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After discovering the characteristics that make us be group and having analyzed some Gospel passages that invite to a charity completely free, students are asked to build a story with Scratch distinguishing actions that create community by those who, instead, destroying the community .

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Teachers' Guide to Raspberry Pi | Raspberry Pi Learning Resources

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So you've got some Raspberry Pis for your classroom? Let's explore the options for getting your students started on their Raspberry Pi adventure.

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In this post I'm going to share my experiences, alongside my two young children, of developing a simplified Dungeons & Dragons style game for young children that we've named "Dungeon Explorers" and how this fits in with some basic digital literacy and computing theory. The main objectives of this project have been to:

Develop a fun, non-competitive and expandable game to play together

Spark imagination and enhance storytelling skills

Introduce some pre-programming language and concepts

During the recent lockdowns we've enjoyed playing a variety of board and card games. Throughout the first lockdown my boys were just 2 and 4 but Snakes and Ladders and Cobra Paw were their firm favourites, more recently we've been enjoying Uno, Game of Life Junior and Dungeon Mayhem, to name a few. I love playing games with the children but the only downside is that games are often quite competitive and with two young children, someone usually ends up disappointed (or in tears) when they lose so I was looking for something that would encourage my children to work as a team and accomplish a goal together. From years of watching The Big Bang Theory and, more recently, Stranger Things, I've often been intrigued by the idea of Dungeons and Dragons. As my children are still young (now 3 and 5) I had a look around for a child-friendly alternative and came across Kids Dungeon Adventure. The basic idea of this is simple:

Create a "dungeon" from building blocks.

Introduce a scenario (our regular one is "the evil dragon has captured Sonic the Hedgehog and brave explorers need to rescue him").

Scatter monsters and treasures around the "dungeon".

Gameplay involves navigating the dungeon and defeating the monsters by rolling a six-sided die (knock the die value from the monster's hit points until they are defeated). The grownup plays as the dungeon master and rolls on behalf of the monsters as well as keeping the adventure flowing. Players each start with 20 hit points which are deducted when monsters attack. You can buy Kids Dungeon Adventure for around £5 which gives you the full rulebook along with gameplay ideas, monster cards and treasure cards. For such a reasonable price this is a great starting point for introducing the basic concepts and gameplay.

After playing through the adventure for the first time my five-year old was keen to set up his own dungeon maze using wooden blocks, he chose the monsters from the printed selection and we played again straight away!

3D Modelling

I couldn't resist making the game a little more interesting and incorporating some Computing skills in the form of 3D modelling. I've been keen to introduce my oldest son to some simple 3D modelling after we purchased a 3D printer back in December so we decided to make 3D printed treasures which my son helped design using Tinkercad. I highly recommend Tinkercad as a starting point for 3D modelling with children, it works well in the browser both on a computer and a tablet, and was even accessible enough for my five-year-old to make some simple creations. He was so excited to be able to make something to print in 3D. He was really pleased with how these little tokens turned out and enjoyed assigning meanings to them in the game (for example, the dagger gives you +2 attack points and the key unlocks the dungeon at the end). I was also excited to be able to have something to design and print as I'd not had many opportunities to use the 3D printer, I also designed and created a player dashboard to store player information, items collected and health points which are little hearts. This was a really fun aspect to include in the project! (Although my three-year old cried the first time he had to relinquish some of his health points!)

Designing an adventure

My son was very keen to design his own story to play through, complete with monsters and treasures so I put together a planning booklet for him to use to help plan out the adventure and monster design sheets to create the monsters around the dungeon. He still needs my help with much of the writing during the planning stages at the moment but he gets the concept of why it is important to plan the game and what to do. He very much enjoys inventing stories and this has provided a good opportunity to discuss features that make a good story! We've also moved on from building the dungeons with building blocks to creating drawn maps for players to work their way around instead. Both of my children love drawing so the map and monster creation have been very enjoyable for them.

The planning booklet is currently very simple as my son is only five but I can already see some expansion may be needed soon as our stories are getting more complex and I'm thinking we really need a separate sheet for each part of the adventure alongside space to sketch each area of the map. At the moment my son tries to sit down and draw a whole map to play on then gets frustrated as he doesn't think about or plan it in his head first so it often doesn't meet his expectations, having he opportunity to do a rough sketch of each area first separately would probably be very beneficial.

You can download version 1 of the planning booklet below. Version 2 will probably include the addition of a setting description (or drawing), flowchart, planning pages for both maps and story segments for each of the following:

Beginning - Introduction to the story: Where are you? Why are you there? What is the goal?

Middle - One or two areas with something to do to help achieve the goal (treasures, monsters, friends, puzzles etc.)

End - Usually a significant monster to defeat and/or door to unlock

I'm already seeing similarities with this and the game design documents I've used in the past when teaching computer game design. Here's a download link for version 1 of the planning booklet, along with monster design and combat sheets:

Character Design

We've used a variety of different characters within our games so far; we began with Alien and Minion figures then progressed to Playmobil and Lego characters (complete with accessories!). As the boys are quite into role-play and drawing I decided I could use the 3D printer again to create some character pawns and help them to design their own characters properly to display in them. I referenced some D&D sites to look up common character types and their characteristics and used this to produce a character design sheet simple enough for young children to use, my youngest is a "rogue elf" called Finryn the Fearless. We ended up creating a family of characters including myself and my husband! This was a fun activity and the boys really liked seeing characters made themselves being played in the game!

If you fancy designing your own characters you can download the design sheets below:

Computing

You're probably wondering how any of this relates to Computing, well, I must admit, I had my "Computing Teacher" hat on at the beginning of this project. My son loves using Scratch Junior to create his own little stories and animations and when I came up with this idea, in addition to having a fun game to play I thought it would be a good way to introduce the concept of decision making and rules within an interactive story which is a great starting point for making a simple computer game. I mentioned already that I can see the similarities between designing an adventure for this system to computer game design documents, and in fact, I've had fun running a workshop in school previously working with children to create a roleplaying style game using Scratch. Now I'm not currently in the secondary school classroom my focus is around the early years age group and I discussed in a previous post how, at this stage, the algorithms aspect of computational thinking doesn't need to be taught within a strict computing environment but rather by just the use of our language with children to introduce the basic concepts of:

Making things happen (giving general instructions) - Explain what your character is going to do.

Making decisions (if . . . then . . . else . . .) - "If I roll 4 or higher the monster runs away else he stays and attacks"

Repeating things (loops) - Roll - deduct hit points - repeat until the enemy is defeated

Knowing/remembering things (storing variables) - Keeping track of health and collecting items

As you can see, role playing games allow you to introduce these concepts in a very natural way. Just today my five-year-old played the role of Dungeon Master and explained: " IF you defeat this monster THEN you get the key and you can open the portal door."

Reflections on Playing the Game

I've absolutely loved the evolution of our simple game system over the past few weeks, what started off as simply defeating monsters in a maze/dungeon now includes detailed descriptions of moves carried out, descriptions of the rooms they are in and made-up items they have collected! Both boys get very excited about describing parts of the story but need to be reigned in a little at times when trying to talk over one another!

Personally I have some particular highlights that have stuck in my mind recently:

The Bookcase - When I described a book case that opened into a giant cupboard my son revealed he found a book about all the monsters of the castle and how he could use it to give him extra information to help defeat them!

Robot Party Room (this was my favourite) - My oldest son found a sad robot that was "lonely in the corner of the room because the other robots wouldn't play with him" so my son demonstrated a beautiful act of imaginary kindness and made friends with the robot who then joined the team to help with the quest.

