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This decoded for learners tool has been designed as a guide for learners to the language and concepts used in Computational Thinking and Designing and Developing Digital Outcomes. Learners can be working on multiple progress outcomes at one time.

While it breaks the progress outcome into several statements, it is not a checklist to work through, nor is it a replacement of the technology curriculum progress outcomes for Computational Thinking or Designing and Developing Digital Outcomes.

You might want to use this tool to support your learners as they become innovative creators of digital solutions.

The Decoded for Learners series is licensed under a creative commons attribution non-commercial share-alike license. We appreciate you sharing your derivation with us.

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This decoded for learners tool has been designed as a guide for learners to the language and concepts used in Computational Thinking and Designing and Developing Digital Outcomes. Learners can be working on multiple progress outcomes at one time.

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COVID-19 has proven a challenge for all educators and for PLD providers. Thanks to the foresight of our Programme Director Tara Fagan, the Raranga Matihiko team were able to move online immediately when the March lockdown was announced to continue supporting our schools and kura, and certain aspects of our work have remained online since then.

During Term 3, Tara Fagan and I have facilitated four webinars for school and curriculum leaders from all across the motu:

1. Understanding the revised Technology learning area

2. Integrating digital technology into your local curriculum

3. Is your school ready for Digital Technology learning?

4. Digital Technology learning in action

Each of these webinars has been recorded and is available under Leadership on the resources section on our website. Following lots of positive feedback from participants, we have decided to offer a follow-up webinar series in Term 4 to support schools as they plan for 2021:

Please register at http://bit.ly/T4RM2020; feel free to attend one, some or all of the webinars. These webinars are free for educators from all schools and kura across Aotearoa. Please note that in addition to the Raranga Matihiko programme, we also support schools with accredited PLD, notably in local curriculum design, digital fluency and around NZ History - feel free to get in touch if you are interested to find out more.

Of course we haven't forgotten about classroom teachers: During Term 2 we wrote and presented 16 episodes for Papa Kāinga | Learning from Home TV, including supporting teacher resources. These are also available from our website under Raranga Matihiko TV. In addition we ran a free online conference at the end of September, and we were absolutely blown away by the huge interest. If you missed out, or if you would like to rewind the learning, please head over to Webinars on the resource section on our website.

Sometimes, a challenge can lead to something positive, it can lead you to challenge what you do day-to-day, push you to come up with a new, hopefully better way. As you are planning for 2021, we trust these resources can support you. Come back to our website regularly for updates and new additions.

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Planning for 2021: Raranga Matihiko supporting school and curriculum leaders

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COVID-19 has proven a challenge for all educators and for PLD providers. Thanks to the foresight of our Programme Director Tara Fagan, the Raranga Matihiko team were able to move online immediately when the March lockdown was announced to continue supporting our schools and kura, and certain aspects of our work have remained online since then.

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Our team is constantly creating new resources designed to help teachers implement new activities into their classrooms.

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Te Hiko Tākaro - A Digital Technologies solution that weaves together code and culture.

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Glide | No Code App Builder | No Code Application Development | Power Your Apps with AI

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Glide makes it easy to build and deploy powerful custom apps powered by AI with no code. Create your first app by trying Glide for free.

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Digital technologies in the curriculum | Piktochart Visual Editor

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The Progress Outcome Evaluation Tool has been developed to anonymously crowdsource information of how Digital Technologies resources relate to the Progress Outcomes, and to see how this data changes over time as students and teachers become more familiar with the revised Technology Curriculum.

Survey features include:

Resources are randomly selected from a set based on your selected year levels taught.

Ability to view distributions of all submissions, compared to your submission.

Ability to add feedback to your answer.

Learn more about POET

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The Progress Outcome Evaluation Tool has been developed to anonymously crowdsource information of how Digital Technologies resources relate to the Progress Outcomes, and to see how this data changes over time as students and teachers become more familiar with the revised Technology Curriculum.

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Enable your Year 9-10 students to collaborate on a design thinking project. The context: challenges and opportunities of emerging mobility technologies.

Lesson plans are mapped against Level 5 achievement objectives in:

The pace of change all around us is picking up, with new jobs, new technologies, new challenges and new opportunities for transport in New Zealand.

In this unit, students undertake design thinking and innovation practices in the context of transport and mobility experiences. The learning process includes problem definition, ideation and prototyping.

Suggested hardware and software lessons leverage existing technology and free platforms so students can build and code miniature self-driving cars.

The unit can be explored over two to three weeks or adjusted to be part of a wider inquiry. Students don't need to complete every task.

Download the whole curriculum resource

Get everything described below in one click.
AutonoMate all curriculum resource files [ZIP, 22 MB]
View the resource by section

Main files
AutonoMate Year 9-10 Curriculum Resource [PDF, 1.7 MB]
This includes a unit outline and six modules of lesson plans.
AutonoMate one-pager [PDF, 263 KB]
A handy outline / poster to share with colleagues.
AutonoMate posters [PDF, 68 KB] AutonoMate postcard [PDF, 1.2 MB] Self-assessment rubric [PDF, 922 KB]
Activity resources

These are numbered to their corresponding module. Direct links are also found in the main curriculum resource.
M1 Rose thorn bud [PDF, 907 KB] M1 Storyboard [PDF, 907 KB] M3 Creative insight statements [PDF, 7.2 MB] M3 Say do think feel [PDF, 907 KB] M5 I like I wish I wonder [PDF, 178 KB] M6 Create a pitch [PDF, 60 KB]
Read the case study

How Mt Roskill Grammar students experienced a trial event based on the AutonoMate learning process:

Coding cars models the future of transport

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Enable your Year 9-10 students to collaborate on a design thinking project. The context: challenges and opportunities of emerging mobility technologies. Lesson plans are mapped against Level 5 achievement objectives in: The pace of change all around us is picking up, with new jobs, new technologies, new challenges and new opportunities for transport in New Zealand.

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Earlier this year while wandering through the toy aisle at a store an item caught my attention. The toy, reacted to its surroundings, hurtling itself across the floor with more gusto and louder than the noise from the excited tamariki nearby. It interested me, because I could see the link to Computational Thinking, one of the new areas in the Technology curriculum. If I were to code it I would break it down. A sensor, reacting to noise. The more noise detected meant more speed moving forward. It seemed fairly accessible for learners, they would be able to grasp the concept behind it. A great metaphor for teaching in some ways - the more that was going on around us the faster we had to move and react.

Mindfulness

The more noise about a topic, the faster we feel we have to move to catch up. But what was the purpose of that toy? Apart from a great Christmas present to annoy a parent, I would have to do some thinking. The new Digital Technologies content can feel a little like this. As teachers, it is hard not to get caught up in the noise but if we allow this, then we miss the best part of this curriculum is that we have the space to slow down. We no longer have all the answers or the best ways of doing or even the years of experience behind us to help us choose the best and most relevant parts for our tamariki. What I want to encourage kaiako to do now is to make the most of this opportunity to give back the time and space to our learners and let them find their own authentic context.

Redesigning roles

Kaiako are so used to being givers of knowledge. Able to tackle a task from a variety of angles, rearranging, reevaluating and finding new ways for our tamariki to engage. We have become so good at sharing resources that we know are tried and true, we know what lessons were a success and why. We can change and adapt them in different ways to help those students who need to see it in a different light or context. With the Digital Technologies curriculum this knowledge is, for a lot of us, more foreign. Suddenly we are on the same playing field as our students and, for some of us, it can feel like we are at the beginning again. It can feel uncomfortable. The story of Maui and how he obtained the secret of fire helps us consider the benefits of approaching things in a new way.

His curious nature helped him to think beyond the comfortable norm. Māui's bravery meant that he fearlessly acted on his hunch to explore beyond current circumstances. His steady tenacity enabled Māui to persevere in his pursuit of a new, more effective solution.

Renee Raroa (2019)

If you are familiar with CORE's 2019 Ten Trends you will know that one of them is the Changing role of teachers. Where in the past teachers were expected to be givers of knowledge, now we need to look at how we can help our tamariki take risks, celebrate their mistakes as an expected part of the journey, and how we can help them identify authentic needs and help them engage with these needs creatively. The New Zealand curriculum states that;

"Technology is intervention by design. It uses intellectual and practical resources to create technological outcomes, which expand human possibilities by addressing needs and realising opportunities."
NZC, Technology Learning Area

Technology is driven by our desire to create something that can help us. Our outcome could be something that connects people to the land, helps them embrace their culture, assists with communication or understanding. That leaves a wide playing field. How do we narrow down what our purposeful outcome will be? We do this by encouraging our tamariki to look around them and identify problems they can relate to, are passionate about and connected to.

Authentic context

A colleague of mine told me a beautiful story about a kura she was working in. Conversations were started by identifying needs from people they knew, what ideas do we have to address those needs? This brought them to a discussion around how a peer was hearing impaired and as such the school bell was irrelevant for them. They explored this concept and began to talk about lights. The students talked about how lights warn us, convince us or help draw attention to something. From here developed a natural and purposeful inquiry that led to a prototype around how their school could code lights to flash and signal to their peers that the bells had rung. The context was authentic, meaningful for the students, and the outcome was purposeful.

An important discussion and starting place for delivering this content in an authentic context are the discussions around the ethical responsibility we have as creators. Just because we can create something should we? Kia Takatū ā Matihiko, The National Digital Readiness Programme, has a recurring theme around identifying the skills and qualities that help us engage with Digital Technologies. Mahuika, the goddess of fire is one of the characters showcased through the programme. She is a Kaitiaki, a guardian, and when we look for that authentic context to drive these learning opportunities, we need to check and ask ourselves some of these questions.

What needs do we have in our school or community?

What are our tamariki passionate or interested about?

What exists already and how does it work?

What are our initial ideas or prototypes?

What could the repercussions of this be? Is our design ethical?

These questions will need to be continually revisited, and at the beginning the outcome or destination that is driving this learning may not be yet clear. Technology in the New Zealand Curriculum has a spotlight section on authentic context which has multiple examples of what teachers have been doing in schools. A quote here from Aaron Duff that sums it up well.

"Authentic learning is not discovered in a textbook, but rather at the crossroads of contemporary societal issues and student passion."

The challenge with using textbooks, and online resources is that although it can be a wonderful way to initially engage and build confidence around new learning, it tends to take away the authenticity. As soon as you give tamariki a problem to solve you are removing the potential to drive and connect children in a meaningful way. In saying that, your students may well share the same passions as others and sometimes we can be shaped and influenced by seeing examples of innovation. Many schools around New Zealand have embraced taking risks in this space and you can see lots of examples in the resource section of Technology Online or connect yourself with other educators in Aotearoa in spaces such as Ngā Kiriahi. The collaboration available from other tamariki and kaiako can inspire us and help shape our own authentic contexts.

Looking at the potential

What else could authentic context look like? One of the Kia Takatū Meetups this year was held at the Wigram Air Force Museum in Christchurch. Because of the unique opportunity this presented, teachers wanted to give back to the hosts and look at how that partnership could be strengthened, both for the Museum and for the participants. The teachers were invited to create a digital outcome to help with an identified need. The Air Force Museum wanted to engage with educators and their schools more, allow their visitors to interact with the exhibitions and also to have their voice and ideas listened to. They wanted schools to be able to connect with their history and allow more accessibility to more New Zealanders.

The range of responses from our digital creators was impressive. Some of the ideas and prototypes included, a virtual guide, interactive exhibitions, and the creation of LEGO planes that moved and behaved like some of the ones they currently had on display. The idea of using virtual reality to allow access to planes that are no longer open to the public was another discussion point that began to ignite ideas and excite learners as they began to see the potential for various prototypes.

Connection to place

Aotearoa is the perfect place to start connecting tamariki to the Technology curriculum. Our connection to our physical environment and meaningful ways we can express our culture and identity provides a wealth of starting points for these conversations. There are some incredible technological opportunities currently happening in Aotearoa that you could talk about with your tamariki, and if they were interested you could reach out and get involved.

The South Island Kōkako Charitable Trust has recently put out a Facebook post asking for help creating a device to help them locate the once thought extinct South Island Kōkako. You can read more about the Cacophany project here.

This report about a drone eliminating a hornets nest also ignited my interest, as the Department of Conservation currently has a focus on pest control. These ideas are but to name a few and they are definitely biased towards my own personal interests and ideas. So when you start this with your own children think about identifying what is already in your community, and what things are exciting and inspiring for your students.

Thinking back on our hurtling toy, I wonder if we can change the metaphor? Stop and appreciate the quiet, the long pauses where the thoughts start to take place. The action will come, but your job is not to know where you're going at the beginning, or even halfway through. You may even find the outcome changes constantly the more you find out about it. But the learning is in the journey and with teachers sitting alongside their ākonga. We will make mistakes and we will have lessons that flop. But the opportunity to grow from these mistakes is something to remember, embrace and most of all enjoy.

References

Renee Raroa (2019), CORE blog, Whakatōhenehene. http://blog.core-ed.org/blog/2019/04/whakatohenehene-disruption.html

CORE Education. (2019). Ten Trends. http://core-ed.org/research-and-innovation/ten-trends/

The New Zealand Curriculum Online. (2019) Technology https://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/The-New-Zealand-Curriculum/Technology

Ministry of Education. (2019). Kia Takatū ā-Matihiko. https://kiatakatu.ac.nz

The New Zealand Curriculum Online. (2019) Technology. Technology Spotlight http://technology.tki.org.nz/Technology-in-the-NZC/Planning-programmes-and-units-of-work/Spotlight-Authentic-contexts

Ministry of Education. (2019). Kia Takatū ā-Matihiko. Ngā Kiriahi. https://ngakiriahi.kiatakatu.ac.nz/

The New Zealand Curriculum Online. (2019) Technology.Digital technologies questions and answers http://technology.tki.org.nz/Technology-in-the-NZC/Digital-technologies-support/DT-questions-and-answers

The Cacophony Project (2019) https://cacophony.org.nz/using-cacophony-project-technology-find-south-island-kokako?fbclid=IwAR36Dcga4kiELIefaP82D8CiRItud_8JLaUgb6K91STloeeciA8unUGl7mA

The South Island Kōkako Charitable Trust (2019) Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/SIKCT/?__tn__=%2Cd%2CP-R&eid=ARA46AuUn0sbBBQw7l-gkP8oGRzNLRFWxvJcg0anBZWrRkMH51UX-GyomZhWg5VNxGZ6pddkCrzYcqCJ

New Atlas (2019) https://newatlas.com/drone-spray-hornet-drone-volt-france-asian-hornet/43642/

Department of Conservation | Te Papa Atawhai (2019) https://www.doc.govt.nz/about-us/our-partners/our-regional-partners/wasp-wipeout/

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Recognising Authentic Context in Digital Technologies

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Earlier this year while wandering through the toy aisle at a store an item caught my attention. The toy, reacted to its surroundings, hurtling itself across the floor with more gusto and louder than the noise from the excited tamariki nearby.

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Glide is a free tool for making your own mobile apps. It's a tool that has quickly risen to the top of my list of favorite tools for teachers and students. It's a tool that we'll spend time using during the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camp. With Glide anyone who can make a spreadsheet in Google Sheets can make his or her own mobile app.

The process of creating your own mobile app through Glide begins with creating a Google Sheets spreadsheet. Each column header that you put into your spreadsheet will become a section in your mobile app when you publish it through Glide. The information that you add into the cells below each column header will be displayed in your app's sections. If you include video links, audio links, or image links your spreadsheet, those pieces of media will be displayed in your app.

Once you have made your Google Sheets spreadsheet, sign-up for a free Glide account and connect it to your Google account. You'll then import your spreadsheet into Glide. Once those two steps are done Glide will make your app in a minute or less. Glide will provide you with a preview of your app. If you like the preview, publish the app. Glide provides links and QR codes that you can distribute in order for people to access your new mobile app.

Watch my video to see the whole process of creating a mobile app through Glide.

As mentioned above, Glide is one of the tools that we'll be exploring in depth during the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camp. I'd love to have you join us! Only six seats are left. You can register here.

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How to Create and Publish Your Own Mobile Apps in Minutes

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Glide is a free tool for making your own mobile apps. It's a tool that has quickly risen to the top of my list of favorite tools for teachers and students. It's a tool that we'll spend time using during the Practical Ed Tech Summer Camp.

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Computational thinking is one of the biggest buzzwords in education-it's even been called the '5th C' of 21st century skills. While it got its start as a way to help computer scientists think more logically about data analysis, lately it's been catching on with instructors in a diverse number of subjects-from science to math to social studies.

One reason for its emerging popularity? It's engaging.

"Ask yourself, would you rather get to play with a data set or would you rather listen to the teacher tell you about the data set?" asks Tom Hammond, an associate professor for the teacher education program at Lehigh University, in Pennsylvania. "Most are more interested in getting hands-on, even if it's just looking at the map and saying, 'What about this?'"

Hammond is a social studies teacher by training with a natural interest in computer science, a subject he's also taught. Now he's championing a new approach to his subject that combines computational thinking with data visualization tools, like geographic information systems, or GIS, which pair maps with layers of data-so that users can see, say, election results by county or state borders in the colonial era.

Contemporary U.S. map with overlay showing state and county borders in 1790. (Source: Esri)

Being able to use data tools is important. But at its core, computational thinking is simply a way to process information using higher-order or critical thinking, says Julie Oltman, who also teaches at Lehigh and is collaborating with Hammond on a related social studies curriculum.

Whether it's taught in coding class or social studies, the framework is the same: look at the provided information, narrow it down to the most valuable data, find patterns and identify themes. And it works just as well for comparing maps, blocks of code or two works of literature.

"There's sort of an efficiency there in encouraging this sort of critical thinking across disciplines," Oltman says. "Same framework, many scenarios."

Wired for Learning

Document-based questions have long been a staple of social studies classrooms-those exercises that ask students to analyze a given text and assess it critically, looking at things like the author's motivation and intended audience. As computational thinking requires students to actively work with the data, they end up asking similar questions, or even noticing flaws. The goal, in other words, is to get students to learn not to take everything at face value.

"It kind of gives them direction and cues them into the subtleties," says Hammond, which they might not realize if the same information is presented to them as fact.

Students also end up doing much of the learning on their own.

Since the human brain is essentially wired to recognize patterns, computational thinking-somewhat paradoxically-doesn't necessarily require the use of computers at all. Take one of Hammond's favorite activities, which can be done in a single class period, or be stretched out into a larger project.

First, "I ask students to name five states," he says. "Say, Virginia, Maryland, New York and Massachusetts." The first four get added to a column on the left side of the whiteboard; Massachusetts gets its own column on the right. "Then another student gives North Carolina, South Carolina, North Dakota, South Dakota and Illinois." The Carolinas get added to the same column as Virginia and Maryland. But the last three states get sorted into the same bucket as Massachusetts.

After some trial and error, students may discover that what sorts the states on the whiteboard is not, say, geographic proximity or date of entering the union. But rather, the etymologies-or place name origins-of state names. Those derived from European languages get placed on the left; those with Native origins on the right.

"You can do that with paper and what's inside students' heads," Hammond says, adding that along the way they do learn geography and why certain regions have more Spanish, indigenous or British toponyms. From there, students can have fun with it. They can drill down into counties or expand to Canadian provinces, where they can contrast English and French names.

Another activity takes advantage of GIS software, and has students analyzing civil war battle sites by year. Patterns emerge once students notice where early battles were fought, versus ones that took place later in the war, when the Union armies attempted to encircle the Confederacy at Richmond.

Civil war battles by year. Green represents a battle fought in 1861-2; red in 1865. (Source: Esri)

The Core of Computational Thinking

In a 2006 paper for the Association for Computing Machinery, computer scientist Jeanette Wing wrote a definition of computational thinking that used terms native her field-even when she was citing everyday examples. Thus, a student preparing her backpack for the day is "prefetching and caching." Finding the shortest line at the supermarket is "performance modeling." And performing a cost-benefit analysis on whether it makes more sense to rent versus buy is running an "online algorithm." "Computational thinking will have become ingrained in everyone's lives when words like algorithm and precondition are part of everyone's vocabulary," she writes.

But Hammond urges taking a step back-perhaps "backtracking" in Wing's parlance-to terms that are more readily accessible. "Nobody who isn't sitting down coding or doing math or physics is going to be like, 'yes, algorithm construction,'" he says. "So I don't use that word when I bring it into social studies. But I am saying, 'I'm making a rule and seeing if it holds up.'"

