should, and here’s why. Developing Your Mental Acuity I started coding at the age of nine back when Gateway, Pentium, and America Online were big household brands. Over the past two decades, I’ve gone through periods of heavy coding (at my worst, I spent fourteen hours a day on my projects) and periods of no coding at all (a wonderful respite from my workaholic tendencies). Coding Breeds Collegiality And Boosts STEM Program Success - TechCrunch. Mark Elgart is president and CEO of AdvancED, a provider of improvement and accreditation services to more than 32,000 schools and school systems across the U.S. and 70 countries.
How to join the network To prepare for the world and the workforce, students need to learn more about themselves and what motivates them. They also need opportunities, both in and out of school, to apply what they are learning to real-world contexts. Not just the kinds of problems they’ll be tackling in their future careers, but also the ways in which they will address them as part of a team of highly skilled knowledge workers. In the video above, Bay Area high school student Avi fondly remembers Super Mario Brothers—not as a diversion, but rather as an inspiration that could ultimately lead her to a career in software engineering as she learns how to code. For Avi and students like her across the country who are learning to code in and out of the classroom, how they build is as important as what they build. Add Coding to Your Elementary Curriculum. . . Right Now. Code.org sums up the situation nicely: Computer science drives innovation in the U.S. economy and society.
Despite growing demand for jobs in the field, it remains marginalized throughout the U.S. K-12 education system. There are many reasons for this. But the earlier we introduce children to coding, the more comfortable they will be when presented with more in-depth learning opportunities in middle and high school. Kids Want to Code Even if you don't have a classroom full of future computer programmers, learning the fundamentals of coding provides students with skills that will serve them well in virtually any career they choose. In my work as the technology chair of our PTA board, I've participated in organizing the Hour of Code for the past two years at my children's school, and Computer Science Week generates a lot of buzz. Children want to learn how to code. And while "cool" is nice, what really matters are the lasting benefits of building these skill sets: So how do we get there?
1. Excellent iPad App to Introduce your Kids to Coding. Why Journalism Students Need a Baseline Understanding of Coding. At most universities, students are required to take English composition courses, and at many others speech and/or foreign language classes are also required. Yet in the debate about teaching code in journalism programs, code is often reduced to a shiny toy.
If we value clear writing and the ability to communicate clearly with a wide variety of people, we should value teaching our students the basics of computer languages and digital communications. These skills will only be more important going forward, and more importantly code, a broad term encompassing several computing languages, is the future of digital and global communication. If we don’t expose our students to this — students we want to lead the next generation of journalism and communication — we are doing them a disservice. In fact, it would be smart for universities to add a general coding class to the core curriculum required of students in all fields. Photo by Lord James and used here with Creative Commons license. Computational Thinking, Learning Skills, 6Cs, and 4Ps – Why Teach Coding? I’ve been doing some extensive reading on this somewhat new term called Computational Thinking (thanks @cordym!) By Jeannette Wing. She testifies that Computational Thinking represents 21st century fluencies as a fundamental skill – as much as reading, writing and arithmetic.
It represents a universally applicable attitude and skill set everyone, not just computer scientists, would be eager to learn and use. Much of this post stems from our newest Ministry project as we are attempting to build a “coding” resource for elementary folk here in Ontario. Its easy for us to skim through the curriculum and find specific expectations per grade, subject and strand. The Finnish government announced recently that programming will become a part of the curriculum in 2016, replacing — to the chagrin of some and the delight of others — one math lesson a week. Teaching coding? How to select a programming language - Page 3 of 3 - eCampus News | eCampus News | 3. By Frank Evans January 19th, 2015 Programming for middle and high school kids VBScript (Visual Basic Scripting Edition) is a programming language developed by Microsoft that is modeled on Visual Basic: this will probably be the first formal programming language learned.
You, as a teacher, should also learn it! Teacher might also like to look at Lua, and Papyrus for Skyrim. Programming for business If a student is interested in becoming a programmer in the business world, two programming languages to become familiar with are: COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language) is used for payroll, accounting, and other business application programs. SQL (Structured Query Language – for databases) is a specially designed programming language for managing data in relational database management systems; it is mainly used for its ‘Query’ function, which is used to search informational databases. Programming for academia, education, research and industry IEEE League Table. Digital Addiction in Tweens and Teens ~ NetSanity.
It see ms as though every tween and teen that is currently on the planet is constantly connected to a digital device. They spend hours a day pouring through social media feeds and watching videos on YouTube. While this is something that most kids enjoy, there are also many dangers involved with this type of behavior. More and more, parents are discovering that their tweens and teens have actually developed a digital addiction.
Having an addiction is never something that is healthy and can greatly affect the day-to-day life of the teen. Fear of Missing Out The main issue that kids face when they have a digital addiction is the “fear of missing out”. Depression One downside, for your child, of being tethered to digital devices is that it may lead to negative consequences . Sleep Deprivation Another issue that teens and tweens face when they have digital addiction is sleep deprivation. T is going on in the digital world and avoid going to sleep. Social Issues Learning Problems What to Watch For. Tweens, Teens, and Video Screens. How Teens and Tweens are Using Social Media: It May Surprise You - Raising Digital Natives.
Social media comes in a variety of forms, but the goal is the largely the same for kids. It serves as a “third space” for teens and tweens—an additional place outside of home and school. It’s a place where young people can “hang out,” even when they are not with their friends. Most grownups think of social media as Facebook and Twitter. While those are the most popular ones worldwide, they may not be the ones that your kids favor. For instance, Facebook has fallen out of favor with many (though not all) younger kids because to them, it’s “for old people.” Think back to when you were a kid. You didn’t want to hang out where your parents hung out—it wasn’t cool. There are literally hundreds of different social media platforms, and the goal is usually one of three things: To chat, share, or play. Chat: Kik, WhatsApp, Yik Yak, Streetchat, SnapchatShare: Posts—Tumblr, Twitter, FacebookPictures—Snapchat, InstagramVideos—Keek, VinePlay: Minecraft, Clash of Clans, Candy Crush Mentoring vs.
Code Blast on the App Store. Beyond Programming: The Power of Making Games -- THE Journal. Gaming Beyond Programming: The Power of Making Games By Lisa Castaneda, Manrita Sidhu02/18/15 "I gained a lot of skills! These skills include more computer skills which I did not have before, along with a different outlook on life. I began to see all of the opportunities in everyday life for different games and ideas. "Creating something out of nothing. A Broader Perspective for Learning Art and creative expression have an interesting way of weaving in and out of classrooms, offering students the opportunity to explore their own ideas and minds. We gathered surveys from 107 game design and development professionals and 300 middle school students, before and after a game development class, about the value of teaching game development in a middle school class.
Game Development Is Far More than Just Plain Old Programming Making computer games can be a great entry point into computer science. "Game creation is an art of understanding and bending perception of a user...