Bats - In a room full of bats my son identified that bats don't like light so got his new robot friend to emanate a bright light "like the sun" from his tummy to daze and knock out the bats when they started flying around erratically!

I'm really happy with how this initial concept has evolved from a simple Dungeons and Dragons style game to the inclusion of 3D design and printing, story-telling, writing and drawing. From here, we'll continue to add detail and variety to our adventures. In terms of progression I've been looking at the Hero Kids RPG System which looks great with a large selection of adventures available to play. This starts to gradually introduce more complex gameplay so would be a natural next step. I've also looked at other off-the-shelf games which will probably feature on our future wish-lists, these being D&D Adventure Begins, No Thank You Evil and Stuffed Fable. If you have any more to add to the list drop me a comment below or tweet @GeekyNicki

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In this post I'm going to share my experiences, alongside my two young children, of developing a simplified Dungeons & Dragons style game for young children that we've named "Dungeon Explorers" and how this fits in with some basic digital literacy and computing theory.

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My certificate

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L'ora del Codice con Minecraft

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Project Spark Tutorial - Making Your First Game

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Of Sparks and Squirrels

Have you ever wanted to build your very own game? Well, if you've got an Xbox One or PC, then a great place to start taking those first few adventurous steps into the game creation process is Project Spark. Developed by Team Dakota, Project Spark is essentially the Microsoft equivalent of Sony's Little Big Planet series, with a healthy splash of Halo's Forge mode thrown in for good measure. In other words, the game is a free-form games builder that provides players with a simple palette of tools from which they can craft a surprisingly large variety of games and worlds to play in.

You'd be forgiven for thinking that a game that mixes elements from both a futuristic sci-fi FPS's multiplayer editing suite, and the wackiness and carefree creative abandon of a cute but world building game would be a total disaster. However, that's not the case; Project Spark is one of the hidden gems on the Xbox One, and well worth a look if you've got some creative virtual muscles to flex. Whether you want to recreate your all-time favourite platformer in minute detail, indulge in some creative landscaping or create your very own gaming masterpiece from scratch, Project Spark is a great place for budding games developers to start tinkering away. You can even upload your creations so others can play through them, and likewise download other players' content and remix it to your heart's content.

The game originally launched in December of 2013 as an open beta on PC, but started to gain more momentum in March 2014 when it launched on Xbox One. At the time, Minecraft had yet to make the generational leap from the Xbox 360 to the Xbox One, so Project Spark found itself in the rather fortuitous position of being the only major world-creation game on Microsoft's new console.

Since Minecraft's release however, things have been rather quiet on the Project Spark front...so just why is it exactly that I'm writing about it over a year later? Well, the first part of Conker's Big Reunion just released yesterday, that's why. A sequel game of sorts to the N64's Conker's Bad Fur Day, Big Reunion is an episodic adventure set within Project Spark (as paid DLC) which stars everyone's favourite boozy squirrel in a quest to pay off a rather hefty bar tab he's steadily accrued.

While I have to say that, personally, I would have much preferred to get a complete brand new stand-alone Conker game, I'm just pleased that we're getting more Conker content at all, even if it is delivered in a bit of a fiddly piecemeal fashion. Bad Fur Day was a much-loved game during the twilight years of the N64 (later re-released as Conker: Live & Reloaded on the original Xbox), so a continuation of the franchise will hopefully give fans a further incentive to go back to Spark if they've been away, or try it out for the first time.

What's interesting about this IP crossover is that once you've finished romping around in the main Big Reunion content, you have the option to have a pop at making your own Conker game...well, at a price anyway. You see, Project Spark functions as a free-to-play title, albeit one that is rather heavy on microtransactions - you can download and start playing the game with the main creation toolset, but you'll find that certain cosmetic items and features are locked behind pay walls. Yes, this does mean that unless you start shelling out cold hard cash for items other than the basic starting props, everything you make does tend to look a bit Fable-esque (whether you want it to or not), but the good news is that all the important features of the game are free. Besides, with some clever design and imagination, players have even found clever ways to turn the default cutesy artstyle and bright colour palettes into effective vehicles for horror games - check out the faithful recreation of P.T. by user SpawnN8NE for a good (and spooky) example.

So, if you wanting to specifically make your own particular nuanced recreation of The Great Mighty Poo boss battle from Bad Fur Day, then you're going to have to pick up Conker DLC assests, roll up your sleeves and prepare to get your hands dirty. If, however, you're just wanting to get stuck in to Project Spark and have a pop at making your own game, then I might just be able to help you out.

The following guide will show you how to make a very basic game in Project Spark on the Xbox One without spending a penny on extra aesthetics. We're going to go through step-by-step how to make a simple 3D platforming game, with coins to collect and enemies to beat along the way to the goal. Okay, so let's get started. To the main menu...and beyond!

Once you've started the game up, and the flashy introduction sequence has finished, you should be faced with a menu that looks like this (Figure 1):

Figure 1: The main menu screen.

Use the d-pad/left stick over the Create option and press A to select it. One thing to note here is that if this is your first time playing Project Spark, the menu items and your onscreen cursor may be faintly outlined and look like the display shown in Figure 2 below:

Figure 2: Some of the icons can be quite faint and translucent at first, but once selected they become solid and opaque like in Figure 1 above.

Don't worry; this just means that you haven't 'activated' each option yet (the game's way of awarding XP or experience points, which you can use to unlock new things). All you have to do is move your (unhelpfully faint) cursor to your desired choice press the A button to activate it; the selected choice will change to a bright green colour and a short verbal prompt from the in-game narrator will play. So if you can't see where your cursor bracket is at first, don't panic; press A and you'll be able to see it turn green on whichever options it's currently over.

Okay, so to recap, with the Create option highlighted, press the A button and you should now be whisked away to a screen that looks like this:

Figure 3: Select the far left option, Empty World and press the A button.

Move the cursor to the far left option, Empty World, and press A. This will generate a new world template for you to customise to your heart's content. You should now see a screen that looks like this, complete with a small chap in a yellow shirt - this will be our playable character in the game, but before we get to him, let's run through the basic cursor and camera controls, and two of the main creation tools. He'll still be there waiting patiently for us, so there's no rush, take your time!

Figure 4: The yellow sphere you can see is the cursor - in this case, it is currently set on the PAINT tool.

The game will give you a quick tutorial on how to move and control the cursor and camera; the cursor is the big yellow sphere that's currently around the character and is controlled with the left stick. The camera can be rotated using the right stick, or 'orbited' as the game likes to fancily put it, around your cursor so you can see what's around your cursor at different angles. You can also zoom in and out with the camera by clicking in the right stick - there's a close, medium and far setting, and you cycle through them in that order with each click. I'd recommend leaving the camera zoomed in close for the time being so you can clearly see what you're doing, but go with whatever zoom setting works best for you.

Figure 5: The right stick controls the camera angles and zoom level.

You can also control the height of the cursor by pressing X to make it go down, and alternatively you can press Y to make it go up. Nice and simple!

Figure 6: The X and Y buttons control the height of the cursor; X goes down, Y goes up.

Have a go now at practising with the cursor and camera controls. Once you're feeling ready and you've got these basic controls under your belt, we can start our game by making a nice big area of land to build it on.

At The Mountains Of Madness

Okay, so we can move the cursor around using the left stick, look at it from different angles using the right stick, and control its in-game height by using X to go lower and Y to go higher. Let's use our newly acquired giant yellow cursor ball skills to make some mountains.

Figure 7: Press the A button to extend the PAINT option from the left hand side of the screen...