In that way, "a lot of the more a lot of the more techy bits of computational thinking get subsumed," Hammond says. What you're left with are three main steps:

Looking at the data: Deciding what's worth including in the final data set, and what should be left out. What are the different tools that can help manipulate this data-from GIS tools to pen and paper?

Looking for patterns: Typically, this involves shifting to greater levels of abstraction-or conversely, getting more granular.

Decomposition: What's a trend versus what's an outlier to the trend? Where do things correlate, and where can you find causal inference? "Once you've got your head wrapped around that pattern, you can generate your rule," Hammond says, and start exploring whether that rule holds only for a single instance or in a broader context.

"Data patterns and rules are the ways we are packaging computational thinking for social studies," he adds. "If I was in literature or English language arts, I might come up with a different framing."

Cause and Effect

Shannon Salter is a social studies teacher at Building 21 High School in Allentown, Pa., who has collaborated with Hammond on projects related to geospatial tools. For the past few years, she's been working on a curriculum that combines environmental science with city planning, and what she calls "smart design" of urban areas. Naturally, it involves a lot of computational thinking.

Part of the curriculum asks students to analyze neighborhood maps of their city using a geospatial tool called ArcGIS. Students could toggle color-coded overlays related to crime rates, vacant houses, tree coverage and proximity to services, such as medical care and schools. Once they had their data, they looked for patterns to make predictions: Is there a relationship between green space and crime levels? What about median income and access to healthcare?

Students very quickly noticed a well-recognized correlation between green space, tree canopy and crime rates. But their prediction was unique. "When we asked students to make a prediction before we looked at the data, they said neighborhoods with higher trees would have higher crime because there would be more places for criminals to hide behind the trees," Salter says. "We went to test the prediction and they noticed the exact opposite was true."

That immediately led to a snag. Students had the data, and the tools to analyze it. But part of the decomposition process requires separating correlation from causation. And some early solutions saw students proposing planting more trees in neighborhoods as a way to reduce crime-when in fact, crime rates are high in neighborhoods that lack the resources for a widespread tree canopy.

"We spent quite a bit of time making sure they knew the difference between noting the relationship and assuming causation," Salter says. "It definitely took some practice to help them understand the difference between just finding a relationship and then a cause-and-effect relationship."

Crossing Subject Lines

For Salter, assessment looks a bit different than it might in other schools. Building 21 uses an innovative, mastery-learning model that is less wedded to unit and testing cycles than in other schools. Students are often graded on a custom rubric that crosses disciplines called a "continuum of skill development," that scales with students, and provides more scaffolding for younger students.

It's also flexible and capable of crossing subject lines, meaning Salter can pull from math and English language arts standards for projects and add them to her rubrics.

The goal, Salter says, is to better help students answer the age-old question: How will I use this knowledge in the real world? "Everything they've learned can be applied in multiple contexts," she says.

Yet Hammond says blending computational thinking into the curriculum need not require such a major overhaul. It can be inserted on a lesson-by-lesson basis and only where it makes sense.

"The social studies curriculum is already an impossible beast-too broad and too shallow, and it's hard to fit anything in," Hammond says. "If I was to say roll up your existing curriculum and do this? No way" would it be possible, he adds. Instead, teachers may be best served slotting it in as a curricular enhancement where it makes sense.

"I'm not saying throw out your other stuff," he says. "I'm just saying slide this into your other stuff."

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Computational Thinking Is Critical Thinking. And It Works in Any Subject. - EdSurge News

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Computational thinking is one of the biggest buzzwords in education-it's even been called the '5th C' of 21st century skills. While it got its start as a way to help computer scientists think more logically about data analysis, lately it's been catching on with instructors in a diverse number of subjects-from science to math to social studies.

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Week 1: Micro:Pet

Week 2: Fortune Teller

This project generated hours of fun for my kids! They spent the next few days consulting their Fortune Teller machines - "What should I do today?" "Will I get ice cream for dessert?" "What game should my brother play next?" "Do I have to go to bed now?"

Fortune Teller is a fun, easy project you can do with your kids using the Circuit Playground Express and some simple crafting materials.

For this project, you'll need:

A computer with internet connection and a USB port

A Circuit Playground Express Base Kit (see https://www.adafruit.com/product/3517) that includes the Circuit Playground Express board, a USB cable, batteries and a battery pack

Paper - slightly thicker cardstock paper works better

Scissors

Tape

Colored Markers and/or Pencils or Pens

Stickers or anything else you want to use to decorate your Fortune Telling Machine

Step 1: Envision your Fortune Telling Machine
Will it give simple Yes/No/Maybe answers? Will it be a random number generator? Or will it give specialized responses - like types of games to play, ice cream flavors, or books to read? Use your imagination to come up with a unique Fortune Telling Machine!
Step 2: Make your Fortune Telling Machine
Watch the video.

Position the Circuit Playground Express in the center of a piece of paper

Trace the outline of the board and put tick marks around the board to mark segments for the 10 lights. If you want, you can also use fewer than 10 options for your Fortune Teller.

Draw the segments on your paper using a ruler or straight-edge.

Write the different answers or options for your Fortune Teller in each segment.

Cut out the shape of your fortune telling machine (round, triangle, square).

Using a loop of tape, or double-sided tape, stick your Circuit Playground Express board to the paper.

Poke a hole in the paper next to the battery port on the Circuit Playground Express.

Thread the wire from the battery pack through the hole and attach to the Circuit Playground Express.

Tape the battery pack onto the back of the paper.

Decorate your Fortune Telling Machine!

Step 3: Code the Circuit Playground Express
If you have a Windows 10 computer, you can download and install the MakeCode for Adafruit app at http://aka.ms/adafruitapp. Or just go to https://makecode.adafruit.com/.

Watch how to write the code.
Optional Step:
To add a bit more complexity to your code, you can change the color that is displayed depending on the position of the light on the board. For example, if the random number lands in the "Yes" segment, show the light as green; if the random number lands in the "No" segment, show the light as red. And if the random number lands in the "Maybe" segment, show the light as purple.

Week 3: Minecraft Obstacle Course

My kids absolutely love playing Minecraft! And when I have time, I love playing with them too. Incorporating coding activities with Minecraft is tons of fun - after all, who doesn't love spawning hordes of sheep!

Here's another fun summer project you can do with your kids using MakeCode for Minecraft to create an Obstacle Course in Minecraft that you can challenge other Players to go through.

To learn more, watch the introductory video:

For this project, you'll need:

A Windows 10 computer with an Internet connection.

The Setup instructions available at: https://minecraft.makecode.com/setup. You'll want to download and install:

Minecraft for Windows 10, or Minecraft: Education Edition

Code Connection

Step 1: Plan your Obstacle Course

The first thing you'll want to do is think about what kind of obstacle course you want to create. What will each of the different challenges be? What do you need to build in the world for each challenge? Think about using the different options in the On Player action block - walking, flying, swimming, climbing, and so on. You can even work with your kids to map out their obstacle courses on paper before diving into the game.

Step 2: Code your Obstacle Course

Be creative in building your obstacle courses! Glean some ideas from the obstacle courses we created by looking at our code:

Learn how to do it on your own. Check out our very kid-friendly coding video:

Step 3: Play!

Challenge your friends and family to get through your obstacle course. You can even use stop watch to see who can get through the fastest!

For other fun Minecraft projects to do with your kids see:

And be sure to check out our other MakeCode Summer 2018 projects.

Week 4: LEGO MINDSTORMS City

For this summer project, my kids created a little LEGO city with superheroes and bad guys. We used the LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 robot as the bad guy who comes in to destroy the city! We built the driving base and attached the color sensor that the robot uses to stop and start - much like a red/green traffic light.

Defend our city, we will! Don't miss the Introduction video available here.

For this project, you'll need:

To purchase the LEGO MINDSTORMS EV3 kit, either online or from a LEGO retailer

To update the EV3 brick firmware (instructions)

To build the driving base (instructions)

To attach the color sensor (instructions)

Some white paper

Colored markers

LEGO bricks

Colored index cards

Step 1: Build your LEGO city

Use a large piece of white paper (or several pieces) and tape it down to a table top.

Use colored markers to create roads, lakes and parks in your city.

Use LEGO bricks to create houses, cars, people and superheroes to protect your city,

We used colored cards to activate the Red light and Green light on our MINDSTORMS robot, but you can also use the colored parts on paper to trigger the color sensor.

Step 2: Code the Red Light/Green Light program

Here's the code example of the Red Light Green Light program for the MINDSTORMS EV3 :

Coding your Red Light/Green Light program. Don't miss the coding video available here.

You can also try the Line Following program to make your MINDSTORMS robot follow the roads in your LEGO City, or use the Ultrasonic sensor to detect objects.

Have fun with this exciting Make Code project!

Week 5: Cue the Messenger

Cue the Cleverbot is a very cute robot with a quirky attitude who your kids will absolutely love playing with! In this project, we're going to be programming Cue to act as a messenger.Cue has lights, motors, buttons, sensors and a microphone and speaker that you can program.

One of the great features of Cue that my kids discovered and had a blast with is its ability to record and play back audio files. We'll be using this feature to send messages back and forth between the kids.

For this project, you'll need:

A Cue the Cleverbot robot. You can purchase it online from Wonder Workshop.

A Cue-compatible device (this could be a phone, tablet or computer.) For more details on which device models are supported, see the Will my device work page at Wonder Workshop.

The Cue app. You can download it for free from the Microsoft Store, Google Play or the Apple Store.

Don't miss the Cue the Messenger Project Intro Video here.

Step 1: What messages do you want Cue to send?

The first thing you'll want to do is think about what kind of message you want Cue to send. It could be a command, a secret, a funny joke or even a question and answer. In our case, we wanted to use Cue to ask what kind of drink Sage wanted - Apple Juice, or Chocolate Milk.

Step 2: Map out the path between the Sender and the Receiver

This is the physical path that Cue will travel to deliver messages back and forth. I recommend using pen and paper to draw this out before jumping into the code. Cue uses centimeters as the unit of measure for travelling distances.

Step 3: Code Cue!

Open the Cue app on your device and connect to your Cue robot by clicking on the blue Plus icon in the top right corner of the app. Make sure Cue is powered on to enable the Bluetooth connection.

Select the Code part of the app to get into the coding experience.

Click on My Programs and then click Create a New Program.

Depending on the path you want Cue to travel and the message you want to send, construct your program by dragging and dropping blocks of code into the workspace.

To run your program, click on the orange Run button in the bottom right corner. You will most likely have to test and make adjustments to refine your program.

Your programming environment may look something like what is shown in Figure 4.

Figure 5 shows the code for our Cue Messenger program. The blocks we used were all in the Actions and Events categories.

Note: To record a message, use the Custom Sound block and press the Record button.

Our program's custom sounds were as follows:

Custom Sound 2 = "What drink would you like? Press the Circle button for Apple Juice or press the Square button for Chocolate Milk."

Custom Sound 3 = "Apple Juice."

Custom Sound 4 = "Chocolate Milk."

Hope you enjoy this MakeCode Summer project as much as we did!

Week 6: Chibitronics birthday card

For our final MakeCode project this summer, we will be making an electronic birthday card for our friend using the Love To Code Kit from Chibitronics. This is a great way to add a little more sparkle to any home-made greeting card, paper craft, art work or scrapbook.

Don't miss the video here.

For this project, you'll need:

The Chibitronics Love to Code Kit. The kit includes everything you need, plus the amazing Love to Code book with the MakeCode pages. Otherwise, you can purchase each of the following items individually:

Paper. I used high quality sketch book drawing paper.

Colored pencils, pens or crayons.

Double-sided tape, or just regular tape folded over in a loop.

A computer with internet access.

Step 1: Prepare the Card

Fold your sheet of paper in half and decide how you want to orient your card (right-to-left opening, or bottom-to-top opening).

Think about the picture you want on the front of the card - will it be balloons, a birthday cake, trees and flowers, or a message?

You don't need to draw the details at this stage, just sketch out the general areas of your picture and where you think you want the lights to show up.

Step 2: Attach the Chibi Chip to the inside of the card

Using a bit of tape, securely attach the back of the Chibi Chip to the inside of your card so it won't move around. Keep in mind, the USB cable will be connected to the board too.

Step 3 : Design and layout your circuits

This is the tricky part! I recommend using a pencil to map this out first.

For each light that you want to place, you will need to connect one end of the light to Ground (GND), and the other end of the light to a Pin, 0-5.

This means that your LED light sticker will need to straddle between a strip of copper tape connected to Ground, and a strip of copper tape connected to a pin.

Using a Pencil, draw out the different circuits to connect to the Chibi Chip and where to place each light.

Then peel off the backing of the copper tape and lay it down along your pencil marks.

Fold the tape at the turns to keep one contiguous piece

Make sure the end of the copper tape connects with the Pins on the Chibi Chip. You can use the fabric patches to ensure a good connection.

Step 4: Place your LED light stickers

Press down hard on the metal ends of the sticker to make sure they are securely connected to the copper tape.

You can place multiple lights along the same circuit if you wish!

Step 5: Finalize your drawing

Using the red USB cable, connect the Chibi Chip to a power source to make the lights turn on.

Fold over your card to see the front and where the lights shine through.

Make a mark for each of your lights.

Then complete the drawing around where the lights will be.

Step 6: Now code an animation for your lights!

Open a browser window to https://makecode.chibitronics.com.

You'll see some tutorials and code samples you can use or start a new blank project.

The following is an example program that uses some different light effects across pins 0-3.

Don't miss the coding video here.

For more Chibitronics how-to guides and tips, visit the Chibitronics website.

Hope you liked this project! Thanks for joining us for this and our other MakeCode Summer 2018 projects.

If your kids are like mine, they'll spend a few minutes playing with their fancy toys, and a few hours playing with good old-fashioned cardboard boxes, string and markers in the garage!

Micro:Pet is a fun project that gets your kids' creativity flowing using materials you can find around the house while incorporating electronics and coding concepts and activities with the micro:bit.

For the Micro:Pet project, you'll need:

A computer with internet connection and USB port

A micro:bit Go Kit (available at Microcenter.com) that includes a micro:bit, a USB cable, a battery pack and batteries

Small cardboard boxes, toilet paper rolls, paper cups/bowls or anything you have around the house to construct your pet with

Markers, pipe cleaners, googly eyes, colored paper, feathers and anything else you have on hand to decorate your pet!

Check out our fun video about our micro:pets!
Step 1: What's your dream pet?
The first thing you'll want to do is think about what kind of pet you want to create. It could be something you've always wanted to have as a pet, but couldn't - say a unicorn, a dragon or a skunk.
Step 2: Make your pet
Using the materials at hand, create your dream Pet. Remember to include enough space in your design to attach your micro:bit and the battery pack.
Step 3: Code the micro:bit
If you have a Windows 10 computer, you can download and install the micro:bit app at http://aka.ms/microbitapp. Otherwise, go to https://makecode.microbit.org/.

You can use your micro:bit in many different ways on your pet. Here is an example of a program for your Micro:Pet, but be creative and come up with your own unique project!

Optional steps:
1. Adding audio
You can add audio and play sounds through your micro:bit by connecting it to headphones, earbuds or an external speaker. Note: there is only one volume level at which the micro:bit plays - and it is very loud! Don't put earbuds in your ear when you run your program. In addition to the micro:bit, you will need:
2. Adding motion
You can add motion to your Micro:Pet - for example, wagging its tail when your pet is fed. To do this, you will need to attach a servo motor to your micro:bit. You will need:

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Summer of MakeCode for kids - Microsoft Research

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Microsoft MakeCode is a web-based learning environment for kids and teens to create with technology. MakeCode takes a unique approach to computing education by combining the magic of making with the power of code as a way to make learning about computers and technology more accessible and interesting to a wider audience.

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Computational Thinking in a Literacy programme : Virtual Learning Network

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Progress Outcome 3 introduces the concepts of decomposing problems as step-by-step instructions, logical thinking, prediction of programmes, variety of algorithms, and understanding that digital devices store data as two 'binary' bits.

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Answers to questions from teachers and school leaders - Are we on the right track?

On this page you can find answers to the most common questions educators have been asking about digital technologies within the revised technology learning area.

Curriculum - What's changed? What does it look like now?

Is digital technologies a whole new learning area in the NZC?

Digital technologies (DT) is part of the revised technology learning area, not a separate area.

There are five technological areas in the technology learning area. These are:

Designing and developing materials outcomes

Designing and developing processed outcomes

Design and visual communication

Computational thinking for digital technologies

Designing and developing digital outcomes

For the full description of the revised learning area, see The New Zealand Curriculum Online - Technology.

What has been revised or changed in the technology learning area?

The revised technology learning area has five technological areas, and two of these are digital - computational thinking for digital technologies (CTDT) and designing and developing digital outcomes (DDDO).

For CTDT and DDDO, progress outcomes have been developed for curriculum levels 1-8.

See the progress outcomes, exemplars, and snapshots:

Construction and mechanical technologies has changed to designing and developing material outcomes.

For more information, see the Ministry of Education booklet Digital Technologies and the New Zealand Curriculum - Your guide to finding support and getting ready.

What is the difference between digital fluency (sometimes referred to as e-learning or ICT) and digital technologies within the technology learning area?

Digital fluency - using digital tools

Digital fluency is about using the digital tools to support teaching and learning across the curriculum.

Digital technologies in the technology learning area - learning about and creating digital technologies

The discipline of technology is about intervention by design. Design is a critical part of the technology learning area, and digital technologies involves designing digital outcomes.

Digital technologies within the technology learning area focuses on:

learning about digital technologies

becoming creators of digital technologies

using that knowledge to solve real world problems.

This is brought about within a school's local curriculum.

See this poster for a detailed description of the differences: e-Learning/ICT Capability versus Digital Technologies (PDF, 1 MB).
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How do we get started as school leaders?

Is the new digital technologies content compulsory at every year level, including years 9-10?

It is a Board of Trustees requirement for schools to provide all students effectively taught programmes of learning in technology. This includes learning opportunities for digital technologies within the revised technology learning area.

The revised technology learning area states that:

over the course of years 1-10, students learn in all five technological areas

work towards progress outcomes for digital technologies should build each year in order to ensure learners achieve all of the significant learning steps.

The New Zealand education system has always been future-focussed and it will continue to evolve to the meet the needs of our young people now and for their futures.

Students are entitled to a curriculum that engages and challenges them and is forward-looking and inclusive, so that they are equipped to thrive in an increasingly digital world.

As always, schools have significant scope to give effect to the National Curriculum in a way that best meets the needs and aspirations of their learners and their local community.

How do you suggest I begin the implementation of the new digital technologies content as a school leader?

Schools that are getting ready to implement the changes to the technology and hangarau learning areas are doing a variety of things, such as:

nominating an in-school curriculum change leader and identifying resourcing, timelines, and so on

reviewing the new curriculum content

reviewing their school's digital readiness, including using the Self Review Tool in Kia Takatū ā Matihiko

facilitating in-school workshops to unpack the revised technology learning area, including reviewing the revised learning area statement, strands, technological areas, and the progress outcomes for digital technologies and their associated exemplars.

Who will teach the new digital technologies curriculum content?

This is a school decision. Some schools will choose to use specialist teachers, some will want other teachers to incorporate aspects of digital technologies into their teaching and learning programmes.

Where digital technologies is integrated into other learning areas, it is important for leadership to ensure that this is being taught within the technology learning area conceptual framework, rather than only teaching digital skills.

Any teacher can build their professional capability by accessing the Kia Takatū ā-Matihiko | Digital Readiness Programme.

How can I work out the current capability of staff to teach the new digital curriculum content?

For schools starting out, the Kia Takatū ā-Matihiko | Digital Readiness Programme is designed to build capability for staff to teach the new digital curriculum content. It is a free programme provided by the Ministry of Education. It can be done online and at a time that works for schools.

The programme includes a self-review tool for teachers to assess their current understanding. Pikau | Toolkits are provided to build teachers capability to teach the new curriculum content.

This programme has been designed for teachers completely new to this area. It covers questions such as "What are digital technologies?", and focuses on building knowledge of the content and understanding the intent of the learning.

Amongst schools and kura there is a broad range of "readiness" levels to incorporate the new content into their local curriculums; therefore the Ministry of Education professional support package has been structured to cater to those different needs.

