Dear all,
Hope you have all had a relaxing few days holiday and that
this will have re-energized you for the last 6 weeks of the year. As some of
you already know I am keen to see coding as part of our literacy curriculum in
the future and thought I would introduce Kenneth, a 4 and a half year old, to the
concept to see if the idea is accessible for Early explorers. We
purchased an app for $1.99, Light Bot, which involved moving a robot around a
course, lighting up squares, changing directions and jumping up and down. He
enjoyed it till it got to the point where he had to repeat loops of actions and
programme these as different lines of programme that could be repeated to
complete the course. So far this concept appears difficult for Kenneth. What
was very interesting was his willingness to check his work before it was
complete to see if he was doing it right and then correcting what he had done
and building upon it. Unfortunately, he could not play completely independently
because the app required someone who could read to explain the instructions.
Visiting classes and ASA's where coding is taking place it is obvious that it energizes and engages students and once you have looked through this food for thought you will see that it will empower them as well. This is what we want for our ISHCMC students, it is our vision for the future.
Visiting classes and ASA's where coding is taking place it is obvious that it energizes and engages students and once you have looked through this food for thought you will see that it will empower them as well. This is what we want for our ISHCMC students, it is our vision for the future.
Where am I going with this?
In the last week of the year we are hoping to have an
hour, first thing in the morning when we invite parents to join their children
and spend time together learning to or actually coding. If 33 million others
can do it, so can we!
Here is the 5 minute promotional video:
Here is a 2 minute video about how Computer Science is the
"new literacy" for the 21st century:
And here is the site that you should all visit to get ahead of the students.
The site is easy to follow and has lots of links that you can start to follow and build your own knowledge and skills.
Late addition with comment:
@the Author of the article . . . as a long-time computer science teacher, my favourite lesson of all time (year after year) was introducing recursion to HS students . . . by reading aloud "The Cat in the Hat Came Back". Try reading Dr Seuss to G12 students and watch the magic happen as they move from being dumbfounded and amused, to understanding the connection with CS. Dr Seuss gives you a fabulous visual description of recursion which cannot be beat! To this day, I have old students write to me to say that whenever they see the word recursion, think about something recursive, or write a recursive solution/algorithm/function . . . they think of the Cat in the Hat. Wonderful stuff
Thank you Claire for this addition to the post:
Here are some additional articles supporting the idea that coding is important for our students:
Here are some additional articles supporting the idea that coding is important for our students:
Here are a few sites that you could explore to increase your
knowledge of coding
http://scratch.mit.edu/ (For pre-schoolers)
Have a great last 6 weeks of the year,
See you on Monday,
Yours
Adrian
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ReplyDeleteMy first question is: what's the rush? It seems to me that preschoolers wouldn't have the ability to reason to be able to wrestle with coding concepts. I think working on social skills & fine motor skills, like printing letters & cutting with scissors, would probably fill their days.
ReplyDelete