Figure 8: ...and press down on the d-pad/left stick once to get to the SCULPT options - Expand will be the first highlighted choice.

The cursor will now change to a clear circle with an orange outline, to show that we're currently in the SCULPT toolset. Expand lets us use the cursor to raise the terrain within the reach of the cursor by holding the right trigger, and lower it using the left trigger. Holding the left bumper brings up the Expand edit menu, and you'll see that you have a few more variables with which to tweak the Expand tool. Scale changes the size of the cursor's area, Shape changes the shape of the cursor (you can choose a square shape or cylinder as different cursor shapes) and Intensity controls how subtle or extreme you want the change in terrain to be. You can move between these variables by continuing to keep the left bumper held and moving the d-pad/left stick right and left, and you can change the numerical value of each variable by keeping the left bumper held and moving the right stick up or down. Phew, that's a lot of directions and button presses to learn, but here comes the fun part, trust me.

Keep on using Expand by pressing the right trigger until you have something that looks roughly like the picture below - for simplicity's sake, let's make a basic long strip of land on which to build our game. Don't worry, it doesn't have to be exactly like the picture below so feel free to use your imagination if you want to design a different landscape.

Figure 9: Make a nice big long strip of land - quite clearly the most mind-blowing shape ever conceived by professional landscapers.

Also, don't worry too much about mistakes - Project Spark allows you to quickly go back and undo any errors you've made by pressing the View button so you can quickly undo a wrong move. Whenever you make an action, a coloured bar will appear at the bottom of the screen to signify that you are taking an action. The colour of the bar signifies the type of actions you're making; Orange signifies actions performed in SCULPT or PAINT, green represents actions made in BIOME (the topmost toolset, used for putting vegetation onto your created landscapes) and actions taken in the PROP toolset (used for putting items into your game world) appear as blue on the bar. We're currently using the Expand tool which is part of the SCULPT toolset menu, so the bar is orange to match the orange SCULPT colour scheme.

You can keep pressing the View button each time you want to go back and undo your steps in reverse order, or can also hold the View button and move the right stick left and right to scrub backwards and forwards along the orange bar to edit out your mistakes instead. Once you're happy with your newly created chunk of land, it's time to get your paintbrushes ready as we're going back to the PAINT tool next.
Painting & Decorating
Right then, we've got a nice big slab of land on our screens, now it's time to slap a nice coat of paint on it...and by paint I mean a coat of lush green vegetation, not your regular tin of Dulux.

Press the A button and then press up on the d-pad/left stick to go back to the PAINT tool, and then press A again to select it. This will bring up the PAINT palette menu at the bottom of the screen, directly above the orange undo bar, and your screen should now look a little something like this.

Figure 10: The PAINT tool palette menu - note the middle box in Free Slots (the left most category) is selected as the current paint.

Press right and left on the d-pad to select what sort of foliage-themed 'paint' you'd like using the little glowing white cursor in the paint menu, located just above the orange undo menu. For our example, let's go with the nice grassy looking second paint choice in Free Slots, as indicated in Figure 10 above.

You should now be the proud owner of a lovely green strip of land like the one in Figure 11 below. Again, not to worry if yours is slightly different; as Bob Ross often said, we don't make mistakes, just happy accidents.

Figure 11: Note the paint selected for the path is the fourth choice in Temperate Woodland section of the PAINT palette.

Before we move on, let's paint a path from one end of the island to the other for our hero to travel on. Let's select the fourth paint in Temperate Woodland as a nice rural-looking choice of path.

Your grassy island, complete with a weather-beaten path, should look something like Figure 12 below; again albeit with your own personal little quirks and artistic flourishes of course.

Figure 12: Your very own island, complete with grass and path.

Figure 13: The Add & Edit Props tool allows you to...you guessed it, add & edit props!

The Add & Edit Props tool allows you to add and tweak the props and items you want to place in your game, and it's where you can start to customise the look and feel of your game. Before we move on, let's move our character to the start of our path so he'll be ready to set off on his quest. To do this, having selected Add & Edit Props with the A button, hover the cursor (now a small blue crosshair-like circle) over him, and press the right trigger. Now, moving the left stick, you can move your character to your desired placement spot - let's stick him at the far left of our path; we'll put some more items at the right end of the path, along with our goal.

Figure 14: Placing the player character on the path. Note how the preview window at the top of the screen changes when you press B to place your character. This gives you an idea of how the game will immediately look to players from their perspective when they start playing.

Once you're happy with your character's placement, first press the left trigger to snap your character to your freshly painted ground - this means that your hero won't end up stuck in the ground when you start to play, which, let's face it, wouldn't be an awful lot of fun. Snapping your character to a surface, or any other object or prop, is just an easy way of getting the game to automatically attach the item you want to the desired surface you're wanting them to stand on, in a single neat button press.

Once you've pressed left trigger to snap your character, press the B button to set the new position and drop your character into place. You'll notice in Figure 14 above that when you press B to set your character's position, the character preview window at the top of the screen will change to show the new starting position of the player when you play the game.

So our character is in place ready to start the game, let's add in a nice big tree at the other end of our island as some pleasant scenery. We're still in the Add & Edit Props tool, so simply press up on the d-pad to open up the prop gallery. The prop palette just displays a small selection of the most commonly used props here, not the full catalogue of goodies on offer in the gallery, so I'll show you how to search in the full prop gallery screen (see Figure 15 below).

Figure 15: The Add & Edit Props gallery selection screen. Note that the top left green highlighted box shows that we're currently looking at a selection of props in the objects category.

Here, we can select objects, characters, effects and lots of other fascinating things to put in our game. All the props are divided up into different categories - you'll see each category is highlighted in the top left corner with a symbol and matching text. To cycle through the different categories of props, first press up on the d-pad/left stick to move the cursor to the symbols at the top left of the screen, and then press left and right on the d-pad/left stick to move through them, using the A button to select the category you want.

We want a tree, which is in the object section, so as it's the default category that loads up, you can just simply scroll through all the choices by pressing/holding right on the d-pad/left stick. However, as there's quite a lot of objects to choose from, that would take quite a lot of time, so let's do something quicker! Move the d-pad/left stick to the right and then up, so that the green cursor is over the search bar, the small blue rectangular box at the top right of the screen displaying the text Begin typing to search. Press the A button, and then use the virtual keyboard to enter the word 'tree' before pressing the Menu button to begin the search.

Figure 16: The search bar is a handy way to search for a specific prop.

This will bring up all the objects that have been tagged as trees by the game. Let's go with the majestic Woodland Tree - Old B as the tree of choice for our game, which can be seen below in Figure 17. Move the cursor over the tree and select it by pressing the A button.

Figure 17: We'll use the Woodland Tree - Old B as a prop in our game.

You'll now see a massive blue outline of the tree in the game. Looks like we've picked a particularly epic tree! Using the left stick, move the tree to where you want to place it in the game - for our example, let's put it at the far right of your island. We place the tree in a very similar manner to the way we placed our character - once you're happy with its position, press the left trigger to snap the tree to the ground (the roots will disappear and be below the ground, but much like with trees in real life, that's normal), but this time, press right trigger to put the tree into the game instead of the B button. The reason for this is that pressing the right trigger creates a new object from the selected prop, for example the tree we've just placed, from scratch. When we placed our character on the path, he already was in the game to start with, so rather than making another character by pressing right trigger, we pressed the B button to just set his new position instead.

Figure 18: Move the tree to where you want it to go...

Figure 19: ...press L to snap it to the ground...

Figure 20: ...and press right trigger to place it in the game. Voila! You've just planted your first tree!