Schools are encouraged to be using multiple parts of the support package at the same time to cater to the different levels of readiness of their staff.

For information about the support packages, see Digital technologies professional supports.

How might we review our technology teaching and learning in light of this change?

Answers to the questions below could provide some initial data to establish PLD and planning needs:

Have we conducted a robust review of our local curriculum, engaging with the Leading Local Curriculum Guide series, prior to engaging with this new content?

How could the digital content fit within the broader technology learning area in our particular setting?

Do we have an implementation plan for the technology learning area across curriculum levels ?

Are we tracking progress in the technology learning area?

What reporting to parents are we doing in the technology learning area?

What data information do we supply on student learning in the technology learning area to the next year level or school level?

What professional learning has been offered to teaching staff in the technology learning area?

Do we offer leadership to assist teachers with implementation of the technology learning area?

What professional supports does the Ministry offer to build staff capability to teach the new digital technologies curriculum content?

The Ministry of Education is focused on ensuring that teachers and kaiako are aware of, and have the opportunity to engage with, the content through a range of support options, and that the intent of the new content within the technology learning area is understood.

See Digital technologies professional supports.
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How do we get started as teachers?

How does the new digital technologies curriculum content fit in the revised technology learning area?

The technology learning area is made up of three strands - technological practice, nature of technology, and technological knowledge.

There are five technological areas, which provide contexts for technology learning. These are:

designing and developing digital outcomes (DDDO)

computational thinking for digital technologies(CT)

designing and developing material outcomes (DDMO)

designing and developing processed outcomes (DDPO)

design and visual communication (DVC)

See the learning area diagram: Technology in the NZC.

The technology learning area continues to have achievement objectives that describe the kinds of learning young people should have as they deepen their knowledge and understandings in each of the technology strands. The strands do not stand alone but support and enrich each other; they are rarely taught in isolation.

See The New Zealand Curriculum Online - Technology Achievement Objectives.

Digital technologies - new technological areas

Digital technologies in the revised technology learning area includes the new technological areas - computational thinking for digital technologies and designing and developing digital outcomes. Just as the strands are inter-related, so are the technological areas. Teachers will plan ways to link across the strands and technological areas.

Digital technologies - progress outcomes

The progress outcomes are an additional feature within the digital technologies content area. They are designed to describe particular knowledge, skills, and behaviours that students need to develop over time. They are markers that describe different stages of learning and guide teachers and their students as they think about what they are learning and what their next stage looks like.

See Computational thinking progress outcomes, exemplars, and snapshots.

See Designing and developing digital outcomes progress outcomes, exemplars, and snapshots.

How do we consider progress in learning in technology?

The technology strands ( technological practice , technological knowledge, nature of technology) underpin the five technological areas.

Local curriculum design should support learners to make progress in all three strands in context across the five areas.

Technology achievement objectives and progress outcomes provide indicators that support teacher judgements on progress and achievement in technology.

As with other curriculum areas, professional conversations are essential for ensuring there is a shared understanding of progress in your technology curriculum.

Do we have to deliver the technology learning area or can we just teach the digital skills components?

In order to teach the new content, teachers must first understand the technology learning area strands, and in particular the "nature of technology", as this teaches the students a way of thinking.

We know that many schools across the country are getting to the heart of teaching the meaning of technology, you can view multiple real-life examples in the resource section here on Technology Online - Resources.

What does the phrase "using authentic contexts and taking into account end users" in the progress outcomes mean?

See the Technology Online spotlight: Authentic contexts and taking into account end users.

The spotlight offers key ideas, examples, links to resources, and questions to consider or discuss. It includes:

What is an authentic context?

Who are end users and wider stakeholders?

What is fitness for purpose in its broadest sense?

How do we choose contexts?

Examples in projects

Reflecting and planning

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How do we continue and extend our development in this area?

Once we get started, how do we make sure that this learning is sustainable in our school for both teachers and learners?

Regularly reviewing local curriculum within the framework of the NZC will ensure that learning is sustainable for both teachers and learners.

Schools are required to give effect to the National Curriculum through their local curriculum. Your local curriculum will be unique and responsive to the priorities, preferences, and issues of your community and your people. The elements of the New Zealand Curriculum are used as a framework for designing your local curriculum.

Schools regularly review their local curriculum (See the Leading local Curriculum Guide series). At the heart of local curriculum design is identifying what works and actions needed to improve learning for all students.

Schools will build a professional learning and development plan which is responsive to their needs, priorities, and approach to delivering the new curriculum content, in a manner tailored to their individual needs and context.
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Implementation requirements - What's mandated?

What will ERO be looking for in 2020 in terms of implementation of the new curriculum content?

The purpose of internal and external evaluation is to improve education outcomes and to ensure that schools are accountable for their stewardship.

Under the Education Act 1989 all schools are expected to be involved in an ongoing, cyclical process of evaluation and inquiry for improvement. Through the annual reporting process, they are required to report on the achievement of their students, their priorities for improvement, and the actions they plan to take.

ERO supports this review to ensure schools are providing their learners with the rich and engaging curriculum they are entitled to.

Is it expected that by 2020 students will be meeting the progress outcomes for digital technologies to match the curriculum level expected for their year level at school?

Over time students should be supported to progress in their learning in technology. In 2020, the Ministry of Education expects that schools will be using the revised learning area to provide students with even broader opportunities to learn in and about technology, informed by the new content around computational thinking and designing and developing digital outcomes.

As for all parts of the curriculum, teachers will design learning programmes with rich and authentic local contexts that provide quality learning experiences for students.
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Digital technologies questions and answers

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On this page you can find answers to the most common questions educators have been asking about digital technologies within the revised technology learning area. Digital technologies (DT) is part of the revised technology learning area, not a separate area. There are five technological areas in the technology learning area.

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"Very few people grow up to be professional writers, but we teach everyone to write because it's a way of communicating with others-of organizing your thoughts and expressing your ideas. I think the reasons for learning to code are the same as the reasons for learning to write. When we learn to write, we are learning how to organize, express, and share ideas. And when we learn to code, we are learning how to organize, express, and share ideas in new ways, in a new medium."

I am currently engaged in the Spring 2019 ISTE ETCoaches Book Study and Slow Chat. We are exploring the book Learning Supercharged: Digital Age Strategies and Insights from the Edtech Frontier by Lynne Schrum with Sandi Sumerfield. One of the topics connected to the first chapter is coding.
The reading and the chat inspired me to dive a bit deeper into resources connected to coding in the classroom. I'm writing this post to share a glimpse into my exploration. I definitely have a lot to learn, but the first step is getting started. Why Coding?

My exploration first led me to explore why coding is important in today's schools. Like so many learners, I started with a quick Google search to begin my exploration. I discovered that there are quite a few great posts, articles, and resources connected to coding. Here are a few that I enjoyed exploring connected to the why behind coding in education.

What Resources Exist to Support Coding in Schools for Teachers and Students?
There are quite a few great coding sites to support teachers and students. Here are a few that might be worth exploring.
I know there are many other great coding resources and if you are looking for something more, Common Sense Media has a greatlistof coding apps and websites.
Coding With Robots?
I've visited a few Makerspaces and I love some of the creative things that students are doing with coding and robots. Here are a few coding robots that might be worth exploring.

Coding Without Devices?
There are also some great resources to learn about coding that don't require a device. Here are a few that might be worth exploring.
What Books Support Coding in Education?
Here are a few books that I am adding to my reading list.
I know many educators are miles ahead of my exploration when it comes to coding. Please feel free to share resources and ideas in the comments below.

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"Very few people grow up to be professional writers, but we teach everyone to write because it's a way of communicating with others-of organizing your thoughts and expressing your ideas. I think the reasons for learning to code are the same as the reasons for learning to write.

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Images are everywhere on computers. Some are obvious, like photos on web pages and icons on buttons, but others are more subtle: a font is really a collection of images of characters, and a fax machines is really a computer that is good at scanning and printing.

This activity explores how images are displayed, based on the pixel as a building block. In particular, the great quantity of data in an image means that we need to use compression to be able to store and transmit it efficiently. The compression method used in this activity is based on the one used in fax machines, for black and white images.

Although the main activity is based on coloring a few dozen black pixels with a pencil, in live shows we like to demonstrate it on a larger scale. One way to do this is to use a can of black spray paint and a square stencil to make a giant picture pixel-by-pixel. Another is to process a photograph of (say) a teacher to the kidfax code, and have a whole class decode the mystery photo.

Activity description (PDF)

Translations and other versions

Related Resources

An older version of this activity can be downloaded in PDF format here. The content is similar to the current version, but there's some extra technical information.

More lessons and activities:

Computer Science & Engineering for K-12 (cse4k12.org) has the following activities related to binary numbers and image representation below:

Bitmaps Activity where bitmaps are a way of encoding black and white images using binary numbers. A '0' is used to represents a white square in the image and a '1' is used to represent a black square. These worksheets provide a set of 8×8 grids where the student can draw their own black and white images and then write the corresponding binary (and hexadecimal) values.

Crossbin Puzzles Activity that are similar to crossword puzzles

[Registration and software download required] Wolfram Demonstrations Project has the following demonstration activities. Note: You will need to install the Wolfram CDF Player in order to use these activities. You can either download each demonstration or use your browser to run it. Binary Run-Length Encoding which splits data into runs of zeros and ones. A list of binary distinctions can then be encoded as a list of run-lengths

Picture Logic has a puzzle similar to Run-length coding, but it only represents the number of black squares. You need to use some reasoning to work out where the white gaps are!

The Mathmaniacs website has a similar activity (lesson 3)

TEACH Engineering has the following K-12 resources in image representation:

How Do You Store All This Data? allows students to start seeing the data structure they will use to store their images. Students will be introduced to two dimensional arrays and vector classes. Students will be guided to see that a vector class will be the most efficient way of storing the data for their images.

What Makes Up A Colour? helps students learn why image colour becomes important as we distort the outer boundaries of an image and have to interpolate pixels to fill in gaps created from our algorithm. Students learn what a digital image is, what pixels are, and learn to convert between RGB and hexadecimal values.

RGB to Hex Conversion Activity where students practice converting between RGB and hexadecimal (hex) formats. They learn about mixing primary colours in order to get the full spectrum of colours, and they learn how to average pixel values.

If you want to find out more:

Videos:

Taha Ben Brahim, Ph.D. candidate in Auburn University's Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering has programmed this activity using the Textrix robot and RobotC. View the Videos:

The PrintBall is a graffiti Robot. It works like a giant Ink-Jet printer using a PaintBall Gun as print-head. The PaintBall gun is mounted on a custom made pan & tilt unit, which is connected to a software programmed with PrintWare 6.0. The pan & tilt is controlled by an Atmel chip [programmed in Basic] allowing the PrintWare 6.0 software to move the two stepper motors and to trigger the PaintBall Gun. The software allows the users to load, analyse and shot images. The resolution of the image can be adjusted according to the number of steps between each points. For videos of PrintBall in action visit the above site.

The students at the Fall 2010 Auburn Robo Camp have demonstrated combining this image representation activity with robotics; this video shows a robot decoding a binary image file (using the Textrix robot and RobotC).

Curriculum Links

Great Principles of Computer Science [info]

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Images are everywhere on computers. Some are obvious, like photos on web pages and icons on buttons, but others are more subtle: a font is really a collection of images of characters, and a fax machines is really a computer that is good at scanning and printing.

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Are you a teacher of students in years 1 to 10? Then you will no doubt be well aware by now of the need to deliver the two new Digital Technologies areas of the curriculum to your students by 2020. These are Computational Thinking for Digital Technologies and Designing and Developing Digital Outcomes.

You may be well prepared and already delivering the necessary skills and competencies across the curriculum, or have no idea where to start, or be at any point in-between. Regardless of your current situation, here are ten tips that you may find helpful.

1. You only need to do what is required for your age group
Remember that the progress outcomes outlined in the curriculum relate to curriculum levels, and that these overlap somewhat in terms of student ages. You can see, for example, that Progress Outcome 1 is pretty much all that is required for students up to Year 5.

2. Not everything has to meet the progress outcome in full
Between the draft and final version of the new technology areas, the prefix "In authentic contexts and taking account of end-users" was added to all of the progress outcomes as a kind of arbitrary catch-all. Of course that is what we are aiming for but sometimes you just have to engage kids in the basics. You can find a fun way to teach binary numbers, for example, and it doesn't have to be in an authentic context or take account of end users.

3. You are probably already doing things that meet some of the progress outcomes
Many of the progress outcomes relate to use of digital tools that you may well already be using with your students. How about this part of progress outcome 1 from Designing and Developing Digital Outcomes: "They know how to use some applications, they can identify the inputs and outputs of a system, and they understand that digital devices store content, which can be retrieved later." Are your students using a word processor like Google Docs? Job done. Just have a chat with them about the terminology.

4. Give your students time to get familiar with a key digital tool
A programming tool like Scratch can be used for a whole raft of creative things. Introduce your students to the basics early, then give them opportunities to create learning outcomes using Scratch at different times. They will build and share their own knowledge about the Computational Thinking outcomes while using it for cross-curricular learning. Working on a play? Get the students to create a digital version with characters saying their lines. Music class? Create some digital compositions.

5. Remember the digital in other activities
Whatever you are doing with your students, prompt them to use digital tools whenever suitable. History class? They can create a digital timeline. Exploring a new topic? Get them to create a digital mind or concept map. Outdoor activity? Get students to film and edit a video or create a mobile app using GPS. The possibilities are endless.

6. Think about getting some hardware
A lot of the progress outcomes can be met by students working with mechatronics - microprocessors and/or robots. Consider getting some robots for your class, or Makey Makeys, or micro:bits. Having the hardware available in class will mean students can become familiar with them and go beyond the basics to reach some of those higher end progress outcomes. (Check out our National Technologist's tips on how to do this cost-effectively.)

7. You don't have to know everything!
Don't put off using digital technologies with your students just because you don't feel 100% confident about how to use them. Explain to the students that you are going to give them the opportunity to learn together, teach each other, and perhaps teach you too.

8. Connect on social media
Teachers all over New Zealand are working together to develop their skills. Make some connections to your colleagues and share your knowledge, skills and ideas. If the closure of Google Plus has left you wondering about that tool to use, take a look at MeWe. There are of course some Facebook groups such as Digital Technologies Hub NZ

9. Keep calm and have fun
You're in the same boat as everyone else and we are all learning together.

10. Ask for help
There are many opportunities for you to develop your skills. The MoE have put in a number of initiatives to provide various types of support. There is also the Digital Passport, free to NZ teachers, and you could consider enrolling on The Mind Lab's Postgraduate Certificate in Digital and Collaborative Learning if you want to fully immerse yourself in this subject.

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Digital Technologies in the NZ Curriculum - Top 10 Tips - The Mind Lab

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Are you a teacher of students in years 1 to 10? Then you will no doubt be well aware by now of the need to deliver the two new Digital Technologies areas of the curriculum to your students by 2020. These are Computational Thinking for Digital Technologies and Designing and Developing Digital Outcomes.

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Designing and developing digital outcomes in secondary schools : Virtual Learning Network

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To start, Cheryl placed an emphasis on planning and designing programmes with the Technology strands (these are compulsory). She made mention that while learning opportunities can combine the technological areas and make links with other learning areas, there's still a need to keep the integrity of the strands and learning outcomes for Technology as a learning area.

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Latest Connected link to revised technology learning areas.

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Looking for reading material to engage your learners with the revised digital technologies content in the technology learning area? The latest issues of Connected focus on computational thinking for digital technologies and designing and developing digital outcomes.

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The resources in this course are intended to be used both in professional learning groups and communities of inquiry and individually with the option of sharing resources on the Google+ community, integrated into the course.

By completing each learning task, you will achieve the familiarity necessary to teach all skills that form part of PO's 1-5 and if you are new to computational thinking, this may be the best course of action to take. However, if you are already familiar with everything itemised in the Learning Outcomes at the beginning of each module, you may want use the tasks as a starting point for developing learning resources; and to proceed to the self-assessment task at the end of the unit.

The time-allocation for each task is just an indication. If you are familiar with Scratch, Adobe Spark and Trinket, the task should take you about as long as indicated. If you are still learning how to use the tools, it may take longer.

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The resources in this course are intended to be used both in professional learning groups and communities of inquiry and individually with the option of sharing resources on the Google+ community, integrated into the course.

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Computational Thinking Resources for Teachers (Sarah Washbrooke)

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When students make apps, they learn:

valuable STEAM skills like coding, programming, graphic design, and content creation

how to solve real-world problems with digital design.

Whether tackling challenges at school, within the community, or even on a global scale - knowing how to build apps empowers students to meaningfully change their environment through technological intervention.

What kinds of apps are students making at school?

Just like the diverse range of apps available in your smartphone's app store, students are making apps that vary in purpose and audience.

Apps for tackling social and environmental challenges

One of the most powerful aspects of an app is its ability to reach a large audience quickly and efficiently. Millions of people are using smartphone apps everyday. This means that even the broadest social issues can be addressed by well-conceived apps.

Apps for solving local problems

A great place to start problem-solving is where your students are most familiar. Encourage them to think about problem-solving within their own personal contexts - at school, at home, or in the community.

Apps for educating

When learners are engaged and passionate, they naturally want to share what they've learnt with others. Developing an app can be an effective way of sharing knowledge and expertise with a wider audience.

Apps for business

Instil the entrepreneurial spirit at an early age by exploring the commercial possibilities of apps with your students.

Apps for entertaining

Not every app has to change the world. Many apps have value because they make you laugh, surprise you, or keep you fighting to get to the next level.

Benefits for student learning

Students who develop apps:

have increased interest and awareness of opportunities in STEAM areas

are empowered to succeed in computer science

have creative outlets to demonstrate their competence in STEAM skills

learn social entrepreneurship

learn how to work in a team

gain self-confidence.

More information "

The impact of student-created apps
Teacher Vicki Davis writes about why making apps has been transformative and empowering for her students.

Creating an engaging app development course for girls
Sylvia Bannister and Cindy Ross discuss the benefits of running app development courses with young women.

Developing an app is a creative process, and like all creative endeavours, there is no right or wrong way to go about it.

Ideating and Planning

Before launching into programming, it is a good idea to do some broader thinking with your students about:

what apps are

who makes them

their purpose, or why they are made.

Pre-planning your app using a wireframe helps make the development process a much smoother and clearer process.

This guide is designed to help teachers create an app development course.

The guide contains lesson plans and materials for:

class discussions around apps and the app industry

competitive market analyses for app-ideas

creating a pitch

planning for user-experience

designing a wireframe to plan for user-navigation

presenting plans to the class for feedback.

Wireframes

A wireframe is a visual guide that represents the structure and frame of an app or website. Also known as a screen blueprint, a wireframe:

organises the elements of an app (content, buttons, headings etc.) into a hierarchy before coding and development begins

makes the actual app-building process clearer

is helpful for generating ideas

can be both hand-drawn or designed using digital tools.

The definitive guide: How to create your first wireframe
Career foundry's guide has video tutorials for wireframing as well as helpful tips.

Wireframing tools

Wireframe.cc
Gives you the ability to make quick wireframes directly onto your browser. Has a free version, but paid subscriptions give more functionality.

InVision freehand
This is a cloud-based, collaborative, whiteboard-style wireframe tool. Good for quick, team-based mockups of a new app. Completely free to use.

Balsamiq
Often considered as the best wireframe tool for beginners. Paid subscription only.

Identify which tool will work for you and your students

The 14 best wireframe tools for 2019
Maria Myre gives a breakdown of the pros and cons of various wireframe tools.

Learning approaches

There are several learning approaches that could inform your thinking around an app development project, such as learner inquiry or project-based learning.

Approaches specifically supporting student-driven technological invention

Design thinking

Design thinking is an iterative process that provides a solution-based approach to solving problems.

At the core of design thinking is the intention to improve products by analysing and understanding how users interact with them and investigating the conditions in which they operate.

Design thinking could be a helpful approach to use when creating a new app.

STEAM learning

STEAM is the application of content from science, technology, engineering, art, and m aths to solving real-world problems through hands-on learning activities.

Consider how developing an app could become a meaningful STEAM project by integrating concepts from across learning areas.

Makerspaces

Developing an app could be the best way to resolve a makerspace project. Think about how an app could interface with a robot, device, or invention that has been made in a makerspace.

Linking to the curriculum

Digital Technologies and Hangarau Matihiko

Doing an app development course in your classroom could help you explore the technology strands outlined in the new Digital Technologies curriculum, including:

Technological practise

Technological knowledge

Nature of technology

Think about how developing an app can link to your students' learning objectives and curriculum goals.

Choosing a development path

Developing an app can be a challenging task. There are multiple pathways to developing a completed, usable app. Each approach requires a certain amount of learning, technical knowledge, and expertise. Different programming tools and languages present different advantages and challenges.

Considerations before beginning a project

Your learning goals

What is your learning goal? To make a creative app? To learn coding, programming, and computational thinking along the way?

A wholistic app development course using a programming tool like MIT App Inventor, or a native programming language like Swift (iOS) or Java (Android), could be the way forward. This approach will require considerable time and investment from you and your students.

If you want an app built to solve a learning problem unrelated to coding and programming - completed quickly - then using a DIY app-builder could be an option.

Think about your learning goals and plan accordingly.

Your student profile

What age are your students? What are their learning needs? What prior knowledge of coding and programming do they have?

If dealing with young learners totally new to coding, MIT App Inventor could be the best platform, as it is accessible for young learners.

If your students are older and have some prior knowledge of coding, developing an app using a native programming language like Swift could be an appropriate challenge.

Access to devices

What devices are readily available to your students? How will they test the programming they have made?

If your students have access to Apple devices, then coding in Apple's native programming language, Swift, could be the way forward.

If your students have access to Android devices, then programming with Android-compatible coding tools like MIT App Inventor are options.

If your students need the apps to work across multiple devices, then coding web-based apps using JavaScript or HTML5 could be the approach to take.

Programming and coding your app

There are a number of app development pathways to choose from, each using different tools and programming languages, each with different purposes and functionality.

Below are two pathways that have been selected as viable options for those new to programming. They have been selected because of their approachability for newcomers as well as availability of teaching resources. Consider which approach will be best for your learners.

MIT App Inventor is a free, browser-based development tool designed to enable people of all ages and levels of coding experience to learn the basics of programming.

Like MIT's popular coding-teaching tool - Scratch - App Inventor features a visually organised, block-style, drag-and-drop coding interface. It gives newcomers to programming the opportunity to program without prior knowledge of any of the programming languages.

App Inventor allows for the programming of apps for android devices only.

It enables users to creatively customise the functions of an android phone like location, SMS texting, the camera, speakers, video and more.

App Inventor is often an entry point for school-age newcomers to programming and app development.

It has easy-to-follow tutorials and beginner guides that can be found on its official website.

Many of the tutorials have been designed for primary school-age students.

It has a dedicated community forum for troubleshooting and knowledge-sharing.

Teaching app creation with MIT App Inventor
This 6-week online course, intended for teachers instructing teams of students, integrates programming techniques with pedagogical approaches.

Developing android apps with App Inventor
This free online course hosted by Coursera was created to teach the basics of programming in MIT App Inventor.

Publishing your MIT App Inventor app on the MIT app inventor gallery
Your app can be published in the MIT App Inventor gallery, which will give you a URL to share with others, who can download and use your app.

Publishing your app onto the Google Play store
You can also potentially publish your app on Google Play and share it with the wider android market. See here for the steps involved in getting your app published .

Swift is the native language for iOS app development - it is used by programmers to develop Apple products. It is new, open source, intuitive, and gaining currency as Apple's primary programming language. Students can code in Swift to develop mobile apps for Apple devices.

In recent years, there has been a big push from Apple to make Swift accessible to newcomers to programming.

Resources to help educators teach Swift coding and app development

Swift playgrounds
Swift Playgrounds is a game-like app that makes learning Swift interactive and fun. It requires no coding knowledge.
For more on how to include Swift Playgrounds into a course that teaches computational thinking as well as swift coding, see Swift Playgrounds curriculum guide

App Development with Swift curriculum guide
The Intro to App Development with Swift and App Development with Swift curriculums were designed to teach high school and university students with little or no programming experience how to be app developers, capable of bringing their own ideas to life.

Get started with code curriculum guide
The lessons in this guide are designed to help you bring coding into the early primary school classroom. The lessons highlight key coding concepts, and how coding can be applied to everyday life.

Publishing your app to the iOS App Store
Publishing an app onto the App Store requires a number of steps, including meeting Apple's App Store guidelines. All apps are tested before submission, and many apps are rejected if they are not compliant with the guidelines or contain any bugs or crashes. You also need to register as a member of Apple's app developer program, which costs $99 per year. Educational institutions could be eligible for a fee waiver.

No-code DIY app builders

If you want to make an app, but do not have time to learn programming and coding, there are several web-based app-builder services that allow you to quickly put an app together using drag and drop editing tools. Each action you make auto-generates the development code.

Advantages of no-code app builders

They offer an expedient way to resolve a problem requiring an app-based solution.

Drag-and-drop editing tools can make the process of building an app fun and easy.

Disadvantages of no-code app builders

They restrict users to the functions they offer, which can be specific and limited. This is unlike coding your own app, which gives you more freedom, flexibility, and creativity.

There is no guarantee that an app created in an app-builder can fulfil the requirements for publishing on an app store.

They often require payment.

Do your research before choosing a service.

Mobincube
Mobincube enables users to create a range of apps, from business to educational, entertainment to games. Teachers and students have full unlimited access to most of the premium services of Mobincube for free.

AppyPie
AppyPie contains a number of app templates and features. It has as a free option with limited functionality, with paid options that include more features.

Readings

The impact of student-created apps
Teacher Vicki Davis writes about why making apps has been transformative and empowering for her students.

Creating an engaging app development course for girls
Sylvia Bannister and Cindy Ross discuss the benefits of running app development courses with young women.

Student-made apps

Students at Frankley School in New Plymouth have produced three apps that have potential to go global
This stuff article features primary school students from Frankley school.

SIT WITH US
This app, created by 16-year-old Natalie Hampton from Sherman Oaks, California, was designed to make her school a more inclusive experience for new students.

Elements app
Three US high school students built the Elements app to help their classmates who were struggling to remember the periodic table. They included a TextToSpeech feature for users who are visually impaired.

MIT App Inventor's app of the month winners
Take a look at this gallery of winning apps invented by school students and other amateur developers.

MAD-learn
MAD-learn's mobile app development course gives school students the chance to create an app from beginning to end. Check out their very own "App Store" for previews of student-made apps.

Ideating and planning guide

Samsung's guide to teaching mobile app development
This guide is designed to help teachers create an app development course.

Wireframing

The definitive guide: How to create your first wireframe
Career foundry's guide has video tutorials for wireframing as well as helpful tips.

The 14 best wireframe tools for 2019
Maria Myre gives a breakdown of the pros and cons of various wireframe tools.

Wireframing tools

Wireframe.cc
Gives you the ability to make quick wireframes directly onto your browser. Has a free version, but paid subscriptions give more functionality.

InVision freehand
This is a cloud-based, collaborative, whiteboard-style wireframe tool. Good for quick, team-based mockups of a new app. Completely free to use.

Balsamiq
Often considered as the best wireframe tool for beginners. Paid subscription only.

Programming and development tools and pathways

Swift is the native language for iOS app development - it is used by programmers to develop Apple products.

Swift playgrounds
Swift Playgrounds is a game-like app that makes learning Swift interactive and fun. It requires no coding knowledge.
For more on how to include Swift Playgrounds into a course that teaches computational thinking as well as swift coding, see Swift Playgrounds curriculum guide .

App Development with Swift curriculum guide
The Intro to App Development with Swift and App Development with Swift curriculums were designed to teach high school and university students with little or no programming experience how to be app developers, capable of bringing their own ideas to life.

Get started with code curriculum guide
The lessons in this guide are designed to help you bring coding into the early primary school classroom. The lessons highlight key coding concepts, and how coding can be applied to everyday life.

DIY app builders

Mobincube
Mobincube enables users to create a range of apps, from business to educational, entertainment to games. Teachers and students have full unlimited access to most of the premium services of Mobincube for free.

AppyPie
AppyPie contains a number of app templates and features. It has as a free option with limited functionality, with paid options that include more features.

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App development / Future-focused learning / Teaching / enabling e-Learning - enabling eLearning

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When students make apps, they learn: valuable STEAM skills like coding, programming, graphic design, and content creation how to solve real-world problems with digital design. Whether tackling challenges at school, within the community, or even on a global scale - knowing how to build apps empowers students to meaningfully change their environment through technological intervention.

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An education is supposed to prepare you for the future. Traditionally, that meant learning certain facts and skills, like when explorers arrived in America or how to calculate an answer using long division. Today, curricula have shifted to focus on a more global and digital world, engaging students in subjects like cultural history, basic computing skills, and writing code.

Yet, the challenges our kids will face will be much different than those of our generation. Most of what a typical student learns in school today will no longer be relevant by the time they graduate from college. A study at the University of Oxford found that 47 percent of today's jobs will be eliminated over the next 20 years.

Over the next few decades, much of what we "know" about the world will no longer be true. The computers of the future will not be digital. Software code itself is disappearing, or at least becoming far less relevant. Many of what are considered good jobs today will be either automated or devalued. We need to rethink how we prepare our kids for the world to come.

Understanding Systems

The subjects we learned in school were mostly static. The answer to two plus two was always four. Interpretations of certain subjects may have differed from place to place and evolved over time, but we were taught that the world was based on certain facts. We were evaluated on the basis of knowing those facts.

Yet, as the complexity theorist Sam Arbesman has pointed out, facts have a half-life. As the accumulation of knowledge accelerates, those half-lives are shrinking. For example, when we learned computer programming in school, it was usually in BASIC, a now mostly defunct language. Today, Python is the most popular language, but will likely not be a decade from now.

The best way to prepare for the future is to develop the ability to learn and adapt.

Computers themselves will be very different as well, based less on the digital code of ones and zeros and more on quantum laws and the human brain. We will likely store less information on silicon and more in DNA. There's no way to teach kids how these things will work because nobody, not even experts, is quite sure of that yet.

Kids today need to learn less about the present and more about the systems future technologies will be based on, such as quantum mechanics, genetics, and the logic of code. Economists have consistently found that routine jobs are most likely to be automated. The best way to prepare for the future is to develop the ability to learn and adapt.

Applying Empathy and Design Skills

While machines are taking over many high-level tasks, such as medical analysis and legal research, there are some things they will never do. A computer will never strike out in a Little League game, have its heart broken, or see its child born. So it is very unlikely, if not impossible, that a machine will be able to relate to a human like other humans can. That absence of empathy makes it hard for machines to design products and processes that will maximize enjoyment and utility for humans. So design skills are likely to be in high demand for decades to come as basic production and analytical processes are increasingly automated.

We've already seen this process take place with regard to the Internet. In the early days, it was a very technical field. You had to be a highly skilled engineer to make a website work. Today, however, building a website is something any fairly intelligent high schooler can do - and much of the value has shifted to front-end tasks, like designing the user experience.

With the rise of artificial intelligence and virtual reality, our experiences with technology will become far more immersive, and that will increase the need for good design. For example, conversational analysts (yes, that's a real job) are working with designers to create conversational intelligence for voice interfaces. Furthermore, virtual reality will clearly be much more design intensive than video ever was.

The Ability to Communicate Complex Ideas

Much of the recent emphasis in education has been around STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, and math) and proficiency in those areas is certainly important for today's students to understand the world around them. However, many STEM graduates are finding it difficult to find good jobs. On the other hand, the ability to communicate ideas effectively is becoming a highly-prized skill.

Consider Amazon, one of the most innovative and technically proficient organizations on the planet. However, a key factor to its success is its writing culture. The company is so fanatical about the ability to communicate that developing good writing skills is essential to building a successful career there.

The jobs of the future will not depend as much on knowing facts or crunching numbers as on humans collaborating with other humans to design work for machines.

Think about Amazon's business and it becomes clear why this is the case. Sure, it employs highly adept engineers. But in order to create a truly superior product, those people need to collaborate closely with designers, marketers, business development executives, and others. To coordinate all of that activity and keep everybody focused on delivering a specific, high-quality experience, communication must be clear and coherent. So, while learning technical subjects like math and science is always a good idea, studying subjects that delve into the art of communication - like literature, history, and philosophy - is just as important.

Collaborating and Working in Teams

Traditionally, schoolwork has been based on individual accomplishment. Growing up, you were supposed to study at home, come in prepared, and take your test without help. If you looked at your friend's paper, it was called "cheating" and you got in a lot of trouble for it. You were taught to be accountable for achievements on your own merits.

Yet, consider how the nature of work has changed, even in highly technical fields. In 1920, most scientific papers were written by sole authors; by 1950, that had changed and co-authorship became the norm. Today, the average paper has four times as many authors as it did then, the work being done is far more interdisciplinary, and it is done across greater physical distances than in the past.

Make no mistake: The high-value work today is being done in teams. This will only increase as more jobs become automated. The jobs of the future will not depend as much on knowing facts or crunching numbers as on humans collaborating with other humans to design work for machines. Collaboration will increasingly become a competitive advantage.

That's why we need to pay attention not only to how our kids work and achieve academically, but also to how they play, resolve conflicts, and make others feel supported and empowered. Value has shifted from cognitive skills to social skills. As kids will increasingly be able to learn complex subjects through technology, the most important class may well be recess.

Perhaps most of all, we need to be honest with ourselves and make peace with the fact that our kids' educational experience will not - and should not - mirror our own. The world they face will be far more complex than that. It will be much more difficult to navigate than anything we could imagine back in the days of Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

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Don't Teach Your Kid to Code. Teach Them to Communicate.

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An education is supposed to prepare you for the future. Traditionally, that meant learning certain facts and skills, like when explorers arrived in America or how to calculate an answer using long division. Today, curricula have shifted to focus on a more global and digital world, engaging students in subjects like cultural history, basic computing skills, and writing code.

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Copy of Digital Technology Curriculum Activities

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1. What Does Elon Musk and Grimes' Baby Name Actually Mean?

2. My Family Was Denied a Stimulus Check Because My Husband Is an Immigrant

3. The Trapped-at-Home Mother

4. Parenting During Apocalyptic Times Somehow Cured Me of Pessimism

On a recent late-night formula run, I passed by a large display of books about teaching children to code. I have seen these books around, but never such a large display directed toward elementary-aged children. These books are part of a flood of resources-summer coding camps, after-school code clubs, apps designed to teach kindergarteners the rudiments of JavaScript-aimed at equipping children with future-proof skills.

It's easy to see why parents push coding on their children. What better way to prepare our kids for a future ruled by software than by training them how to build it? If everything is going to be automated, it's much safer to be the one doing the automating. And if learning to code is good, then learning earlier is better. But while these products may teach kids specific coding languages, they actually have very little to do with the work of creating software.

A former co-worker of mine was trained at a coding boot camp with the motto "Coding Is the New Literacy." That sentiment is at the heart of all the programming books and games. The description in one popular book says starting coding early is "essential to prepare kids for the future." This gives the impression that not teaching kids to code is somehow equivalent to not teaching them to read.

That is, of course, ridiculous. Coding is not the new literacy. While most parents are literate and know to read to their kids, most are not programmers and have no idea what kind of skills a programmer needs. Coding books for kids present coding as a set of problems with "correct" solutions. And if your children can just master the syntax, they'll be able to make things quickly and easily. But that is not the way programming works. Programming is messy. Programming is a mix of creativity and determination. Being a developer is about more than syntax, and certain skills can only be taught to the very young.

Good coders don't just get something to work. They want it to begood.

Early in my career, I wrote some code to configure and run a group of remote servers. The code worked great. At least that's what I thought until about 18 hours later, when my phone dinged in the middle of the night telling me a group of the servers had failed. Staggering from bed to my laptop, I ran the code again to replace the broken servers. Hours later, a different group failed.

There wasn't a syntax problem. If there had been, the servers would never have been built in the first place. The problem was much deeper. Isolating and solving it took several weeks and many nights of interrupted sleep.

Coding is like that. Try something. See if it works. Try again. If a problem was straightforward, it would be automated or at least solved with some open-source code. All that's left is the difficult task of creating something unique. There are no books that teach you how to solve a problem no one has seen before. This is why I don't want my kids to learn syntax. I want them to learn to solve problems, to dive deep into an issue, to be creative. So how do we teach that?

One day, my son was concerned that a chair of his was wobbly. We looked at it and he helped me isolate the problem: One of the screws was loose. I found one of our many leftover hex wrenches and showed him how to screw it back in. After that, he was curious what would happen if he screwed the other way, which he did until the screw came out. We ended up taking the chair all the way apart and putting it back together a couple of times, often mismatching pieces, before he was satisfied the job was finished. Try something. See how it works. Try again.

Of course, getting something working is just the first step of building software. The next step is to make code clear, reusable, and neat. Once, early in my career, I wrote a feature and gave it to a senior developer for review. He took one look at my sloppy spacing, mismatched lines, and erratic naming conventions and just said, "Do it again." It was working. The syntax was valid. It was still wrong. Good coders don't just get something to work. They want it to be good.

That feeling of quality is the hardest thing for many developers to master. Well-designed code feels good to work with, and ugly code will make developers involuntarily cringe. The best developers learn to fuse abstract logic with the sensitivity of an artist. Learning to trust that aesthetic feeling is as much a part of development as any algorithm or coding pattern.

My wife and I recently made sugar cookies with our son. Every time we mixed some ingredients we would pause and look at the dough and talk about the texture and color. Was it smooth? Did we get all the parts mixed evenly? As we rolled out the dough, my son felt the surface and watched as my wife showed him how to get everything even and thin. The hardest part, though, was cutting out the shapes. Like all kids, he instinctively pushed the cutter right in the middle of the rolled-out dough, and every time we would try to explain how to place shapes next to each other in order to maximize each roll.

Every step-precisely measuring ingredients, gauging mixed dough for smoothness and consistency, placing precision cuts to minimize waste-taught him something about quality. It's hard to teach the difference between merely executing steps, such as following a recipe, and doing something well. It can only be passed on through feel and experience. And every time you involve your kids when you work on something you value, you are teaching them how to do things well. You are preparing them to write code.

But you're not only teaching them that. You're teaching them the world is full of interesting things to discover. You're showing them how to be passionate and look for that ephemeral sense of quality in everything they do. The best part is that even if they don't become coders-most shouldn't and won't-the same skills can be used in nearly any career, in every hobby, in every life. When we force kids to learn syntax, we reinforce the idea that if something is not a blatantly employable skill, it's not valuable. Adults can learn syntax. Only kids can learn to embrace curiosity.

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I'm a Developer. I Won't Teach My Kids to Code, and Neither Should You.

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What Does Elon Musk and Grimes' Baby Name Actually Mean? My Family Was Denied a Stimulus Check Because My Husband Is an Immigrant The Trapped-at-Home Mother Parenting During Apocalyptic Times Somehow Cured Me of Pessimism On a recent late-night formula run, I passed by a large display of books about teaching children to code.

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Can a robot make a cup of tea?

Dorothy built on what the students had learnt from the work on instructional writing to introduce them to computational thinking and the decomposition of tasks.

The students had recently made a robot as part of their learning in art. They were asked to re-write their instructions for making a hot drink in a way that would allow a robot to replicate the process.

This learning aligns with progress outcome one in computational thinking:

In authentic contexts and taking account of end-users, students use their decomposition skills to break down simple non-computerised tasks into precise, unambiguous, step-by-step instructions (algorithmic thinking). They give these instructions, identify any errors in them as they are followed, and correct them (simple debugging).
CT, progress outcome one

To introduce this activity, the students had great fun watching the Youtube video clip Exact Instructions Challenge.

Testing for errors

After decomposing the instructions for making a cup of tea, the students did the same thing with another process that was of interest to them, such as how to make scrambled eggs.

The students and Dorothy pretended to be robots and acted out the instructions to test them for errors. The instructions for making scrambled eggs required the robot to separate the eggs and beat them with a beater. There was a great deal of laughter as they acted out beating the eggs and the shells. The students then altered the instructions to include, "discard the egg shells".

"It has been interesting to observe how supportive the students are of each other when it comes to problem solving."
Dorothy Hutton, years 5-6 teacher at Columba College

Introducing coding

Dorothy also talked with the students about how decomposed tasks can then be coded and how to identify computer coding languages.