Okay, so we've got a nice leafy tree in our game. Let's add a few more things to the game and then we can play it - we're nearly there now!

All the classic video game characters were usually obsessed with a single thing back in the early 1990s - money. Mario has always been obsessed about grabbing as many coins as possible while stomping on Koopa Troopas, and Sonic was always on the hunt for golden rings (presumably to send off to Cash 4 Gold for a nice hefty sum, the cheeky swine), so we'll go with the same age-old video game goal - collect the coins and get to the goal! First let's put in some nice shiny golden coins for our character to collect.

Open up the Add & Edit Props tool's gallery menu screen again by pressing up on the d-pad. This time, let's go to the search bar and search for 'coin'.

Figure 21: Try your best to resist the Coin Pile...it's difficult, I know.

Figure 22: This looks just like the story of Hansel and Gretel - only with cold hard cash instead of breadcrumbs.

We're nearly ready to test our game, but first, let's make things a bit more difficult for our character; we'll give him some goblins to fight off along the way! These goblins will not be best pleased that the player will be trying to collect the coins we've just put down and will attack when the player gets too close!

Once you're happy with your trail of coins, open up the Add & Edit Props gallery screen again by pressing up on the d-pad. The screen will still be displaying results for our earlier coin search, so first we need to go to the search bar again, press the A button to bring up the keyboard, and this time delete the word coin by pressing the X button, followed by the Menu button. This will clear the search results and let us search the full catalogue of props again. Move your cursor to the top left of the screen, and over the character tab (indicated by the silhouette of a head), pressing the A button to select it.

The character tab contains, surprise, surprise, a selection of characters you can put into your game. From here, you can choose characters both to play as, and also put other characters into your game for you to fight against/interact with. We're going to be controlling the man with the yellow shirt already standing on our island, so let's pick the green Shrek-like Goblin Bruiser as our enemy template by moving the green cursor over him and pressing the A button.

Figure 23: Meet the Goblin Bruiser; lover of coins, hater of adventurers in yellow shirts.

You'll now have the blue outline of the goblin as your cursor, just like when we placed the tree and the coins. Let's place 3 goblins in the grass along our path; spread them out a bit so they don't all bother you at once! I recommend putting one at the start near your character, one somewhere in the middle, and another at the far end near the tree. You'll also want your goblins to be facing your character; we have to give the goblins a fighting chance after all. Move your first goblin to where you want it to go, and before you place it, hold down left bumper to bring up the edit menu for the goblin, move the cursor over Rotate Y (short for Y-axis) using the d-pad/left stick and then rotate the right stick so the green directional symbol that appears on the ground is facing your character.

Figure 24: Although the green symbol is a bit vague, if you line it up with the rough direction of your character it'll make the goblin face towards him.

Remember once you've got your goblin in it's desired spot and it's facing the right way, do the usual routine of pressing left trigger to snap it to the ground, followed by right trigger to place it. Repeat this process for as many goblins as you want, and like I said earlier, three is probably a good number.

Figure 25: The goblins are ready and in position - time to test the game out!

Once you've got your three goblins in place in the grass guarding their trail of coins on the path, let's test out our game so far! Press the Menu button to bring up the pause screen. Here, you can see options to save your game, get in-game tutorials and, perhaps most importantly of all, test your game. Move the cursor over the Test option and press the A Button.

Figure 26: Test lets you leap straight into your game and test out how it's coming along.

Now you're able to play and test out your very own game. Run along the path, collect the coins and get the goblins! The default pre-set controls for our yellow-clad hero are:

Figure 27: Use the X button to perform a close-range melee attack. Take that!

As you move down the path collecting coins, and you start to get close to each goblin, they will come towards you to attack - which is why it's a good idea to spread them out a bit, you don't want all three angry goblins wandering over to hit you at once! Having said that, if you keep an eye on the red health meter in the top left of the screen, you'll see that they don't do very much damage, and if you mash the X button on each one you should be able to take them down very easily.

Figure 28: Pressing the Y button launches a fireball attack you can hit goblins with from afar. Endokuken!

Figure 29: Goblins, coins and a tree, for as far as the eye can see.

Let's recap. We've made an island, we've painted it with grass and a path and we've planted a big tree for decoration. We've added coins to collect, goblins to bash and we've tried out our game using the Test function in the pause menu and gone back to tweak it using the Edit function in the pause menu. All that's left to add for our 3D platformer masterpiece is a goal - an endpoint that marks the end of the game.

Once again, let's look back to some of those original classic games from the NES and Megadrive era to guide our inspirations. What did Mario always find at the end of his levels? Aside from the disappointment of being greeted by yet another Toad and the news that the princess was in another castle, Mario would find a flagpole, so we'll take a leaf (albeit not a super leaf from Super Mario Bros. 3 that would turn us into racoons) out of his book and use a flag as our end of level goal too!

Figure 30: Choose the Village Flag - it's basic, but free.

Figure 31: X marks the spot...well, no actually, the flag does. My bad.

Okay, so we have a flag to use as a goal, but what next? We have to open up the flag's brain - yes, really! Don't worry, it's not a gooey pink brain I'm talking about; every object in Project Spark has an AI brain which can be programmed to do different things. In our case, we want to program our game to end once we touch the flag. Move your cursor over the flag, hold left bumper and press the Y button to bring up the Brain editor.

Figure 32: Time to open up this flag's brain for surgery...STAT!

If your blood turned to ice when you read the word program, don't worry! Project Spark uses a system called 'Koding' (woah, the crazy spelling must mean it's cool, or extremely violent) which lets you program without having to know how to write and read code. You just have to learn how to read Kode instead, but as you'll see, it's quite straightforward. All the Kode programing works like an 'if-then' statement - once you open the brain of a flag, you'll see two boxes, a blue WHEN box, and a green DO box. The WHEN box is the the equivalent of if, and the DO is the equivalent of then:

All of this sounds quite complicated I know, but in practice it becomes quite easy. First of all, we need to tell the flag when the player reaches it. Press the A button on the + symbol to the right of the WHEN box.

Figure 33: The Brain editor screen, displaying the blank first page of the flag's brain. Let's fill it up with Kode.

Then go to Sensors - bump.

Figure 34: This first bit of Kode tells the flag to recognise when an object touches it.

Figure 35: This new bit of Kode we've added means that the flag will now recognise when specifically the player touches it.

This line of Kode now means that when the player touches the flag, something happens. We want that something to be for the player to have won the game and for it to finish.

Now move across to the green + symbol on the DO box and press the A button.

Figure 36: Move the cursor across to the right and select the green DO + sign with the A button to start programing the DO response.

Figure 37: The switch page instruction is the first step in telling the flag's brain what to do next.

This means the game will stop running instructions on one page and will move to another once the player reaches the flag - in our case, the instructions for finishing the game. An object's brain can only run one set of instructions at once - as Project Spark says itself in one of the tutorials:

"Switching Pages is like changing states; like going from being asleep to being awake. You can't be both at once".

Once we've finished contemplating Project Spark's philosophical musings on the finer technicalities of human sleep, we need to again press the A button on the green DO + symbol to tell the game which next page of Kode to switch to.

Press right bumper, select Brains, and then next page. Your first brain page of Kode should look now like this:

Figure 38: The next page instruction combined with the previous switch page command tells the flag's brain to move to a new brain page to start the game over sequence.

From this screen, press right bumper to switch to the new brain page. You can see which page you're currently on by looking at the numbers at the top of the screen just above and to the left of the blue search bar. On this new brain page, we're going to tell the game what to do once the player reaches the flag.

Figure 39: This first Kode instruction will tell the game to display something - but what?