Some of the students had already had a go at coding. Columba College had enrolled students in a GROK Learning NCSS Challenge programme. Dorothy has worked alongside the students to complete the challenges which have mainly been done as homework. Parents have also shown great interest in this.

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Instructional writing and digital technologies

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Dorothy built on what the students had learnt from the work on instructional writing to introduce them to computational thinking and the decomposition of tasks. The students had recently made a robot as part of their learning in art.

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In this webinar Catherine Johnson (Lead facilitator) discusses the new learning progressions for digital technologies:

This webinar recording has been edited into three sections for easy viewing.
Download the slides: Introducing the learning progressions for digital technologies (PDF, 2 MB)
Part one: What are the learning progressions for digital technologies?

Duration: 13:21

Part two: Where do the digital progressions fit in the NZC?

Duration: 09:08

Part three: What are the supports?

Duration: 35:16

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Introducing the learning progressions for digital technologies / Technology Online webinar recordings / Teacher education / Welcome to Technology Online - Technology Online

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In this webinar Catherine Johnson (Lead facilitator) discusses the new learning progressions for digital technologies: This webinar recording has been edited into three sections for easy viewing. Download the slides: Introducing the learning progressions for digital technologies (PDF, 2 MB) Duration: 13:21 Duration: 09:08 Duration: 35:16

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Changes to the New Zealand Technology Curriculum require all Year 1-10 teachers to integrate Computational Thinking into their teaching across the curriculum from 2020 onward.

It is envisioned that Computational Thinking Progress Outcomes (PO's) will be implemented across the curriculum until the end of Year 10. However, in Year 9 and 10 (PO5), it is likely that responsibility for delivering Digital Technology outcomes will be led by specialist teachers, with a professional background in Computer Studies and ICT, within subject specific technology teaching.

While taking account of increasing involvement from specialists, the aim of this course is to provide non-specialists an overview for all levels of the "Entitlement Curriculum" (Parsons, Thomas, Lynch and McCallum, 2018). This will facilitate cross-curricular implementation of Computational Thinking. This resource offers access to learning and teaching resources, including PO5, with curated resources to start or extend your learning in Computational Thinking, as appropriate to your context and interests. It aims to equip you with the knowledge, practical skills and tools to start; and share your continuing learning journey in Computational Thinking. It also offers a range of extension opportunities for diverse learners, while acknowledging substantial variance in prior knowledge and teaching context.

The resources in this course are intended to be used both in professional learning groups and communities of inquiry and individually with the option of sharing resources on the Google+ community, integrated into the course.

By completing each learning task, you will achieve the familiarity necessary to teach all skills that form part of PO's 1-5 and if you are new to computational thinking, this may be the best course of action to take. However, if you are already familiar with everything itemised in the Learning Outcomes at the beginning of each module, you may want use the tasks as a starting point for developing learning resources; and to proceed to the self-assessment task at the end of the unit.

The time-allocation for each task is just an indication. If you are familiar with Scratch, Adobe Spark and Trinket, the task should take you about as long as indicated. If you are still learning how to use the tools, it may take longer.

This resource has been created using a constructivist approach with authentic, meaningful contexts and active, rather than passive, tasks. The structure, with its learning objectives, progressively more complex activities and assessment follows cognitive-behaviorist rationale. Being part of a community of learners is constructivist, but creating and evaluating artefacts is connectivist. Formative self-assessment tasks have been designed to inform the learner of their progress, but can also to be transferred to classroom use.

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Changes to the New Zealand Technology Curriculum require all Year 1-10 teachers to integrate Computational Thinking into their teaching across the curriculum from 2020 onward. It is envisioned that Computational Thinking Progress Outcomes (PO's) will be implemented across the curriculum until the end of Year 10.

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Preparing for Digital Technologies & Hangarau Matihiko in the Technologies learning area : Virtual Learning Network

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Wherever you are in this journey, you and your learning community will want to unpack possibilities for designing programmes of learning that align with the digital technologies progress outcomes. In tomorrow's dedicated post we'll dive a little deeper to unpack one progress outcome for CT and one progress outcome for DDDO to see how we can extend our own thinking and strengthen these areas in our curriculum design.

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Where to start CS Grant slides Webinars.pdf

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Work towards progress outcomes in computational thinking for digital technologies and designing and developing digital outcomes should build each year in order to ensure learners achieve all of the significant learning steps.

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Digital Technologies Implementation for Years 7-10: Webinar series and resources : edSpace

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Digital Technologies Implementation for Years 7-10: Webinar series and resources

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Computer programming can help kids develop vital problem-solving and critical-thinking skills. Not sure where to begin? This list offers ways to jump-start a coding adventure. It also encourages kids to become creators and not simply consumers of technology. Teaching everything from simple commands to complex programs, our favorite coding apps and websites come in a range of formats designed for different ages and abilities. For even more popular picks to spark your kid's interest in coding, be sure to check out our favorite tools that cover STEM topics and our Learning with Technology topic center.

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Common Sense Media editors help you choose Cool Coding Apps and Websites for Kids. Programming is the new literacy all kids can benefit from.

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From Facebook, Twitter, and Google to computer science programs at universities and colleges, women make up a shockingly small percentage of coders and tech professionals. The impact of this cannot be underestimated: If tech is to change the world for the better, Step 1 is making sure the people making tech look like the people using it.

If tech is to change the world for the better, Step 1 is making sure the people making tech look like the people using it.

Teachers nationwide are working to fix this by helping girls see themselves as coders, and we're seeing some success already. Thanks to these successes, educators and researchers have learned a lot about how we can better diversify coding instruction for girls and beyond: 1). Start as early as possible; 2). Focus on creative coding; 3). Make it social and/or collaborative; and 4). Highlight mentors and role models.

Luckily some awesome apps, games, and websites are aimed at changing the face of tech. Here are four trailblazing examples.

START EARLY

Scratch could fit into any of our categories, but it's a particularly good place to start girls off and spark their interest. It features a super easy and highly visual creation tool, focuses on creating and sharing fun games and animations, and has a vibrant community. For even younger kids, there's ScratchJr.

FOCUS ON CREATIVE CODING

Aimed at teen girls, Vidcode leans on girls' passions for social media, memes, and videos to ignite interest. Lessons help uncover the layers and logic of media and help girls create shareable and fun projects using HTML and JavaScript.

MAKE IT SOCIAL

DIY doesn't focus on coding specifically, but do some digging and you'll find a lot of great hands-on creative projects for budding engineers, programmers, and designers. Girls can learn tons of practical skills, such as how to create app wireframes, make websites, or design games and then share what they make with a supportive community of creative kids for feedback and further inspiration.

HIGHLIGHT MENTORS

Created by Google, Made with Code offers quick coding tutorials using the accessible Blockly language. What sets Made with Code apart are the stellar mentor videos featuring interviews with a diverse group of women who work in technical fields. These videos do a great job of modeling success for girls and fit perfectly in any curriculum.

Looking for great tools to use at home? Check out our list of Cool Coding Apps and Websites.

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Coding Tools Girls Will Love | Common Sense Education

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Learn about four apps and websites designed to spark interest in coding.

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Best Coding Tools for High School Students | Common Sense Education

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Help high school students express themselves through code. Explore this Best Coding Tools for High School Students Top Picks list of 34 tools curated by Common Sense Education editors to find relevant and engaging edtech solutions for your classroom.

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Best Coding Tools for Middle School | Common Sense Education

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Coding tools suitable for a range of middle school students. Explore this Best Coding Tools for Middle School Top Picks list of 38 tools curated by Common Sense Education editors to find relevant and engaging edtech solutions for your classroom.

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Best Coding Tools for Elementary | Common Sense Education

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Great coding tools tuned to the needs of younger students. Explore this Best Coding Tools for Elementary Top Picks list of 33 tools curated by Common Sense Education editors to find relevant and engaging edtech solutions for your classroom.

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Coding is one of the most crowded categories in edtech. And while there are a ton of great tools for students of any ability level, many of these tools have hit on the same formula. So whether you're prepping for Hour of Code or looking to launch a coding unit or curriculum in your classroom, lab, or library, it's tough to find the right solution or even determine what separates one from another. Thankfully, there are a few developers out there breaking the mold and doing something different.

These developers are not just iterating on the tried-and-true coding formula but exploring new frontiers that offer students new ways to learn -- from VR and hardware hacking to on-the-go learning to courses and curriculum that blend technical skills with "soft" skills.

Hardware hacking: Pi-Top and Piper

Computer scientists and software engineers know it's important for coders to have an understanding of how computers are made and how they work. Knowing a bit about the hardware side of things helps inform a programmer's understanding of why code works the way it does. As someone who likes to build his own computers, I can also say it's just flat-out fun to put together a PC and swap in and out components. It's like the nerdier version of hot rodding.

Pi-Top and Piper both understand this, too, and have platforms that allow students -- much like a littleBits kit -- to assemble and modify modular computers that can then be used as coding platforms. On the coding side of things, Pi-Top has it own stylish game (CEED) students can use to learn about the basics of code, and Piper integrates with Minecraft.

Realistic, cross-disciplinary game design: Zulama

A lot of tools out there simplify game design, offering approximations of real-life coding that make it easier for kids to jump in and make something quickly. There are also pro-level tools such as GameMaker Studio that some enterprising teachers have adapted for student use. However, the real work of game design isn't only coding games but conceptualizing them, building them, testing them, and marketing them. This is a process that requires more than technical skills, from storytelling to business to so-called soft skills such as collaboration.

Zulama -- based on the successful college-level game design and development curriculum at Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center -- effectively combines all these diverse skills into a truly comprehensive curriculum. Courses range in length and focus (from 3D modeling to the history of North American play and gaming), but all feature discussions, true PBL, assessments, and online and offline activities. Don't worry if all this seems intimidating: There are PD resources that promise to get any teacher up to speed.

Thanks to Duolingo and a host of competitors, on-the-go language learning has been a huge hit in the app market. But what if you want to learn some JavaScript alongside brushing up on your French? Well, that's where Grasshopper comes in. It's a free app that takes the same bite-sized, mobile-friendly learning model refined in the language-learning market and applies it to acquiring actual coding skills.

And according to our reviewer James Denby, they hit it out of the park: "Grasshopper is one of the best learn-to-code apps out there. Rather than playing games that involve coding concepts or code-like blocks, students will work with blocks of real JavaScript code (with the real syntax, punctuation, etc.) to solve clearly designed and interesting challenges. Quizzes along the way reinforce and highlight a conceptual understanding of items like variables, loops, and arrays. Unlike with many apps, students using Grasshopper won't just learn about these concepts but will get to see them in use with real code. Grasshopper is also quite extensive and will take students quite far in their understanding of how JavaScript works."

Virtual reality storytelling: CoSpaces

CoSpaces is only the second developer ( zSpace being the other) I've seen working on how to turn students from virtual reality (VR) consumers into VR creators. Of course, consumer-facing products such as Minecraft or Tilt Brush can be adapted for classroom use, but CoSpaces is launching a classroom-specific solution, CoSpaces Edu. They've built an interesting platform that effectively turns VR into a creative platform for student expression -- from telling stories to modeling environments to exhibiting work.

For students and teachers who want to add depth to the experience, there's also support for scripting using either Blockly (beginner) or JavaScript (advanced). Using one of these languages, students can model and animate objects, adding an extra layer of learning to the engaging experience of VR creation.
Top photo credit: courtesy of Allison Shelley/The Verbatim Agency for American Education: Images of Teachers and Students in Action

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4 Fresh Approaches to Coding in the Classroom | Common Sense Education

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Coding is one of the most crowded categories in edtech. And while there are a ton of great tools for students of any ability level, many of these tools have hit on the same formula.

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Best Apps and Websites for Learning Programming and Coding | Common Sense Education

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Unlock the logic of code and the basics of programming. Through coding, students build essential literacy skills, gain an understanding of logic and sequence, and learn the mechanics of iteration. These apps are great to teach coding and programming for beginners, and a lot of them are free!

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This post is written by Karly Moura, a teacher on special assignment (TOSA) and computer science teacher in Mount Diablo USD in Concord, California. You can follow her on Twitter or follow her blog at karlymoura.blogspot.com.

You don't have to be an expert programmer yourself to get your students started coding in the classroom and the Hour of Code is a great place to start. With the incredible amount of resources available to educators, you can learn to program along WITH your students.

The Hour of Code is celebrated the first week of December with over 180 countries participating around the world. You can get your students in on the action no matter what grade level or subject area you teach.

Below you will find 20 ways to get your class coding before, during, or even after the Hour of Code.

Hour of Code activities and tutorials

Only have 60 minutes to host your Hour of Code? Or maybe you want to try a short tutorial out with your students before jumping in further. These activities will take approximately an hour for your students to complete. Many are available in multiple languages and teacher's guides are provided. In addition to the ones I have highlighted below, you can find many, many more at Hourofcode.com/us/learn.

1. Dance Party- This year code.org has teamed up with musicians like Ed Sheeran, Imagine Dragons, J Balvin and Willy William, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry, Keith Urban, Lady Antebellum and more for a dance party coding activity that students will flip for.

2. Minecraft tutorials- Each year code.org offers Minecraft lovers everywhere the chance to combine their coding skills with familiar characters from Minecraft. Students can complete the newest tutorial and can try out past year's activities too.

3. Lightbot- ANY age, pre-reader+ can experience the Hour of Code with Lightbot. Lightbot uses programming logic to solve fun puzzles. Students will learn how to sequence instructions, write procedures, and utilize loops along the way.

4. Intro to App Lab- With this tutorial aimed at 13+ students can create their own app in JavaScript using block-based programming. Have advanced coders? They can level up with text-based programming.

5. Animate your name in Scratch- Scratch is a free, block-based programming language created by the Lifelong Kindergarten group at MIT. In this tutorial, students can animate the letters of their name, initials, or a favorite word.

6. Coding Mathematics models- Students in grades 6+ learn to code different mathematical models in Python (a text-based programming language) with Tracy the Turtle. Although no prior coding experience is necessary, they recommend that students participating in the activity have completed Algebra I or higher.

No computers? No problem! Unplugged coding ideas.

It may surprise you and your students to know that you don't need a computer to celebrate the Hour of Code! There are tons of activities available for students of all ages.

7. Hello Ruby- The Hello Ruby picture book series is one of the most brilliant ways to teach programming to young learners. Each book contains a beautiful story that introduces readers the fundamentals of computer science along with an activity book for young programmers. Check out helloruby.com for free lesson plans and links for ordering the books.

8. Dance party unplugged- The same awesome dance party activity that was mentioned above can be done without a computer! Students can learn coding concepts to choreograph a dance party together using events to respond to a user using a controller.

9. My robotic friends- In this fun, unplugged activity students will figure out how to guide each other to accomplish specific tasks without discussing them first. This traveling circuits activity teaches students the basics of coding as well as the extremely valuable skill of debugging.

10. Printable coding cards- Printable coding cards can be used with students for a hands-on, offline coding experience. Coding cards from Tickle App, Scratch Jr or Scratch can be used with online coding activities, unplugged lessons or even with robots!

Going beyond an hour of code

If you have more than an hour to devote to Computer Science education week or want your students to have the opportunity to go beyond the Hour of Code then these resources are the perfect addition.

If you want to use the choice boards or HyperDocs with your class just go to File > Make a copy! (But please, please, please ... don't request access. Just make your own copy. Thanks!)

11. Choice boards- A choice board is a great option if you have a lot of classes participating in the Hour of Code or if you want to give your students the option of choosing their activity. Feel free to adapt this HOC choice board for K-5 or this HOC choice board for 6+ to meet the needs of your students.

12. Hour of Code HyperDoc for K-2- This mini-unit can be done as a whole class or students can complete the activities in pairs or individually depending on their age and/or coding experience. This Introduction to Coding and the Hour of Code HyperDoc is meant to be assigned as "view only", students will use the links provided to complete activities.

13. Hour of Code HyperDoc for 3+- This version of the Introduction to Coding and Hour of Code HyperDoc is more interactive and self-paced for older students. Students will learn about the basics of computer programming and block coding languages prior to trying out an hour of code activity.

14. How Computers Work- Computer science is about more than just coding. In this mini unit, geared toward grades 5-8, students will explore what makes a computer a computer, binary, circuits, logic and more. Lisa Guardino and I created this HyperDoc to introduce students to how computers work. This mini unit includes a NEW BreakoutEDU digital, a show what you know choice board, and fun challenges to get kids thinking.

15. BreakoutEDU digital- Add an extra challenge to your Hour of Code celebration with a computer science themed BreakoutEDU digital. These virtual escape rooms are meant to be challenging so students will need an extra dose of growth mindset and resiliency as they tackle these breakouts. The Ransomware and Robot breakouts were created by Stephanie Allen, an adjunct professor of computer science Portland Community College.

16. Flipgrid Explorer Series: Code- Last year the Flipgrid team hosted a two-week series that gave students an opportunity to connect with the developers who work behind the scenes to create the platform. This year they are back with another engaging series that will engage your students in designing and developing their own projects Stay on the lookout and check blog.flipgrid.com/news/explorer for the start of this series happening in the beginning of December.

Celebrating the Hour of Code with physical computing and robots

Got robots or physical computing devices like MaKey MaKey or Micro:bit? Even if you only have one or two robots or devices these activities work great as a station and most of these tutorials can be completed with or without the robot or device. Check out hourofcode.com/us/learn/robotics for more.

17. Ozobots- With this tiny little robot students in pre-k and up can practice coding using markers or the Ozoblockly editor. Ozobot has 19 different Hour of Code tutorials ranging from beginner to comfortable, no screen to tablets or computers, and even tutorials that don't require an Ozobot at all!

18. MaKey MaKey- Marketed as an "invention kit for everyone" Makey Makey turns everyday objects into a touchpad or keyboard. Let your students explore the world of circuits and electricity with MaKey MaKey as they complete the Hour of Code through this HyperDoc remixed by Owen Peery.

19. Micro:bits- These pocket-sized computers cost around $24 and can be programmed using Blocks, JavaScript, and Python. In this Hour of Code project, suggested for grades 6+, students create pictures or animations that will appear on the micro:bit display when the buttons are pressed. If you have micro:bits and younger students that are eager to try the new Beta version of Scratch 3.0 then the Scratch 3.0 activity cards for micro:bit are the perfect place to begin. Students can code using the MakeCode editor with or without a micro:bit on Chromebooks, PCs, Macs, Linux systems (including Raspberry Pi). Also check out Brian Aspinall's Hour of Curiosity site with a whole page dedicated to Micro:bit tutorials and activities.

20. RoboBlockly- Created at the UC Davis C-STEM center, RoboBlockly prepares students to program in C/C++. Based on Google's Blockly programming language, RoboBlockly allows you to control Linkbots and Lego Mindstorms NXT/EV3 as well as to draw and animate for beginners to learn robotics. These Hour of Code activities are suitable for a range of skill levels and can be completed with or without the robots.

Bonus! Check out this Wakelet collection that includes ALL of the links from this post. I will likely add to it in the coming weeks as more resources are shared during CS education week. This collection can be shared directly through Facebook, Twitter, and Google Classroom or you can even make a copy to edit and add your own resources!

Ready to move beyond the Hour of Code?

If you are ready to begin teaching computer science in your classroom but aren't sure where to start or just want more resources then stay tuned for a guest post by Owen Peery during Computer Science Education Week on the Ditch That Textbook blog!

Related posts:
For notifications of new Ditch That Textbook content and helpful links: Interested in having Matt present at your event or school? Contact him by e-mail! Matt is scheduled to present at the following upcoming events:

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20 ways to celebrate the Hour of Code in ANY class

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This post is written by Karly Moura, a teacher on special assignment (TOSA) and computer science teacher in Mount Diablo USD in Concord, California. You can follow her on Twitter or follow her blog at karlymoura.blogspot.com.

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The Workbench team is thrilled to announce that we are joining forces with Google. Our core mission has always been to engage learners and educators through shared, meaningful lessons and tools that they can make their own. As a part of Google, we will be better positioned to achieve this mission!

The Google team shares our vision for helping educators quickly discover great lessons and rework them to use in their classrooms. Google's tools and devices are already a significant part of how schools and universities are using technology to impact student learning. With Workbench, these educators will gain access to an innovative learning platform that provides lesson and project authoring, sharing, and discovery capabilities.

Teachers and students in districts across the country are already seeing the impact of using Workbench with Google Classroom, alongside leading maker-tech platforms including Sphero, littleBits, Makey Makey, and others.
"Workbench allows us to take the content and lessons our teachers are already using and put those in one place, making them accessible for other teachers to search." says Ryan Johnson, Director of Information Technology from the Lompoc Unified School District.
Educators can sign up to try the Workbench integration today: The project and lesson platform is already integrated with Google Classroom, and educators around the world are using it to power engaging learning experiences. Browse some of our favorite projects in these subject areas:

Survival: Swarm Size & Infection Spread [Part One]
Mars Elections Automatic Art Paper Towers & Metropolis Challenge

What's Your Cellular Super Power? [Part One]
What Happened Here? [Part One]

CS Basics [Part One]

CS Basics [Part Two]

Artifacts for an Invented Ancient Civilization
Historical News Reporter

What's in a Name?

Mythology: Social Media with the Gods

Workbench would like to extend our deepest appreciation to our customers, supporters, and advisors for believing in our vision and helping us build a valuable solution for educators. We are excited to continue working together to improve learning and help educators create, manage and share great lessons with our new teammates at Google and on the Google for Education team!

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The Workbench team is thrilled to announce that we are joining forces with Google. Our core mission has always been to engage learners and educators through shared, meaningful lessons and tools that they can make their own. As a part of Google, we will be better positioned to achieve this mission!

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First in the series, Hour of Code Ideas!

"Falling in love with code means falling in love with problem solving and being a part of a forever ongoing conversation." - Kathryn Barrett

Throughout my 20 plus years of teaching I've integrated technology in the various subjects I've taught because the world needs all our learners to gain the digital skills needed to thrive, connect, and contribute in a connected world. In any subject, students need to know how to conduct research and distribute this information to others digitally either through digital posters, digital books, blogs, videos, podcasts, comics, digital games, infographics, etc. Now I'm a technology teacher for elementary students and I've noticed that many love using computers, laptops, mobiles, and other technologies to play games, watch videos, or take pictures, but most students use technology without appreciating how the technology works or does what we want it to. The upcoming Hour of Code event, which takes place December 3rd to 9th, is a wonderful way to help your students gain basic skills needed to understand the technology they use daily and will continue to use throughout their lives. Take the challenge and dedicate at least one class period during this week to completing an Hour of Code activity. This article, Why Kids Should Learn To Code (And How To Get Them Started), provides some useful information to get you started.

Coding is the ability to write step by step instructions (programs) for a computer to understand to complete a task. The has tons of ready to go online activities that get students to write code that results in a number of cool outcomes, such as making a monster dance, creating avatars, remixing music or making a game. When students complete these easy tutorials they learn these important skills- logic, problem solving, fitting puzzle pieces together, selection, instructional writing, editing, revision, and creation. Below are some great websites to find engaging coding projects that take an hour or less. Most require no registration! Just provide students with a quick introduction to the task on the projector and the link for them to get started. I would highly recommend doing the activity first. In the next post I will introduce you to unplugged activities, which get students to focus on specific coding skills you will notice in these activities, which include working with puzzles, providing good instructions, problem solving and algorithms.
[Kick Off the School Year Right with These 14 Back to School Tips and Tons of Resources!]
lists different engaging and fun coding activities for beginners to advanced coders and no registration is required. I will describe supplemental activities for using this website in a later post. The projects work by dragging blocks of code on the left hand column to the right hand column and making selections under different categories. Some of the easier activities my students enjoy are coding a Yeti to dance, creating a Holiday avatar, remixing music, or telling a special teacher thank you!

is another student favorite that includes projects where students learn different programming languages to create, design, and play games. This is suitable for elementary to teens. The activities work with popular brands, such as Minecraft or Barbie. No registration is required for some of the activities, but free registration will give students access to more activities and the ability to earn badges.

is a popular resource for any subject mostly for elementary and middle school ages. Find several coding videos, animations, interactives and games. One of the favorite games is Run Marco. Elementary students who are just beginning to code will enjoy this game that has them provide instructions in code to help the players pass levels.

has different Hour of Code activities that require no registration just choose the option to "Start Without Saving." The activities are for elementary students and give them the options to design their own fuzz, make their own mazes, or build games.

has different activities for elementary students to adults. The Hour of Code activities require no registration and get students to choreograph their own dance party, create stories, and more. I love that the projects have introduction video warm ups to help explain the task. I also love the unplugged activities. If students register for free then you are able to track their progress. Registration doesn't require an email so even elementary students can register safely with picture prompts or codes.

- Students will walk through video lessons that teach them about a programming language then students will have to tweak a code for a specific result. This website is for middle school, teens, and adult learners. I like some of the videos that introduce students to professionals in their work settings who are impacted by computer programming.

- If you have access to a 3D printer students (elementary to adults) can complete several quick learning modules to create rings, name tags, and more. The modules are broken down into very simple steps that often take 5 minutes or less. Following a step produces a quick visual result and helps students build a foundation in designing with a computer. The activities are free but require registration. You can use this without a 3D printer, but students will want to see their designs in real life!

cross posted at teacherrebootcamp.com

Shelly Terrell is a Technology and Computer teacher, education consultant, and author of books including Hacking Digital Learning Strategies: 10 Ways to Launch EdTech Missions in Your Classroom. Read more at teacherrebootcamp.com.

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8 Wonderful Websites for Easy Coding Activities for Any Age or Level!

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First in the series, Hour of Code Ideas ! "Falling in love with code means falling in love with problem solving and being a part of a forever ongoing conversation."

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The Hour of Code is coming! Are you ready? Here's your Beginner's Guide to the Hour of Code!
(This post was originally published on Edsurge.com.)
In case you haven't been paying attention, computer science skills are vastly becoming some of the most in-demand skills of the twenty-first century. In fact, some call it a new " superpower."

But there's a problem. There are approximately 587,000 computing jobs nationwide, which is growing at 2x the national average, but only about 38,000 computer science students graduated into the workforce this year.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that by the year 2020, there will be one million more computer science jobs than graduates prepared for these jobs.

Computer science is a primary driver of the U.S. economy, yet it does not play a significant role in K-12 education.

Did you know that only 27 states allow students to count computer science courses toward high school graduation? But there's a way schools can help-by getting involved in Computer Science Education Week (CSEdWeek).

CSEdWeek and The Hour of Code arrive December 3-9, 2018, and this annual event is bigger than ever.

Below, you will find a resource guide for CSEdWeek and Hour of Code, in order to help all of you K-12 educators bring coding into the classroom.

What is Computer Science Education Week (CSEdWeek) and The Hour of Code?

Computer Science Education Week or CSEdWeek is an annual program designed to inspire K-12 students to take an interest in computer science. The program was originated by the Computing in the Core coalition, Code.org, and is supported by partners and educators worldwide. The philosophy is simple but significant: every student deserves the opportunity to learn computer science.

Hour of Code is a global movement in over 180 countries and is a quick way to introduce coding to students or anyone. Anyone can learn the basics of computer science in a fun and easy way! By spending as little as one hour, you can spark coding interest in your students with one-hour lesson plans, tutorials, interactives and games.

How to Run an Hour of Code

Ready to get started? Running an Hour of Code doesn't have to be complicated. The resources are abundant and easy-to-follow. Sign-up here to get FREE resources!

No matter what grade level you teach, or what devices you have available, every student can participate in the Hour of Code and learn the basic principles that apply to all programming languages (like sequencing and looping). There are even options to go "unplugged" if you do not have access to devices in your classroom because students can learn computer science principles with something as simple as a deck of cards.

Coding Resources & Lessons

There are hundreds of free resources, lesson plans, tutorials and events that bring the power of coding into the K-12 classroom. Below is a list of nine of my favorite options for anyone of any age to learn computer science skills. ( If you'd like even more tools, check out my full list here.)

New for 2018! The Grinch

Don't miss The Grinch Hour of Code!

Learn to program drones and a high tech sleigh with coding magic to capture presents and navigate down the mountain to return Christmas to Whoville.

Learn to program drones and a high tech sleigh with coding magic to capture presents and navigate down the mountain to return Christmas to Whoville.

modern browsers, smartphones & tablets

Write Your First Program

Drag and drop blocks to learn the basics of computer programming with self-directed tutorials and lectures from Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates.

37 languages

modern browsers, smartphones & tablets

Hour of Drawing with Code

Khan Academy tutorial: Learn how to draw with code (Javascript and ProcessingJS).

modern browsers and iPad

Learn the basics of JavaScript through this interactive guide, includes accompanying quizzes and slides.

modern browsers, iOS and Android

Online game where students program a monkey to catch bananas as they learn a real programming language.

16 languages

modern browsers, iOS and Android

For even more, check out all the lessons and resources from Code.org and their partners. I have also curated a YouTube playlist of inspirational videos and tutorials on coding. Still looking for more resources? Check out the Shake Up Learning Coding Pinterest Board.

Computer Science Unplugged

No computer? No problem. As mentioned earlier, you can still teach and learn the basic principles of computer science without any computer or device at all. Try CS Unplugged, which is a collection of learning activities that teach computational thinking concepts without the need of a computer or device.

Moving Beyond the Hour of Code

Jumpstart Your Curriculum

The Hour of Code is just a starting point. When you and your students are ready for more, explore these fantastic resources, or give your teaching a boost with one of the following curriculums. (Keep in mind-most of these curriculums are tied in with the tools of the companies that created them!)

Professional Development and School District Partnerships

There are hundreds of events happening all over the globe, educators. To find an event near you, visit this link. Code.org also offers resources and training for educators and school districts. Find a professional learning event near you to learn more about the initiative and how to bring coding into your classroom. In fact, if you're already a computer science teacher, you can become a Code.org facilitator.

And for you district administrators, listen up! Code.org offers district partnerships to bring computer science to your entire district. Apply now!

Girls and Coding

The gender gap in the computer science industry is astonishing. Women today represent only 18% of all computer science graduates. In 1984, women were 37%. Encourage girls and young women to get started with coding using these inspiring programs.

Get Involved, No Matter Your Position!

Not a classroom teacher, but still want to get involved? Spread the word with https://code.org/promote or https://csedweek.org/promote. Or, even better, become a Code.org volunteer.

No matter what your role, be it classroom teacher, administrator, parent, or community member, there are multiple ways to support CSEdWeek. Preparing students for the future, and equipping them with essential skills for success is always the end goal. Every student deserves a chance to learn computer science! Get started this week with the Hour of Code!

© Shake Up Learning 2018. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog's author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Kasey Bell and Shake Up Learning with appropriate and specific direction to the original content on ShakeUpLearning.com. See: Copyright Policy.

18 Challenges for Teachers in 2018 FREE eBook!

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The Beginner's Guide to the Hour of Code

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The Hour of Code is coming! Are you ready? Here's your Beginner's Guide to the Hour of Code! (This post was originally published on Edsurge.com.) In case you haven't been paying attention, computer science skills are vastly becoming some of the most in-demand skills of the twenty-first century.

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Digital technologies and ICT | NSW Education Standards

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This guide draws out the areas where computational thinking can be applied within the existing NSW K-8 syllabuses. It includes suggested activities and links to online resources.

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Editor's note: This story led off this week's Future of Learning newsletter, which is delivered free to subscribers' inboxes every Wednesday with trends and top stories about education innovation. Subscribe today!
In Peter Nilsson's classes, students use computers to help them analyze text. Nilsson is an English teacher by training, but he has embraced the "digital humanities," teaching students how to code to answer questions about books, speeches, news coverage, rap lyrics and more.

One of his students analyzed the text of all presidential inaugural and farewell addresses to identify common and unique themes among them. Another compared the tone and frequency of New York Times coverage of Harvey Weinstein before and after the emergence of the #MeToo movement, by analyzing every word in every article filed under the Times Topic "Harvey Weinstein." A third explored which rappers most use internal rhyme, by importing lyrics, converting words to phonemes and analyzing from there.

Nilsson teaches at Deerfield Academy, a private school in western Massachusetts. The type of text analysis he guides his students through is far more common in colleges and graduate-school programs, but the coding that makes it possible is an increasingly popular skill to teach children.

Fifteen states now require all high schools to offer computer science courses. Twenty-three states have created K-12 computer science standards. And 40 states plus the District of Columbia allow students to count computer science courses toward high school math or science graduation requirements. That's up from 12 states in 2013, when Code.org launched, aiming to expand access to computer science in U.S. schools and increase participation among girls and underrepresented minorities in particular. Since then, Code.org has been tracking state policy changes and a number of other metrics about computer science education.

Pat Yongpradit, chief academic officer for Code.org, said Nevada is the only state so far to embed math, science, English language arts and social studies into its computer science standards. (Editor's note: We have since learned that Virginia also does this.) The standards create a roadmap for teachers to start teaching coding in their classrooms, specifically connecting computer science with what is being taught in the other subjects in the same grade level. For every overlap, teachers have a concrete opportunity to introduce computer science in more traditional subjects.

Not every student is going to graduate from high school and go on to become a computer scientist, but that's not the point, Yongpradit said.

"You take a biology class in high school not because everyone is going to become a doctor, but because when you go to the doctor, you can understand what they're talking about," Yongpradit said.

Nilsson cites a similar motivation for asking kids to code in their English classes. It's an element of digital literacy, he said.

"When I think about entering a digital future, it's simply understanding how machines work on a conceptual level and understanding what they can do," Nilsson said.

"When I think about entering a digital future, it's simply understanding how machines work on a conceptual level and understanding what they can do."

Once students take his class, they realize the types of questions they can ask when confronted with massive amounts of data. Maybe they don't know exactly what code to write to get an answer, but if they know what's possible, they're better equipped to figure that out.

Yongpradit has come across a number of lessons in U.S. schools that combine elements of computer science with other subject areas. There are music classes that let students use computer programming to compose songs. There are science classes that let students code their own simulations to explore natural phenomena like chemical reactions, the water cycle or predator/prey systems. An algebra course that uses programming to teach functions and variables has actually been found to improve student understanding of those concepts over traditional math instruction.

"Because they're able to apply these ideas within a video game-creation context, it just sticks all the better," Yongpradit said.

Nilsson's course is rare in that the entire curriculum combines coding and English language arts. Much more common are traditional courses that bring elements of coding into a lesson or two throughout the semester. But maybe that won't be the case for long.

Initiatives continue to spring up around the country, introducing students to computer science more generally.

The CSforALL movement, for example, aims to bring computer science education to all U.S. students. At its second annual summit conference last week, nearly 300 organizations announced commitments to contribute to this effort, which should lead to new learning opportunities for 47 million students along with 246,000 teachers. Among these commitments is a partnership between the Detroit Public Schools Community District and the Quicken Loans Community Fund to create a blueprint for computer science education, the release of an evidence-based K-12 computer science pathway for schools from the National Math and Science Initiative, and commitments from 13 universities across 10 states to create or expand teacher prep courses in computer science.

This story about computer science in high school was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.

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Students analyze rap lyrics with code in digital humanities class

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Editor's note: This story led off this week's Future of Learning newsletter, which is delivered free to subscribers' inboxes every Wednesday with trends and top stories about education innovation. Subscribe today! In Peter Nilsson's classes, students use computers to help them analyze text.

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What does the future mean to the education industry? Futurists tend to get a bad wrap because they often make technological predictions. Mike Walsh argues that successfully predicting the future is more about paying attention to people, not the technology in their lives.

While in Japan, Walsh shared his thinking around Masayoshi Son's ability to raise hundreds of millions of dollars by starting his thinking 15-20 yrs into the future, and simply working backwards to see what support and infrastructure would be needed to make that future a reality. He then goes to find those companies to invest in and if they don't exist, he creates them! You see, what Masayoshi does differently is that he looks at the people needed to create a distant dream, not the technology. And so, Walsh surmises , we needn't be looking at the current crop of Millennials to make predictions about education in the next 12-15 years, as by then, they will be "as old and as miserable as the rest of us!" The people we should be looking, Walsh describes as the most terrifying generation we've ever encountered, are eight year olds!

Why are eight year olds so different?

The way our current crop of primary aged students interact with technology is vastly different to the generation previous to them. Walsh points out that this digitally native group of users develops an almost intrinsic understanding of the algorithmic framework that drives interactions from an impossibly young age. It's this genuine difference in the way they interact with technology that Walsh believes will lead to a very different way of thinking around the way we connect with and explore knowledge.

It's not the screen that's interesting, it's the experiences and the way technology has interacted with it. YouTube has changed the way an entire generation watches TV. Every experience children have now has been customised and hyper-individualised by the data collected by social media. Children now are at the beginning of a true algorithmic society, a social credit score based society. Terrified yet? The currency and fabric of daily life is fast becoming driven by data, artificial intelligence, algorithms and machine learning. Computers themselves are constantly adapting, writing their own code and programming, no longer reliant on the dinosaurs of the MS-DOS prompt generation.

"The minute you joined Facebook, your kids left!"

The reason adaptive and machine learning has so much potential is because it allows us to truly take the world's knowledge, understand an individual's needs and to personalise and tailor it to algorithmic, logical perfection. Students of tomorrow have the opportunity to be taken along their own learning journey, at their own pace and scale, for vastly reduced sums of money. As Walsh points out, this is not to say human teachers are not important, just that we are entering an age whereby content and opportunity can be delivered in a scaled way, that has previously been inconceivable. And we're going to need it! Walsh continues on to share that the skills, knowledge and understandings required to function successfully in an algorithmic age are not being taught in today's schools. As we stand at a precipice, faced with the landscape of tomorrow's society, how can teaching knowledge and skills of yesterday, prepare leaders and learners of tomorrow? We need to start by articulating what those skills might be...

Automation of Industry

When farm jobs started to decline during automation, the westernised education system began to evolve. Many smart and forward thinking people realised the need to invest in new forms of education in order to prepare people for the future. Technology doesn't destroy jobs, it simply changes them . It's not always a straightforward process and often the realisation takes a little time. Sometimes enabling technology, even though it can be hugely disruptive, can actually increase the number of people employed in an industry. Take ATMs for example. Some bank tellers lost their jobs, however because paying the number of people who worked as tellers reduced, it meant that more branches could be opened- thus increasing the number of people working for the banks!

It's becoming a case of looking at the type of people that will thrive in an environment that focuses on both the world of people as well as having a strong understanding of how to leverage data and apply it. Computational thinking is not about teaching children to code, it's about how to leverage technology to break a problem down and find a strategy to automate its solution. Thinking about the future, this gives students the ability to both understand the essence of a problem as well as a knowledge of the tools and processes to combat it.

Key Skills for the next generation

As we see the rise of this hybrid approach, the understanding of the problem and the data to solve it using computer science and technology, we need to teach the next generation to be more comfortable with ambiguity. We are in danger of preparing students for a world that has become obsolete by the time they leave education. The CEO of Netflix looks for employees that can exercise "good judgement in ambiguous situations." This is harder than it sounds. As we leave a structured education system that has exams and allocated time, hierarchy and structure, and they walk into a world that has huge unknown, how can we make sure they cope. How do we teach students to process unpredictability and handle ambiguity?

Another element we need to help learners become aware of is the power of machine thinking and artificial intelligence. Here Walsh sites Deep Blue (an AI) beating world Chess Master Gary Kasparov. Reflecting on this event, it became clear that the computer was not trying to beat the world's greatest human chess player by a substantial margin, it was simply trying to do the very minimum to win by just one point. What this means is that we need to understand how a computer 'sees' the world and problem solving. A computer will conserve resources, not try to focus on the end goal and winning big. A computer will work out the simplest way to win and this way is often not an approach that a human will see, let alone take.

The final element we need to take into account is to teach students to centre themselves, find the right moral compass and make good ethical judgements. Here Walsh suggests that perhaps studying computing is not the best way forward, but the studying of philosophy in order to help build decision making capacity using a strong moral compass. This is not about following the laws of a land, it's about following the laws of trust, set by humans. As the debates around privacy and our data continue to rage, we are entering a time where understanding the tech is important, but understanding underlying motivations and human behaviour is even more valuable.

"The algorithmic age is an opportunity to embrace new and exciting ways of thinking..."

Are our experiences within the digital economy going to get wider and bigger?

It's impossible to not participate in the future. It may become impossible to get a bank loan or go a

bout daily efforts as you'll have no transparency and digital value. With kids, we have about 9-10yrs where people shelter them from tech. If we don't teach them how to function appropriately and effectively, then how can we expect them to function?

How can we avoid programmer bias being transferred to AI?