Figure 40: Enter your message and press Menu.

Your screen will now look like this:

Figure 41: This means that the game will display our message - but where?

Now we need to tell the game where to display our text when the player touches the flag. Once again, on the same line, press the A button on the green DO + symbol and then select Modifers - Positioning - Screen Location - screen centre (the button onscreen actually reads screen center, but I refuse to bow to the American spelling). Your screen will now look like this:

Figure 42: This line now means the game will display the text in the centre of the screen, but we're not quite done with it yet.

We have one more modifier to add to this line of code, and that's to tell the game what size font we want the game to display our victory message in. We want the text to be nice and big, so it's a fitting testament to the player's skill at successfully navigating the deadly goblin-infested path they've just battled their way along.

Figure 43: Ta-da! The full line of Kode now means that the game will display the text in the centre of the screen in extra-large font. That's this line done and dusted!

That's the first line of Kode completed on the second brain page for the flag - together with our flag's first brain page, the game will now understand to display the victory message once the player touches the flag. We're not done yet though, we've still got a few lines of Kode to put into this brain to get a nice flashy ending sequence working, but we're close to our finished game.

Move the d-pad/left stick down to the second line of Kode and press the A button on the second DO + symbol to select it. You can easily keep track of which line of Kode you're currently on by looking at which line the horizontal blue cursor is on.

Figure 44: Move your cursor down to the second green DO + and select it with the A button to start inputting the second line of Kode. Nearly there!

Figure 45: This first Kode instruction in the second line tells the game screen to fade to black.

Figure 46: This second Kode instruction tells the game to perform the fade out gradually rather than instantly, but on it's own it won't work; we still need to tell the game how long this will take in seconds.

Figure 47: Type in how long you want the fade to black transition to be. 3 seconds is a good amount, not too long, not too short - the goldilocks number!

Your completed second line of Kode will now look like this:

Figure 48: These two completed lines of Kode tell the game to display our victory text in the centre of the screen, and at the same time gradually fade to black over the course of 3 seconds once the player reaches the flag. It's nearly done!

This full second line now means that the game will take 3 seconds to fade out to black once the player touches the flag. We're very nearly done, trust me! There's just one last line of Kode to input, and it's to tell the game to actually finish once the player touches the flag.

Figure 49: The game over instruction ends the game, but we want it to sync up with our fadeout. We need two more pieces of Kode to get it all working together nicely.

Figure 50: The countdown timer instruction will delay the game over so it doesn't happen immediately when the player touches the flag. We still need to tell the game how long to delay the game over for.

Figure 51: Once again, enter our favourite number and press Menu - that's it!

Speaking of victory messages, congratulations! You've just successfully created your very first Project Spark game. The final page of code for the second page of your flag's now swelling brain will look like this:

Figure 52: The flag's complete second page of Kode for our game over ending sequence. Combined with the first brain page of our flag, the game will now end and fade to black whilst displaying the victory message 3 seconds after the player has touched the flag.

Don't forget to save your map by pressing the Menu button and then Save, and then Save As to give your game a special name, and use Save + Share to upload your masterpiece onto the Project Spark servers so your friends can download and play your game too. Once you're happy with your game and it's saved, go to Exit, and then select Play, and away you go!

Figure 53: You're now the proud owner of the world's brainiest flag. Well done!

If you want to download the map I've created whilst making this guide to tweak it, remix it, or simply destroy it, then from Project Spark's main menu go to Play, then Community, and search for 'Everybody Plays Tutorial Game' in the search bar at the top right of the screen.

Figure 54: Time to set out on your adventure! Have fun and thump some goblins for me! Don't forget to share your creations with your friends and see what they think of your game.

The steps we've gone through in this guide to make your own basic game are really only the tip of the iceberg. The worlds and games available to download from other Project Spark creators show off some remarkable skill and ingenuity in their design, which makes them a great place to learn new tips and tricks for your own creations. There's also in-game tutorials that will teach you how to build games similar to the one we've just created, as well as several others that will guide you through how to build many different types of games. New content, help, items, tools and other bits and pieces are regularly added to the game via regular updates, so you shouldn't run out of things to do or make any time soon.

I hope that this guide was helpful in getting you up and running with making your first game; perhaps it'll be the initial spark (get it?) of inspiration to get you making many, many more.

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Project Spark Tutorial - Making Your First Game - Blog by TB321 - IGN

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Of Sparks and Squirrels Have you ever wanted to build your very own game? Well, if you've got an Xbox One or PC, then a great place to start taking those first few adventurous steps into the game creation process is Project Spark.

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Create an interactive adventure game with Keynote

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Gadget Magazine | The next-gen tech magazine

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Make your inner child squeal with this robotic racing set

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How to Make a Jeopardy Game in PowerPoint

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A lot of engaging interactive applications can be created in PowerPoint to gamify your e-Learning experience. Playing Jeopardy is always a lot of fun. Moreover, every time you see those tiles with categories and different numbers, you can't stop thinking of all the nostalgic moments in your life when you saw it on TV and were always guessing with the players, "What's the correct answer? Am I right or wrong?" It puts you in the player's shoes, even if you aren't a guest on the show.

Now, with modern technology, you can create this game by yourself in about 10-20 minutes from scratch and play it with your friends! In this article you will find out how to make a Jeopardy game in PowerPoint. Create your own clues with pictures, audio and video.

Also, you will understand how it is made from the inside with detailed step-by-step instructions. As a bonus, you will get a free Jeopardy template to play with.

Overview

To make a Jeopardy game, we will use the following features of PowerPoint:

A table to create the game board (or a grid) that shows categories and score (or a cash value).

Hyperlinks to link each selection on the grid to the respective clue slide.

Slide Master view to create unified slides for clues and answers with a consistent design.

To publish the game in web format and share it online, use:

We'll use a PowerPoint table to create the Jeopardy game board. Then we will add hyperlinks to each cell (e.g., SCIENCE for $400) that will link to the respective clue slide in the presentation. After giving an answer, the player will see the correct answer and then will be brought back to the game board.

Stage 1: Create a Game Board

Create a new PowerPoint presentation and name the first slide.

Apply a theme to your presentation on the Design tab.

Add a new slide and add a table by going to the Insert tab > Table.

Create a table with 5 columns and 5 rows.

Resize the table to match your slide and fill in the cells as shown in the picture below.

Recolor your game board to get a more authentic look. You will find the paint bucket instrument called Shading in the Table Tools > Design tab.

After you complete all other steps, the game board will look like this, where each cell is a hyperlink to the respective clue:

Understanding Slide Layouts

You can edit and create new slide layouts in the Slide Master tool.

The layout-based approach and use of the Slide Master view is particularly important in the Jeopardy game, which has a lot of similar slides of two types:

Clue slide. Contains a clue text and an "Answer" button to check the correct answer.

Correct Answer slide. Contains the answer to the respective clue and a "Home" button to go back to the game board.

Changing the master slide's content will automatically apply changes to every slide of that type in the presentation. For example, you can change the background, text placement, size or font in Slide Master, then go back to the Normal view, and you will see that everything was changed.

Stage 2: Create Clue and Correct Answer Layouts

The layouts shown above are already included in the PowerPoint theme for the Jeopardy game. To see how they are made, follow these steps:

Enter Slide Master on the View tab.

Rename it to "Clue."

Add a button to the slide. Go to the Insert tab and click Shapes > Action Buttons. Select a custom one and draw it on the slide.

Right-click, select Edit Text, and add the caption "Answer" to the button.