This is important. We need to interrogate the code that is produced. How was the data collected? Are they discriminatory? There's a need to have well educated teachers and others so they can be part of the discussion.

Small data: The rights, the voice and the individual. How do we as teachers ensure that the rights of our children are at the forefront?

People assume it's a binary thing. They think it's either about human interest or corporation driven outcomes. I see it as a combination. As we scale up good education into remote communities or for larger class sizes, it should be a partnership. Everyone is at a different rate of learning and we can leverage small or big data to find what someone knows and unlock their potential.

Teachers in the future: They need to be informed, discerning, questioning and listening. So what might it actually look like?

Teachers need to be as good as the tech they use. I don't believe classrooms will disappear. The power of humans together is incredibly. People working from home is beginning to end because their best ideas come from the old school analogue way of being face to face. In 10-20 yrs we won't have virtual classes. If anything the tech will be less visible. It's the data that sits behind it that will really shape the system.

Are humans learning to think less for themselves therefore teaching ourselves to becoming less intelligent?

In many ways we don't have the same memories because we have google! We live in times when we don't even need to remember phone numbers. Tech has become an extension of our memory and perception. Does it makes us stupid? I think it's changed us. It should allow us to extend ourselves.

As someone who travels world as a global nomad- where do you think the patterns around where people live lie? Will travel decrease because of tech?

It feels like we're going backwards. How did we lose Concord? Even with tech, our ability to see more digitally makes us want to see it more physically. I hope it will make people want to see more. Autonomous cars, flying cars and drones, all will change how we interact and how we design where we learn. We need to remember not to forget what it means to keep in touch and be human.

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Keynote: Mike Walsh - Preparing the next generation for the algorithmic age : edSpace

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What does the future mean to the education industry? Futurists tend to get a bad wrap because they often make technological predictions. Mike Walsh argues that successfully predicting the future is more about paying attention to people, not the technology in their lives.

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n a modern company like Amazon, almost all human activity is directed by computer programs. They not only monitor workers' actions but are used to choose who should be employed. Yet it emerged last week that the company had scrapped an attempt to use artificial intelligence to select workers on the basis of their CVs, since the results consistently discriminated against women.

This is a welcome decision that illuminates two important facts about machine learning, the most widely used technique of AI at the moment. The technical or operational point is that these programs, no matter how fast they learn, can only learn from the data presented to them. If this data reflects historic patterns of discrimination, the results will perpetuate those patterns.

That's what Amazon found: by training its AI with the records of those job applicants who had been hired in the past, who were overwhelmingly men, it taught the program to discriminate against applications from women. Since the program had access to immense amounts of data about the applicants, it was able to infer their sex from factors such as whether they had attended an all-woman college. And since it had neither conscience nor consciousness, the machine behaved as if being female were a sign of inferiority, just as the industry it learned from had done.

This is an instance of a wider problem that has appeared in more sinister contexts, such as decisions over which prisoners should get parole. It is also one that is extremely hard to surmount. When you ask computers to detect patterns in data, which is the short description of machine learning, the patterns they find are usually genuine ones, even if we have not noticed them before.

This kind of mesh of inference is implicit in the way that language works, as Joanna Bryson, one of the authors of a ground-breaking study of the way that machine learning can expose the prejudices embedded in our use of language, points out. We can't get away from it. It encodes both the wisdom and the folly of all those who have used language before us. Patterns of language describe the way the world is, whether or not it ought to be that way. So when we want to distinguish an "ought" from the "is" of usage, it requires a sustained collective effort.

The technical aspects of the story are not the only salient ones. What matters for the future is the recognition that the responsible actor in the story was Amazon itself, the company, and not the AI it built and used. Discussions of AI too often proceed as if the technology will appear among us like the monolith in the film 2001: something alien and immensely powerful but immediately recognisable and clearly distinguished from the hominids around it. It's not happening like that at all.

AI is already all around us and is always a hybrid or symbiotic system, made up of the humans who tend the programs and feed them data quite as much as the computers themselves. Companies such as Google or Amazon - and even traditional media and retailers - are now partly constituted by the operations of their computer systems. It is therefore essential that moral and legal responsibility be attached to the human parts of the system.

We hold Facebook or Google responsible for the results of their algorithms. The example of Amazon shows that this principle must be more widely extended. AI is among us already, and the companies, the people, and the governments who use it must be accountable for the consequences.

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The Guardian view on artificial intelligence: human learning | Editorial

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n a modern company like Amazon, almost all human activity is directed by computer programs. They not only monitor workers' actions but are used to choose who should be employed. Yet it emerged last week that the company had scrapped an attempt to use artificial intelligence to select workers on the basis of their CVs, since the results consistently discriminated against women.

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The New Zealand Digital Technologies Curriculum is now in draft form and teachers all around NZ have begun to implement it in their classrooms. But are you one of the many teachers who are sitting there thinking about where on earth to begin with it, and how will you possibly be able to fit one more thing into your already frantic class timetable?

Well the good news is that you are already covering some aspects of it without even realising it.

You might be working on students' Computational Thinking skills without realising it. Click To Tweet

The best place to begin is always at the beginning.

Progress Outcome One from the Computational Thinking strand says : In authentic contexts and taking account of end-users, students use their decomposition skills to break down simple non-computerised tasks into precise, unambiguous, step-by-step instructions (algorithmic thinking). They give these instructions, identify any errors in them as they are followed, and correct them (simple debugging).

Let's identify the key words here:

' Authentic contexts '. You'll already be doing this - it simply means relating the learning to the real world your students are living in.

' Decomposition skills' are just being able to take things apart and see the different pieces involved in the puzzle.

"Algorithms' are writing step by step instructions, and aren't we always encouraging our students to identify their own mistakes and work at fixing them?

Identify the key vocabulary in the Progress Outcomes of the NZ Digital Technology Curriculum & see how it fits with what you're already doing in your classroom. Click To Tweet
The key to avoiding reinventing the wheel is to look at what you're already doing and thinking about where you can incorporate these new strands.. Here are two suggestions of how this could be done:

1. Procedural writing is a part of the written language programme. Students write a step by step list of instructions so that the 'end user' - the person reading and following their procedure - can complete a specific task.

You're already working on Progress Outcome One of the Computational Thinking strand. Next time you plan to do a piece of procedural writing with your students, allow time for your students to swap their writing with a buddy. Can their buddy complete the procedure easily or did something go wrong?
If there was a problem, they need to go back and rethink the steps they wrote in their procedure. Now your students are 'debugging' - finding the problem and fixing it. This may involve some trial and error along the way.

By including the vocabulary from the Digital Technologies strand, talking about decomposition (seeing all the different parts), algorithms (step by step instructions) and debugging (finding and fixing mistakes) while you are writing your procedures, you are covering two curriculum areas with one activity.

2. Algorithm is a word we often use in our maths programmes. But with a bit of clever thinking we can use it in a different way to meet Progress Outcome One also.

When we are working on mapping activities and even graphs, we can use activities that require students to write a set of step by step instructions to move from one spot to another. That's right - they can write an algorithm.

Within a grid, create a simple map that is relevant to the learning that is happening in your class programme or that relates to something in the students' own worlds. Your maps can be as simple or complicated as your students need.

Maybe you have a school fair coming up. Create a grid that has relevant images: (your students may even be able to create their own.)

In discussion with your students, decide on a common language that they will use to write their algorithms, their step by instructions, to get the children from their starting point to the cupcake they want to buy.

The language might involve vocabulary such as up, down, left, right or maybe north, west, east, south - whatever fits with the maths concepts you are working on will be the most appropriate to use.

Swap their algorithms with a buddy. Could they get to the cupcake by following the algorithm or did they need to debug to find and fix the errors?

Finding an error and fixing it is simply debugging that you are probably already using with your students! Click To Tweet

Not only have you focused on the maths concepts of mapping, direction, maybe angles or coordinates, but you have also included the objectives from the first Progress Outcome of the Computational Thinking strand from the new Digital Technologies Curriculum.

All it takes is an understanding of the specific vocabulary from within the new Digital Technology Curriculum. Just as we teach our students, we need to be flexible, adaptable and creative. Once we understand the concepts involved we can use those 21st century skills to find ways of incorporating new ideas into what we are already doing.

For more ideas on ways to include digital technologies meaningfully within your programme, check out our website .

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How To Get Onboard with the New Digital Technology Curriculum - Using Technology Better

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The New Zealand Digital Technologies Curriculum is now in its draft from and teachers all around NZ have begun to implement it in their classrooms. Are you one of the many teachers who are sitting there thinking about where on earth to begin with it, and how will you possibly be able to fit one more thing into your already frantic class timetable?

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Update: My colleague Felipe Ayora has pointed out another data mining tool created in New Zealand at the University of Waikato called Weka that is free and has associated lessons teaching students the fundamentals of AI in data.

For a small country at the bottom of the world, New Zealand has been a world leader and a world beater in many different areas. This week, we are celebrating the 125th anniversary of 19th September 1893 when the Electoral Act 1893 was passed, giving all women in New Zealand the right to vote. As a result of this landmark legislation, New Zealand became the first self-governing country in the world in which all women had the right to vote in parliamentary elections. (Source: Ministry for Culture and Heritage)

That's a big deal and the New Zealand curriculum has a similarly far-sighted vision by promoting STEM, with changes to the Digital Technologies Curriculum by including two new strands:

Computational Thinking

Designing and Developing Digital Outcomes

The Minister for Education, Chris Hipkins said in 2018:

The digital curriculum is about teaching children how to design their own digital solutions and become creators of, not just users of, digital technologies, to prepare them for the modern workforce.

The reality, however, is that many young women do not foresee a future career in these areas. Each March, Microsoft celebrates women in tech with the #MakeWhatsNext initiative which this year focused on inspiring young women to be the inventors of future technologies:

In previous years, Microsoft has called out the need to change the current trend that sees only 6.7% of women graduate with STEM degrees (based off data from the USA).

In the spirit of Kate Sheppard, the most prominent leader of the Suffragette movement in New Zealand, it's time we ensured that all women are equipped with the necessary skills and inspired to explore a career that will almost invariably involve technology in some capacity.

In January 2018 LinkedIn published a blog post confirming that technology is here to stay in their list of skills required for the most in demand jobs:

Technology is here to stay. Year-over-year technology jobs and skills have dominated these lists, and that's a trend that's likely here to stay. All jobs are likely going to require some technical skills in the future, so make sure to brush up on the basics.

When you look at the top 10 skills identified by LinkedIn you can see the strong prevalence of technology:

1. Cloud and Distributed Computing

2. Statistical Analysis and Data Mining

3. Middleware and Integration Software

4. Web Architecture and Development Framework

5. User Interface Design

6. Software Revision Control Systems

7. Data Presentation

8. SEO/SEM Marketing

9. Mobile Development

10. Network and Information Security

This is hardly surprising when you consider the biggest companies by market capitalization are now completely dominated by technology:

So - it's one thing to know of the skills required, it's an entirely different proposition to teach these in an interesting and engaging manner. What is the solution?

Alice Envisions The Future:

Today I had two serendipitous events occur:

1. I watched Jourdan Templeton from the Aware Group deliver a presentation highlighting the power of Azure Cognitive Services, demonstrating how it can make sense of unstructured data through the use of computer vision, sentiment analysis and PowerBI - it was truly impressive.

2. I learnt of the work my colleague Oliver Zofic from Slovenia had completed recently with his Alice Envisions the Future project.

For this project, Oliver created seven challenges aimed at encouraging young women to explore the power of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) and Machine Learning (M.L) through the use of Office365 and a range of powerful cloud technologies from Microsoft. These seven challenges are:

1. Office365: Create a collaboration hub using Microsoft Teams for the groups of girls to share resources through the use of OneNote, Planner and FlipGrid.

2. Custom Vision Service: through the use of www.customvision.ai create an image classification tool to distinguish images of cats and dogs - an easy introduction into the world of computer vision.

3. Azure Machine Learning: using the topic of breast cancer, students create and train a ML model to make a two class prediction model using Azure Machine Learning Studio

4. Build a Bot: Using Microsoft QnA Maker students build and deploy a bot that takes a natural language query and runs it through a bank of FAQ on breast cancer.

5. Cognitive Services - Facial Recognition: Using Azure's powerful Cognitive Services, students build an app that can detect faces and emotion.

6. Internet of Things & Raspberry Pi: IoT is almost as big of a buzz word as AI and ML and in this challenge students use the online Raspberry Pi simulator to connect to the Azure IoT Hub to understand how devices at the edge can stream data to the cloud

7. Create a Vlog: A fun way to finish the day, the girls are required to create a video record of their learning and post it to FlipGrid (recently acquired by Microsoft and integrated directly into Microsoft Teams).

Get Started & Give It A Go:

The keys to the ignition to get started learning A.I. are:

1. Office365 username / password - this is a requirement to log into most of the cloud services listed above (there is no cost for most of these, or a temporary / limited access can be obtained).

2. Download the seven challenges from here. (please note - in Challenge Three there is a reference to downloading the breast cancer data from the University of Wisconsin Hospitals. This link is no longer valid, however the data is included in the link above as part of the download called breast-cancer-wisconsin.data).

For a while I've been trying to get my oldest daughter (14yrs) interested in coding and data related fields but to date, she has shown limited interest. Today, I introduced her to Challenges #2 and #3 and left her to it - she loved it. When asked for some feedback she shared:

I found it really interesting, the tools have a good user interface - I don't know much about coding but the instructions were for the most part easy to follow and the tools were cool. Overall, I had fun and felt like I'd done something worthwhile.

I also created the image detection tool using CustomVision.ai and it didn't take me long to build out a working model:

My Point of View:

Without doubt, many of the most sought after skills in the workforce are going to include those around data, analysis, modelling, interpretation and all combined towards solving some of the biggest problems in the world today. Just this week I learnt of a young kiwi woman working on a solution that will disperse fog at airports, a problem of very real significant when you consider fog costs airlines over $1.8M and impacts over 135,000 travelers per hour.

Last week at The New Paradigm, an education event co-hosted by HP and Microsoft at which I presented, I listened to Elise Beavis talk about her role as a performance engineer at Emirates Team New Zealand. Elise spoke candidly about her wish that she had been introduced to coding at high school, rather than waiting until university to learn the fundamentals. From the speakers page:

Having sailed since age 9, Elise saw studying engineering as a pathway to combine her love of sailing with her interest in maths and physics. She was accepted into the accelerated pathway and graduated with first class honours. The week after finishing her final engineering science exam, Elise started working at Emirates Team New Zealand. During the 35th America's Cup, as the youngest full time employee, she worked in a number of areas including aerodynamics, designing 3D printed components, running VPP's and modelling how the boat would fit in the plane to be flown up to Bermuda. Since winning the cup, Elise has been involved with developing the new class of boat and writing the AC75 class rule. She is now working on the design of ETNZ's first AC75.

The sooner we can introduce students to technology like those in the seven challenges from Oliver, the better equipped they will be to succeed in the rapidly advancing world they will be entering on leaving school.

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Teaching Girls A.I. On 125th Anniversary of Women's Suffrage In New Zealand

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Update: My colleague Felipe Ayora has pointed out another data mining tool created in New Zealand at the University of Waikato called Weka that is free and has associated lessons teaching students the fundamentals of AI in data. For a small country at the bottom of the world, New Zealand has been a world leader and...

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The spotlight offers key ideas, examples, links to resources, and questions to consider or discuss. You can work through the spotlight on your own or in a group.

The best way to view the spotlight is to enlarge the slideshow by selecting the full screen icon at the bottom of the tool bar.

You can also download the spotlight, make a copy, and personalise it to suit your needs.
Link to Google Slides

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Technology spotlight / Planning, programmes, and units of work / Technology in the NZC / Welcome to Technology Online - Technology Online

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The spotlight offers key ideas, examples, links to resources, and questions to consider or discuss. You can work through the spotlight on your own or in a group. The best way to view the spotlight is to enlarge the slideshow by selecting the full screen icon at the bottom of the tool bar.

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Getting started with years 9 and 10 digital technologies programmes / Technology Online webinar recordings / Teacher education / Welcome to Technology Online - Technology Online

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Julie McMahon (HOD technology St Hilda's Collegiate School) and Cheryl Pym (Accredited Curriculum and Learning facilitator, Otago University) discuss designing programmes of learning to align with the digital technologies progress outcomes and learning progressions.

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Years 7-10: Feel free to share your experiences of teaching DDDO - the good, bad or ugly.

There are many different ways that digital outcomes can be woven into the curriculum. Being imaginative and taking risks like Māui will help you develop your DDDO practice.

The new digital content is unfamiliar to many teachers - so working together will help us progress smoothly. Feel free to share your experiences of teaching DDDO - the good, bad or ugly.

Likewise, if you'd like to start a discussion thread of your own, please feel free to create one here

I reckon you need to start on this journey by having a play and not being afraid to make mistakes. You have to be open to new learning and be aware that the kids in your class will probably pick this up quicker than we do. I reckon this new curriculum is actually an awesome way to encourage teachers to begin using the new technology.

- By Adam Baker

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Years 7-10: Feel free to share your experiences of teaching DDDO - the good, bad or ugly. : Ngā Kiriahi

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Years 7-10: Feel free to share your experiences of teaching DDDO - the good, bad or ugly. There are many different ways that digital outcomes can be woven into the curriculum. Being imaginative and taking risks like Māui will help you develop your DDDO practice.

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Progress outcome 1: Designing and developing digital outomes (DDDO)

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Progress outcome 1: Computational Thinking (CT)

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Getting started with years 9 and 10 digital technologies programmes / Technology Online webinar recordings / Teacher education / Welcome to Technology Online - Technology Online

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Julie McMahon (HOD technology St Hilda's Collegiate School) and Cheryl Pym (Accredited Curriculum and Learning facilitator, Otago University) discuss designing programmes of learning to align with the digital technologies progress outcomes and learning progressions.

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Links for digital technologies / Useful websites / Welcome to Technology Online - Technology Online

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This page provides tables with links to some useful digital technologies resources suggested by teachers. Select the images in the tables to view information about the links.

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The goal of computational thinking is really about getting students to use computer type thinking to solve real world problems. So often we are the users of algorithms, but rarely are we creating them. Facilitating this skill for our students will allow them to innovate, understand, and find purpose. Most of all they will be equipped to fast a world which is constantly changing. It is from the book The power of Computational Thinking by Paul Curzon and Peter W McOwan we find the following quote:

"The beauty of Algorithms is that steps can be followed without those involved having any idea of what they are doing and why"

I can personally relate with this quote. I found myself many times in school following algorithms of which I had no idea for their meaning. I did pass the ACT because I had answers for which I had no understanding of. We as educators must go that next step, providing students a way to problem solve and come up with algorithms that provide the solutions.
[15 Strategies To Help You With A New PBL Idea, Part 1]
For this reason I provide to you some resources I hope you will find valuable. Keep in mind that Computational Thinking can use devices, robots, and computers to support learning. It also is valuable to do some "unplugged" activities that allow students to dive deep into their own thinking leaving the digital object to the side. I have tried to provide resources that support both. Last, the ability to understand the workings of a computer is only half of the algorithm. Keep in mind that human element. How do we find a way to use the power and speed of the computer along with the comprehension and metacognitive ability of the human mind. Enjoy the quote and resources that follow.
"The computer is incredibly fast, accurate, and stupid. Man is incredibily slow, inaccurate, and brilliant. The marriage of the two is a force beyond calculations" - Leo Cherne
Main Site Computational Thinking Resources:

Puzzles for Computational Thinking

Articles, Information, Ideas
cross-posted at 21centuryedtech.wordpress.com Michael Gorman oversees one-to-one laptop programs and digital professional development for Southwest Allen County Schools near Fort Wayne, Indiana. He is a consultant for Discovery Education, ISTE, My Big Campus, and November Learning and is on the National Faculty for The Buck Institute for Education. His awards include district Teacher of the Year, Indiana STEM Educator of the Year and Microsoft's 365 Global Education Hero. Read more at 21centuryedtech.wordpress.com.

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Computational Thinking: Over 50 Resources To Teach CT Across the Curriculum, Part 2

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The goal of computational thinking is really about getting students to use computer type thinking to solve real world problems. So often we are the users of algorithms, but rarely are we creating them. Facilitating this skill for our students will allow them to innovate, understand, and find purpose.