Similar to the clue slide, create a correct answer slide. Right-click on the left pane in the Slide Master view and select Insert Layout. Name it "Correct Answer".

Add a "Home" action button and point its hyperlink to Slide 2, which is the game board.

Exit from the Slide Master view by clicking the button Close Master View on the top ribbon or select the Normal view in the View tab.

Stage 3: Add All Slides and Link Them to the Grid

We already have the title slide and the game board slide. Also we have the layouts for the Clue / Correct Answer pair.

Add the third slide. Set Layout > Clue.

You have the clue-answer pair now. Duplicate the 3rd and 4th slides as many times as there are active cells in the grid. In this example there are 20 clues, so the total number of slides will be 42, including the first two.

Note: We suggest that you fill in the draft text for clues (e.g., Category 1 Question for $200). This way, it will be easier for you to find and link.

Link the grid cells to the respective slides throughout the entire presentation.

Restrict navigation

Select all the slides except for the first one and uncheck the checkbox On Mouse Click on the Transitions tab. This will establish fluid hyperlink/button navigation in your game, ignoring slide changes by mouse clicks.

Stage 4: Enhance your game

You can enhance your game with audio and video, plus PowerPoint animations and slide transitions. You are free to add any effects you like to provide a more engaging gaming experience.

Add pictures to your clues

The correct answer is: Ribonucleic acid

Add music and make it autoplay

Drag and drop the audio file on the slide or go to Insert > Audio:

It's recommended that you trim audio files to 15 seconds or so.

By the way, Musopen.org is a great online resource with music that can be downloaded and used legally and for free.

The correct answer is: Minor

Add video questions

Drag and drop the video on your clue slide or go Insert > Video.

Closed captioning may also help to make this question available to everybody. Just add a textbox with the CC text and place it underneath the video. The Appearance animation with a 9-second delay was used on this video question, so it doesn't reveal the essence of the question before the words "exposed to these invisible rays" are said in the video.

The correct answer is: Ultraviolet rays

Other improvements

Here are some other ideas on how to improve your game:

Add transition effects for clue slides (Fade or Zoom) using Slide Master. Also, add the Flip transition to the correct answer slide so it will look like you are flipping a flashcard.

Add triggered animations to hide visited cells on the gameboard (you can see it in the .pptx sample file below. It doesn't appear in the HTML5 web presentation though).

Add audio triggers (action buttons) on the clue slides. For example, applause or boo sounds. You can activate any of these sounds during gameplay to make it more fun.

Add a 2nd round and a final Jeopardy by adding a link on the game board slide which will lead to another part (you can insert the template again in the same presentation).

Test your Game
Download our free Jeopardy game template v
Publish for the Web

With iSpring Converter Pro, you can publish your original PowerPoint Jeopardy game in one click and put it on the Web like in this post.

Don't forget to test the functionality of your game after you publish it to a web format.

Play your game

Now comes the fun part! After you have created your own game and posted it on the Web, it's time to invite friends and play! You will need two or more players for the game, plus a piece of paper and pencil to write down the players' score. Run the game and be the host. In the original TV version of this game, contestants can buzz in to give an answer. Because we are not in a studio, contestants can just clap to buzz in.

The rules are quite simple:

The first player chooses the category and the points/complexity
(e.g., Presidents of the United States for 30 points.)

The host clicks on the respective cell on the game board and reads the clue aloud
(e.g., The Teddy Bear was invented in honor of this president after he refused to shoot a bear that was tied to a tree on a hunting trip.)

After the host finishes reading the clue, any contestant can buzz in to give an answer
(e.g., Who is Theodore Roosevelt?)

If the answer was correct, the player gains the points for this clue and can select the next one.

If the answer was incorrect, the player gets a penalty, and the other contestants can buzz in.

After all the clues on the game board have been selected, the player with the highest score wins.

To learn more about the official Jeopardy rules, refer to the official article on Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeopardy

You can play Jeopardy anywhere, from a kindergarten classroom to an office, or to introduce a little fun into a boring meeting or corporate presentation to lighten the mood. This game is not just about knowledge and swiftness, but also about breaking the ice and creating a bond.

If you have troubles creating your own questions, refer to the fan-created archive of all Jeopardy games played:

www.j-archive.com

Get Full Template

If you want to get the full PPT file template or need advanced PowerPoint assistance, please email iSpring support.

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How to Make a Jeopardy Game in PowerPoint

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A lot of engaging interactive applications can be created in PowerPoint to gamify your e-Learning experience. Playing Jeopardy is always a lot of fun. Moreover, every time you see those tiles with categories and different numbers, you can't stop thinking of all the nostalgic moments in your life when you saw it on TV and were always guessing with the players, "What's the correct answer?

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1. Explore a range of game design tools and understand the potential of the different tools as well as the use of game design tools to teach computing more generally

2. Understand what a microcontroller is and can do and how to use it in the classroom

3. Identify a range of tools that can be used to explore internet search, computer networks and web desing

4. Reflect on the topics on the course and how to implement them in your classroom by designing a lesson plan for the Hour of Code

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Scratch - Le azioni che fanno comunità sono un dono per tutti

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Quali sono alcune delle azioni da compiere perché la classe diventi un gruppo che funziona? Clicca sui pacchi dono (perché queste azioni sono un dono che fai a te e agli altri) e leggi la parola che compare. Dopo 3 secondi scomparirà, perciò starà a te metterla in pratica. Scrivi ...

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Create app Android con MIT AppInventor 2

(from Jessica Redeghieri)

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Creare app Android con MIT AppInventor 2

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Come creare applicazioni Android con MIT App Inventor 2, strumento online free e opensource semplice e con enormi potenzialità!

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TalkToMe: A beginner App Inventor app

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TalkToMe: Your first App Inventor app

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touchdevelop

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3.4 Introduction to app development tools

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3.4 Introduction to app development tools

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from raychambers.wordpress.com

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Resources I have put together a number of resources in aid of the Hour Of Code and I'm excited about what's to come!!! Many schools have been interested in trialling Touch Develop in their schools since showcasing some of my students work at BETT this year.

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Teaching with App Inventor | Explore MIT App Inventor

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App Inventor Concept Cards provide a quick way to learn new App Inventor code and concepts. Each of the 13 cards can be printed out, folded in half, and used to prompt students to explore a concept in App Inventor such as timers, sounds, movement, math, multiple screens, making colors, etc.

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App Inventor

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AppInventor.org teaches you how to code with the MIT App Inventor visual coding tool. The site offers a course-in-a-box for teachers and self-directed students, including videos and a free book on App Inventor. AppInventor.org was created by Professor David Wolber and students at the University of San Francisco.

Our work is made possible by our friends at MIT App Inventor, found at appinventor.mit.edu. We are also excited about the launch of the new App Inventor Foundation at appinventorfoundation.org (more news on that soon!)

App Inventor is a visual, blocks language for building Android Apps.

Educational

App Inventor is being used in classrooms all over the world to broaden participation in computer science.

Easy

Coding is like plugging puzzle pieces together-- you can learn within hours.

Fun

Build games, social apps, quizzes, and other apps for you and your friends.

Learn how to build apps

Choose a course to start mastering App Inventor

Course In A Box

Videos, Quizzes, and more.

How do you?

Java Bridge

What's new on App Inventor Blog?

Checkout the latest App Inventor news.
Blog

AppInventor.org Partners

Appinventor.org is a product of the University of San Francisco's Democratize Computing Lab and is funded by the NSF and WM Keck foundation.

AppInventor.org partners with but is a separate entity from MIT App Inventor. Our focus is providing materials for learning and teaching App Inventor, work made possible only through the efforts of the MIT team in developing and maintaining the App Inventor site.

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Learn to build Android apps | Appinventor

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AppInventor.org teaches you how to code with the MIT App Inventor visual coding tool. The site offers a course-in-a-box for teachers and self-directed students, including videos and a free book on App Inventor. AppInventor.org was created by Professor David Wolber and students at the University of San Francisco.

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3.4 Introduction to app development tools

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3.4 Introduction to app development tools

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Two tools for secondary level:

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Educational Robotics – Example Activities

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Module 3 Educational Robotics Examples Script

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BAMBINI E ROBOT

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3.3 Educational robotics - example activities

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3.3 Educational robotics - example activities

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Some activities (also in italian)

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I can not imagine how to introduce robotics into the curriculum of my discipline. I like however to think that the introduction of robotics change the role of the teacher and students. These are stimulated to the development of many skills, such as logical thinking, the ability to collaborate, creativity, etc ...

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Computers are an everyday part of life. We use them constantly in our personal lives and in the workplace. According the the U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics, over 50% of jobs today require some level of technology skills. And, that percentage is expected to grow to almost 80% in the next ten years.

There's no question that computer science skills are helping students succeed. But, computer science is about more than just learning to program. Students also need to learn how to think programmatically, to use programming as a problem-solving tool, and to understand the global impact of computer science and computing.

The most effective STEM programs include what are sometimes called the "Big Ideas" of computer science - foundational principles that are central to computing and help show students how computer science can change the world. Here's a quick overview of some of the big ideas we think are important, and some tips on how you can incorporate them into your STEM Robotics or Computer Science classroom:

Abstraction - Abstraction is a key problem-solving technique that we use in our everyday lives and that can be applied across disciplines and problems. Abstraction helps students manage complexity by reducing the information and details of a problem, allowing them to focus on the main idea. But how do you teach students abstraction?

One way is to Implement a project that start with a complex problem but uses mini-challenges to break the problem into smaller pieces. Have students solve the mini-challenges, focusing on one aspect of the problem at a time, and then use those mini-challenge solutions to build a final solution to the larger, more complex problem.

2. Algorithms - Algorithms are used to develop and express computational problems and they're an important part of Computer Science. But, algorithmic thinking is a tool that students can apply across disciplines and problems. Algorithmic thinking means defining a series of ordered steps you can take to solve a problem. Therefore, it's important that students learn how to not only develop algorithms, but to also learn how to express algorithms in language, connect problems to algorithmic solutions, and evaluate algorithms effectively and analytically.

Here's one idea for introducing algorithms into your STEM Robotics or Computer Science classroom: Provide students with a list of numbers. Ask them to find the largest number and document the procedure they used. (This is also good pseudocode practice!) Next, tell students that they will be given a program that generates 10 random numbers between 0 and 30 and they will have to provide an algorithm to find the largest number from the list. Once students have generated the algorithm and seen it in action, discuss why the algorithm is valuable. While it may not be a big deal to find the largest number out of a group of 10, what if we increased the range of numbers from 0 to 10,000, and increased the amount of numbers from 10 to 1000? In a situation like that, an algorithm would be able to find the largest number much faster than a human.

3. Computational Thinking - Computational thinking is a basic a problem-solving process that can be applied to any domain. This makes computational thinking an important skill for all students, and it's why our curriculum is structured to teach students how to use computational thinking to be precise with their language, base their decisions on data, use a systematic way of thinking to recognize patterns and trends, and break down larger problems into smaller chunks that can be more easily solved.
To learn more about implementing computational thinking in your classroom, read our blog post from last month, "What is Computational Thinking and Why Should You Care?

4. Creativity - People often think that science and creativity are two terms that don't belong together. However, that couldn't be further from the truth. Innovation and creativity are at the heart of STEM and Computer Science. Along with programming skills, students need to learn how to think creatively and need to get comfortable with the creative process.

One great way to do this is by using structured problem-solving in your classroom. Structured problem-solving allows students to be creative, but within parameters. While students will still have opportunities to personalize their projects and justify their solutions, their creativity will still be structured. That way, teachers don't have to worry about students constantly losing focus.

5. Data - This "Big Idea" revolves around the fact that data and information facilitate the creation of knowledge. Over the past 50 years, the tasks that we perform on a routine basis have gotten more and more complex. According to an analysis done by Frank Levy and Richard J. Murane, the amount that employees are asked to solve unstructured problems and acquire and make sense of new information has increased dramatically, by more than 40% .[i] Therefore, it's important to teach students how to analyze and interpret data.

You can do this by having students use coordinate data to code precise movements. Or, ask students to design a short, school-appropriate survey to collect data and answer specific questions. Then, have students write a program to input and analyze their data and calculate basic descriptive statistics such as mean, mode, range, and frequency. You can also ask students to plot their data on a chart or graph, and identify subgroups within the dataset to explain response patterns. Finally ask students to draw conclusions or make generalizations from their data and present their results to the class.

6. Impact - Computers have had a global impact on the way we think and live. The way we work, play, collaborate, communicate, and do business has changed dramatically in recent years and will likely continue to change. It's important for students to understand the global impact of computing in everyday life, and the numerous ways computing helps enable innovation in other fields.

One way to help students understand the impact of computer science is to use activities that involve things like the internet, cybersecurity, internet searches, and the power of programming within advertising. You can also create activities that ask students to connect their programming skills to content from other classes (science, math, etc.). Or, you can ask students to think about and report on the less obvious ways they use technology every day, such as making breakfast, driving in a car, using the self-checkout line at the grocery store, etc.

7. Precision - Programming is precise. It's important for students to learn that a computer program will do exactly what they tell it to do. This is especially evident with robots. If you aren't precise about what you tell your robots to do, they probably won't do what you want. However, precision does not need to be complex. Even simple programming activities can require precise, thoughtful communication - How far should the robot move? How far should it turn?

Your browser does not support HTML5 video.

Ultimately, we're asking students to change the way they think about giving directions. So, a great activity is to have students create a set of instructions explaining how to do a task like following a recipe, drawing a house, or making a paper airplane. Have one student provide the instructions and a second student act as a robot, doing exactly what student #1 is telling him or her to do. Most times, it quickly becomes apparent that students have not fully considered the level of detail required for programming and that they need to be more precise with how they provide instructions.

If you're looking for more ideas on how to integrate "Big Ideas" into your STEM classroom, we've embedded these "Big Ideas" into our research-based curriculum, which is available for free online, or through the purchase of a classroom edition that comes with the benefits of:

Guaranteed Uptime - Keep your classroom up, even if your internet is down.

Zero bandwidth requirements - 30 kids accessing the same curriculum can really slow things down.

High Quality Support - Have a question or need help getting started? You'll have access to our best-in-class support team.

Individual curriculum access for each student or group - With individual access to the curriculum, students can move at the instructional pace that's right for them.

[i] http://content.thirdway.org/publications/714/Dancing-With-Robots.pdf

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Computers are an everyday part of life. We use them constantly in our personal lives and in the workplace. According the the U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics, over 50% of jobs today require some level of technology skills. And, that percentage is expected to grow to almost 80% in the next ten years.

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Arduino

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The Arduino Robot is the first official Arduino on wheels. The robot has two processors, one on each of its two boards. The Motor Board controls the motors, and the Control Board reads sensors and

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3.2 Introduction to educational robotics

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3.2 Introduction to educational robotics

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Beboots

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Blue-Bot™ helps you code, debug and simulate algorithms for the new National Curriculum for Computing. Plan your algorithm on the screen of your device and send it remotely for Bluetooth enabled Blue-Bot to perform right in front of you! See the components inside Blue-Bot through a clear shell - children can see its buzz!

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La giornata della Prof.-2 on Scratch by Citrevi

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3.1 Introduction to visual programming tools          Scratch projects

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3.1 Introduction to visual programming tools          Scratch projects

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Scratch is a free programming language and online community where you can create your own interactive stories, games, and animations.

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Lego Wedo

tool to programme lego machines

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3.1 Introduction to visual programming tools

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3.1 Introduction to visual programming tools

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Kodu Simpler 3D game design tool from Microsoft

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Kodu Game Lab is a 3D game development environment that is designed to teach kids basic programming principles. Kodu allows creators to build the world's terrain, populate it with characters and props, and then program their behaviors and games rules in a bespoke visual programming language.

Kodu originated as a project in Microsoft Research. The original target platform was the Xbox 360 using C#, XNA, and releasing via the Indie Games Channel. The choice of releasing on the Xbox informed much of the early UI development since everything needed to be done using a game controller. Since porting to the PC, support for keyboard, mouse, and touch have been added.

The goal for Kodu has always been to be as easy as possible for new users. Guided by this goal, we've tended to design new features so that they are simple and understandable rather than more complex and complete.

The heart of Kodu is the tile-based programming language. The language is high level in the sense that a lot can be accomplished in a very few lines of “kode” compared to traditional programming. The kode is continuously evaluated so that it immediately reacts to any changes in the state of the world. For instance, the sample below shows how to program a character to find and eat all the apples in the game world. Line 1 says that if the character sees an apple, it should move toward it. If there is more than one apple in the world, it automatically chooses the nearest to move toward. Line 2 says that when the character bumps into the apple, it should eat it. The bumped tile is Kodu’s way of telling when two characters are close to each other. Once the apple is eaten, it no longer exists in the world, so the character will then go after the next one and so on until no more apples remain.

Having the tiles represent real-world events, actions, and objects helps bridge the gap between a new user’s real-world experience and the often abstract nature of computer programming.

Featured Worlds

Download Kodu

Classroom Resources

Videos

Tip and Tricks

Privacy Statement

EULA and Code of Conduct

Questions?

For questions or any support issues, email KoduSupport@InfiniteInstant.com.

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Projectspark

Advanced 3D game design tool from Microsoft

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Appinventor App development tool from MIT

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Touchdevelop App development tool from Microsoft

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3.1 Introduction to visual programming tools

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3.1 Introduction to visual programming tools

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Alice 3D programming environment with drag n' drop of standard coding syntax

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Alice - Tell Stories. Build Games. Learn to Program.

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Alice is used to teach students how to code.

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Blockly from Google and used in Code.org activities

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Games for tomorrow's programmers. Block-based programming lessons for beginners. Free from Google.

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3.1 Introduction to visual programming tools

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3.1 Introduction to visual programming tools

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Scratch most well-known tool with a huge community behind it

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Scratch is a free programming language and online community where you can create your own interactive stories, games, and animations.

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Google for Education: Computational Thinking

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Computational thinking (CT) involves a set of problem-solving skills and techniques that software engineers use to write programs that underlie the computer applications you use such as search, email, and maps

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1.4 What to focus on? Computational thinking

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1.4 What to focus on? Computational thinking

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This is "workingingroup" by on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

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1.3 What to focus on? Cross-curricular skills

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1.3 What to focus on? Cross-curricular skills

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1. What is it, why teach it and what to focus on?

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1. What is it, why teach it and what to focus on?

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1. Develop a clear understanding of what the term computing refers to and to reflect about the role of computing in your school and country

2. Acquire a broad understanding why computing in general and coding in particular are relevant to our student's lives and their understanding of the world around them

3. Understand the variety of skills that can be developed using computing Develop an understanding of the concept of computational thinking

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1. Develop an understanding of a range of approaches and focus areas of how to teach computing 2. Identify methods/activities that can be used to highlight the importance of collaborative work in the area of programming 3. Provide an example of how computing can be linked to other subjects

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1. Acquire an understanding how educational robotics can develop a range of key competences 2. Reflect about the value of visual programming tools in the classroom 3. Understand reasons for focusing on mobile development in the classroom and experiment with two mobile app development tools

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I found this article interesting. I have no experience of this, but it's a point of view on which to reason.

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My...-Full-Color, Step-by-Step Guides The "My..." series is a visually rich, task-based series to help you get up and running with your new device and technology and tap into some of the hidden, or less obvious features. This series also includes "For Seniors" guides, a collection of how-to guide books from AARP and Que that respect your smarts without assuming you are a techie.

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A LETTER FROM RESHMA

When I started Girls Who Code, I never would have imagined that we would grow to become a movement reaching almost 90,000 girls of all backgrounds in all 50 states.

And now, just six years into our work, we've reached a tipping point.

We are on track to achieve gender parity in computer science by 2027. And we know why: because our work is as much about quantity, as it is about quality. We scale our programs to reach more girls in more places, and give them the chance to forge lifelong bonds so they may persist in computer science.

It's incredible. But for us, parity is really just the beginning.

We've reached a moment unmatched in our history, a moment as full of anger and anguish as it is promise and potential. Women and girls across the country are coming together to correct centuries-long power imbalances across lines of gender, race, sexuality, and more.

Girls Who Code is proud to be a part of this movement, and even prouder because our girls - girls of all races and ethnicities and abilities and zip codes - are leading it.

They are solving problems in their communities, empowering their friends, and defining the future of our world.

We're thrilled to be giving them the tools they need to get there.

I hope you'll join us and make sure every girl has the chance to change her world - our world - for the better. Thank you for your support.

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A LETTER FROM RESHMA When I started Girls Who Code, I never would have imagined that we would grow to become a movement reaching almost 90,000 girls of all backgrounds in all 50 states. And now, just six years into our work, we've reached a tipping point.

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The SciGirls Seven: Strategies to Engage Girls in STEM | National Girls Collaborative Project

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The National Girls Collaborative Project brings together organizations throughout the United States and Puerto Rico that are committed to informing and encouraging girls to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM)

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2.5 Computing Courses | Webinar Recording: Competence-based Pedagogy for Teaching Computing - Thursday, 26th November at 18:00h Brussels time.

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2.5 Computing Courses | Webinar Recording: Competence-based Pedagogy for Teaching Computing - Thursday, 26th November at 18:00h Brussels time.

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...educational robotics could be a methodology able to consolidate or facilitating the comprehension of curricular disciplinary concepts.

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Computing Courses | Webinar Recording: Competence-based Pedagogy for Teaching Computing

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This video is part of the Computing courses on the European Schoolnet Academy. For more information visit www.eunacademy.eu

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CS FIELD GUIDE BETA WELCOME! The "Computer Science Field Guide" is an online interactive resource for high school students learning about computer science, developed at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand.

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University of Canterbury Computer Science Education Research Group

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An online interactive resource for high school students learning about computer science

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2. 1 How to teach computing...without computers

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2. 1 How to teach computing...without computers

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A team of researchers and teachers from New Zealand who have developed a large range of resources for activities without computers many of which have even been translated into different languages.

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CS Unplugged is a collection of free teaching material that teaches Computer Science through engaging games and puzzles that use cards, string, crayons and lots of running around.

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My name is Carmela and I teach Religion in Italy, in the Secondary School. I live in Marche. I'm keen on technology, which I have long been trying to implement in my teaching practice. I really like the relationship I have with my students and the positive atmosphere that I have with colleagues. I like projects, experiment with new ways of teaching. I dream of a school that does not get bored.