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Creating projects with Scratch and ScratchJr can be a way to reflect on experiences that you and your family have shared. Here are 10 things to try with your Scratchers right now before you get ready for the next school year. Use these hands-on activities and accessible tips to dive into new and creative projects together!

1. Browse the Getting Started page

Aptly named, the Getting Started page is a great place to start! This resource includes 12 Scratch project tutorials, each with an accompanying educator guide and set of downloadable, free Activity Cards (see #2). On this page, you'll also find a link to Scratch Starter Projects, which you and your child can remix to add your ideas.

2. Download Scratch Coding Cards

The activities on the Scratch Coding Cards provide an "inviting entry point into Scratch", corresponding with the 11 tutorials on the Getting Started page. As noted on the Scratch Store site, "each card includes step-by-step instructions for beginners to start coding with Scratch. The front of the card shows an activity kids can do with Scratch - like animating a character or keeping score in a game. The back shows how to put together code blocks to make the projects come to life!"

3. Participate in Scratch Camp

From July 24th to August 13th, Scratch is hosting an online "camp" that invites Scratchers to create, animate, remix, and share. During this year's camp, themed "Down Deep," you and your child can design deep-sea creations of anything you might find in the ocean, like a monster from the depths, a cute little starfish, a taco-eating shark, or anything else you can imagine. The camp takes place in three parts, where participants are invited to create an aquatic character, animate it, and create a project that incorporates others' sea sprites.

4. Explore the community

Get inspired by what the community is creating! Browse trending, popular, and recent projects in the Scratch community by visiting the Explore page. You can search projects and studios by category, such as "art", "stories", or "tutorials". Try out other Scratchers' projects, see inside the projects for insight into interesting animations or effects, and try creating your own projects.

5. Remix a project

On Scratch, you can remix other Scratchers' projects to build upon and modify ideas. First, search for things that you and your child love on Scratch (like " tacos" or " cats "). Then, choose an interesting project, click "See inside" and then "Remix", and add your own features and flair. Make sure to modify the original project in some way and credit the original Scratcher before you share your work!

1. Try out the activity cards

Even though ScratchJr is available as a tablet application, there are many free learning and teaching resources on www.ScratchJr.org! A great way to start coding with ScratchJr is to follow the steps on one of our many ScratchJr activity cards. Each printable card walks through how to create a scene in ScratchJr, integrating more and more complex blocks and programming concepts. These cards also include creative ideas for expanding the story, and are a great way to get started on a project!

2. Explore sample projects

Have you ever tried tapping the big "question mark" button in the ScratchJr app? When you do, you will find 8 sample projects provided by the ScratchJr team, meant to showcase all the creative ways you can code in ScratchJr. Watch these to brainstorm ideas, learn the function of unique blocks, and discover ways to incorporate creative storytelling into your projects.
Check out the "Friends" sample project to learn creative ways to program a "choose your own adventure" story!
3. Create with the Paint Editor

The majority of characters that are used in ScratchJr projects are actually created with the Paint Editor tool. The Paint Editor allows programmers to show their creativity by editing the appearance of characters and backgrounds in the ScratchJr library, or creating new ones altogether. Use this tool to rename characters and backgrounds, change their color, take pictures and use them as characters and backgrounds, and more!
Add yourself into your story by tapping the paintbrush icon at the top of the character list screen. Draw a shape, like a circle or a square, and tap the camera icon on the right side of the Paint Editor. Tap inside the shape to activate your device's camera, and take a picture of yourself to add as a character!
4. Incorporate screen-free activities

Programming with ScratchJr takes place on-screen, but that doesn't mean you can't incorporate screen-free activities to enhance learning! For example, brainstorming techniques like storyboarding and collaborative planning can be done with paper and pencil before beginning to create programs in ScratchJr. Our large printable blocks can also be used to learn how to put together programs before trying them on the app!
Using the large printable ScratchJr blocks, play a game of "Simon Says" by putting together syntactically correct and incorrect program sequences and having your kids act them out! This is a great screen-free activity to get them moving and learning how to put together working programs at the same time!
5. Experiment with new blocks

Within the six categories of programming blocks in ScratchJr, there are many opportunities to incorporate more advanced coding concepts into projects. If you have never used a certain block before, or if you aren't sure about a block's function, the best thing to do is try it in a program! Use the block descriptions page on the ScratchJr website to help guide your understanding about each unique block.

Have you ever wanted to create your own video game? Try using different yellow Triggering Blocks like "Start on Tap" and "Start on Bump" to control when characters do certain actions to make your own game! You can even create your own "joystick" by drawing directional arrow characters in the Paint Editor, and programming them to only start their action when tapped!
Saskia Leggett Outreach Manager for the Scratch Team. Kaitlyn Leidl is DevTech Research Lab Program Coordinator at Tufts University.

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10 things to try right now with your child on Scratch and ScratchJr

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Creating projects with Scratch and ScratchJr can be a way to reflect on experiences that you and your family have shared. Here are 10 things to try with your Scratchers right now before you get ready for the next school year. Use these hands-on activities and accessible tips to dive into new and creative projects together!

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Webinars

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Technology Online invites teachers and other experts to present webinars to the technology education community. The recordings and presentation slides are shared here.

Register for the next Technology Online webinar - Raranga Matihiko | Weaving Digital Futures

Wednesday, 1 August, 3.45 pm - 4.45 pm

Come along and hear Tara Fagan, Project Director Raranga Matihiko | Weaving Digital Futures, talk about using museum taonga across Aotearoa New Zealand with primary and secondary school students and kura ākonga to produce stories and develop understandings of digital technologies within the technology learning area.
Register here

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Technology Online invites teachers and other experts to present webinars to the technology education community. The recordings and presentation slides are shared here. Wednesday, 1 August, 3.45 pm - 4.45 pm Come along and hear Tara Fagan, Project Director Raranga Matihiko | Weaving Digital Futures, talk about using museum taonga across Aotearoa New Zealand with primary and secondary school students and kura ākonga to produce stories and develop understandings of digital technologies within the technology learning area.

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When children in Homer, AK, come to storytime at the public library, they might hear Ezra Jack Keats's classic The Snowy Day or Lois Ehlert's Snowballs. As in such programs across the country, the kids are learning the building blocks of basic literacy. But at Homer storytime, they gain exposure to another critical skill. Librarian Claudia Haines doesn't just read the well-loved books, she uses them to teach computational thinking.

"Robot Claudia," as Haines calls herself during these sessions, asks young patrons to give her step-by-step instructions to build a snowperson. Haines explains to the parents that this is preparation for becoming fluent in the languages of computers.

In an effort to prepare the next generation for the future, school and public librarians, as well as teachers and educators at community-run and for-profit camps, have answered the call to teach kids code. But many now recognize it's not enough for students simply to know how to write code. The capacity to build a product or solve a problem requires an entirely different literacy.

With this in mind, the focus of coding education is shifting from teaching the specific skill of coding to teaching computational thinking-or the ability to follow a step-by-step process to solve a problem. Technology education programs from CSforAll to Code.org to the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), as well as employers such as Google, all embrace this new context and focus.

The future workforce will require a solid grounding in the discipline of thinking computationally, says Chris Stephenson, Google's head of computer science education strategy. She compares this moment to the epistemological shift that happened before the Enlightenment, when scribes guarded reading as a skill only for the chosen few.

"We think of coding not as a skill but as a literacy. We don't teach reading because we believe everyone will write War and Peace," she says. "And we don't teach computer science with the belief that everyone will be a computer scientist. We teach it because it is increasingly a skill we need to operate in and understand the world around us."

Libraries have always been a place to find resources, whether print or digital, to answer questions and solve problems. This shows in the popularity of maker spaces and hackathons that are right at home in libraries across the country. Libraries also come without the academic stress of a traditional classroom, making them a perfect place for students to experiment with coding.

"Libraries can be used to experience this wide range of tools that apply to computer science without the pressure of failing," says Mega Subramaniam, an associate professor at University of Maryland's iSchool and the director of the Youth Experience certificate program. "Failing is completely fine in a library setting. You are not being graded in any way, so it is a safe environment for young adults to experiment. We're not teaching people to be coders, but teaching people to have this mental tool to solve problems."

Coding or computational thinking?

Much like students learn to read and then read to learn, coding and computational thinking are intertwined. Computational thinking will be fundamental to many of today's students' careers and interests in the same way that knowing how to read is fundamental to everything they do in school.

ISTE, which refreshed its Standards for Students in 2016, doesn't mention coding specifically as an essential skill. Instead, computational thinking, defined as the ability to "develop and employ strategies for understanding and solving problems in ways that leverage the power of technological methods to develop and test solutions," is listed as one of the seven standards students should master.

According to Code.org, there are more than 503,000 open computing jobs nationwide, but only 35 states allow students to count computer science courses toward high school graduation, and fewer than half of U.S. schools teach computer science.

With each state implementing computer science differently, many organizations are stepping in to fill the gap. Code.org offers teacher training and student courses, such as Hour of Code. The National Science Foundation, in partnership with Computer Science for All, has pledged $120 million to train teachers to help kids "learn computer science and be equipped with the computational thinking skills they need to be creators in the digital economy, not just consumers, and to be active citizens in our technology-driven world."

Much like reading, it's important for students to learn the basics of computational thinking early, by the third grade ideally, especially for girls. As computer science increasingly becomes integrated across the disciplines and grades, access will become more equitable. For now, it is often left to nonprofits or one-off programs, or for individual teachers or librarians to integrate into their work with students.

With all of the options available and the shift to coding in the context of computational thinking, educators may not know which are best or where to begin. Is Scratch or Blockly worth using now? Is Hour of Code effective in this new context?

The good news is that many of the major coding programs and activities are still useful and it's relatively easy to integrate these higher-level skills into lessons across disciplines.

Resources

Here are some of the many professional development resources available to teachers and librarians who wish to share coding and computational thinking with their students.

BBC Bitesize: Variety of resources on teaching computational thinking.

Code.org: Several beginners' lessons on computational thinking are available on the website, as well as free or low-cost training for educators with no background in computer science.

CSforAll: A consortium offering specific information based on age group and setting.

ISTE: Offers standards for students that include computational thinking. Website is also a source of articles and professional learning networks on all things edtech.

The K-12 Computer Science Framework: Detailed overview and resources on correlations between computer science and other subjects.

Coding to solve a problem

To make coding a useful skill, students have to put it to use. Students who identify a problem and create a computer-based solution are more likely to pursue coding, even those who don't consider themselves "good" at math or science, says Jan Cuny, program director for computing education at the National Science Foundation, which has funded research into the teaching of and development of instructional materials for computer science. "There are tons of problems kids can think of to solve in their world," she says. "That connects it to the things they really care about and brings a level of excitement."

For example, Stephan Green grew up in a New York City immigrant community where residents spoke many different languages. As a high school student, Green watched his neighbors struggle with language barriers during doctor's visits or teacher conferences. Professional translators were too expensive and online translators didn't work well in those kinds of conversations, so he wanted to build an app that would connect his neighbors with a local bilingual person who could provide translating services while earning a little money, too. While at a Code Interactive Hackathon in 2015, Green and his team did just that.

"A project gives coding a reason to be done, a context," says Tom O'Connell, Code Interactive 's interim executive director. "While coding is one tool that helps solve problems using computers, if you're hoping to introduce computer science in an equitable and impactful way, it can't be the only ingredient."

To lay the groundwork for future problem solvers, no computer needed, Subramaniam recommends starting with pattern recognition for the youngest ages. Paula Langsam, a librarian in the District of Columbia Public Library system, asks kids to create a pattern from cards that have different shapes and different colors, for instance, finding all blue squares. This pattern recognition activity can add layers of difficulty such as combining shapes and colors that have two or more differences.

Alaska's Haines uses monkeys to teach about algorithms in the " Happy Maps " coding exercise. She tapes out a grid on the floor and puts some bananas in one square. Then, children take turns giving instructions to help the "monkey," usually her or a child, find the bananas. "Forward," "right," "repeat" are all important vocabulary concepts in coding. Finally, the kids draw out the instructions using arrows on the wall.

Another quick and easy algorithm exercise for young kids is to ask them to tell a partner, step-by-step, how to tie a shoelace without showing them. An added bonus in this exercise is that it includes making a loop, which is a coding principle.

To get children started using programming languages, Cuny recommends beginning with visual programming language such as Scratch and Blockly, because they are specifically intended to be accessible to engage students with quick results. "Starting with a relatively easy drag-and-drop programming language that lets kids create something that aligns with their own personal interests is empowering," she says.

Once they start with robots, things get fun. Using RoboLab or VEX Robotics, they can really get creative. At a Seattle library, a Finch Robot and block-based coding are used to create a robot that can make art on paper by attaching pens perpendicular to the Finch tail.

Kids can also practice on Arduino boards-relatively low-cost electronic circuit boards that utilize open-source software-to learn how code and interact with physical components. For example, students write a line of code and watch a light on the board light up or flip a switch on the board and see their code change. Begin with the tutorials, recommends Jorge Valenzuela, an educational coach who writes about how to develop computational thinkers; this will allow students to see patterns in the code and how it manipulates hardware, reinforcing the decomposition aspect of computational thinking.

By middle or high school, students are typically ready to start using programming languages such as JavaScript and Python. They may find that they have trouble moving from one to the other, but this is where a good grounding in computational thinking really pays off. They will recognize the concepts that translate across platforms, making an unfamiliar language more accessible. There are limitations within any language and learning to think computationally will help students work around those limitations.

Kids can solve a lot of problems when they understand the language and process of computing. Letting those problems be real, and identified by the children themselves, keeps students engaged and trying. Technovation and the Verizon App Challenge are two initiatives that ask students to identify a problem in their community, research existing technology, and design an innovative app to solve the problem.

"If we want kids to be comfortable learners and creators, for their own interest or as part of the workforce, they need a basic understanding of how computational thinking works," says Haines.

"If a child is able to talk about how something is made or built, then when something doesn't work right, they can debug it or tweak it. Our job as librarians has always been to support young kids as they start exploring bigger ideas and provide the tools they need to be able to do that."

Jennifer Snelling writes about the way technology is changing education.

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Don't Stress About Coding: Focus Shifts To Teaching Problem Solving Not Computer Skills

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When children in Homer, AK, come to storytime at the public library, they might hear Ezra Jack Keats's classic The Snowy Day or Lois Ehlert's Snowballs. As in such programs across the country, the kids are learning the building blocks of basic literacy. But at Homer storytime, they gain exposure to another critical skill.

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The poster boards on display in an Oregon middle school gym illustrate a wide range of student concerns and passions. One features data on the incidence of breast cancer, another highlights the percentage of women versus men in Congress since 1970 and yet another illustrates the effects of gendered bathrooms.

This project is not for a social studies or current events class, although it certainly touches on those subjects. This is an algebra lesson designed to teach students to solve problems using data.

Students in Sara Jenson's eighth grade algebra class chose real-world issues they care about, selected two or more quantitative variables and used their statistical analysis skills to describe the association between them.

Their choices illustrate a tapestry of concerns from the size of the eagle population in Alaska to disparity between the number of spectators who attend women's sporting events versus men's.

Sue Wilson, the district's curriculum director, wants students to understand that this is what math is all about.

"Looking at these things that you care about through the lens of data - that's when people start listening to you," she told the students at Spencer Butte Middle School after the presentations. "Data is a tool to get people to hear you."

Asking students to look at a problem methodically by collecting and analyzing data is one aspect of the Computational Thinking standard within the ISTE Standards for Students.
Computational Thinking, Standard 5.b
Collect data or identify relevant data sets; use tools to analyze data sets; represent data in various ways to facilitate problem-solving and decision-making

Algebraic skills are a natural fit for computational thinking, and letting students choose their own topic ensures that they will be invested in the project. Jenson asks students to use data that brings awareness to an issue by selecting two or more quantitative variables, describing how the two variables are associated and interpreting the math.

Students were expected to find at least eight data points, primarily through online research. Although they all did their own individual projects, they were encouraged to work collaboratively, asking each other for help, finding data, explaining that data to each other.

Alex McCaslin, whose mother was diagnosed with breast cancer in close timing with two other family friends, wanted to know how often women received that diagnosis, and, out of those, how many survive. She found data on breastcancer.ca on incidence versus mortality dating back to 1995.

All students represented data on two quantitative variables on a scatter plot, and describe how the variables are related. Once Alex found the data, she transferred it to Desmos, an online graphing calculator. In her analysis, she discussed the r-value, r-squared value, residual plot and the equation of the line for two graphs. For instance, the incidence rate data had an equation of y = -.62x + 135. This means that the number of women per 100,000 who are diagnosed with breast cancer decreases by 0.62 cases each year.

Even though rates are decreasing, the incidence is still too high for those who are personally affected, she says. "The data I analyzed could bring awareness to this issue by showing people how many women are affected by breast cancer each year," she says. "People won't believe your claim of how many women deal with this unless you prove it to them with actual evidence."

Students created poster presentations to share with school district administration, board members, local university professors and other interested community members. They had to practice explaining their presentations in a way that described the mathematics in real-life terms, so anyone could understand it.

Adding in data collection

With a little imagination, it's easy to see how these kids could take their algebra projects to the next level and develop potential solutions to the problems. One student is already on the way.

Sylvie Burke wanted to research the effects that having a non-gendered bathroom has on her fellow students. She interviewed 12 other students about how often they used the restroom and, on a scale from 1 to 10, how safe they feel while doing so.

What Sylvie discovered was that the less safe her fellow students felt about the bathroom, the less likely they were to use it. Using her data, Burke and her fellow Gay Straight Alliance members asked staff to give up a bathroom to make it non-gendered.

She didn't mind the extra work involved in collecting her own data. "I decided I might as well find my own data and do something that was relevant to me and our community," she says.

Sylvie Burke's data on gender neutral bathrooms. Learning how to talk about data
McCaslin says the agency she was given made this project a more interesting and practical way of learning important concepts.

"We learned how to tell if certain regressions (linear, exponential, quadratic, cubic, etc.) were a good fit or not for our data from our residual plot," she says. "We also learned how to go into depth on how to describe the data using a real-world example that we care about."

Some of the subjects the kids chose are difficult problems, but Jenson feels like they are ready to have those challenging conversations. With the computational thinking skills to analyze data, they're also ready to offer solutions.

"These are the kids who are going to change the world," she says.
Jennifer Snelling is a freelance writer based in Eugene, Oregon, and mom to two digital natives.

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Students use computational thinking to analyze real problems

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The poster boards on display in an Oregon middle school gym illustrate a wide range of student concerns and passions. One features data on the incidence of breast cancer, another highlights the percentage of women versus men in Congress since 1970 and yet another illustrates the effects of gendered bathrooms. This project is not for a social studies or current events class, although it certainly touches on those subjects.

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All participating schools, kura and code clubs throughout New Zealand can nominate teams for the Regional Championship. Finalists in each level will be selected in each of the following areas:

Tai Tokerau (Northland)

Auckland

Waikato

Bay of Plenty / Rotorua / Taupo

Hawkes Bay / Gisborne

Taranaki / Whanganui / Manawatu

Wellington

Nelson / Marlborough / West Coast

Canterbury

Otago / Southland

Finalists will be interviewed by a friendly panel of industry and education experts from within their region with the winners for that year announced at an awesome awards event and expo in each region.

All Regional Winners are automatically entered into the National Championship and receive an all-expenses paid trip for their team and one teacher or chaperone to Wellington for the National Gala Awards event in November.

One team at each level will be crowned the National Winners for 2018 in front of a national audience. There will also be a "people's choice" award, and a number of additional awards for teachers.
If you're keen to learn more, check out how to participate Or if you're a Teacher or Code Club coordinator, sign up now for more info.

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All participating schools, kura and code clubs throughout New Zealand can nominate teams for the Regional Championship.

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It's been a while since I've been able to update any progress on my Innovator Project, due to several events beyond my control, but over the last few weeks, I've been able to renew my focus on these parts of my life and make some fairly significant progress.

I think the timing of this can be quite helpful, because I know several NZ schools have not really been able to implement the new Digital Technologies Curriculum. The goal of this project is help educators implement computational thinking into their program, so there's no judgement here, just resources and assistance.

New Videos
I've managed to finish my third video for Coding Across the Curriculum and then start and complete the fourth. I've included the two here for anyone and everyone to try out themselves or with their learners. The first is focussed on making stories with Scratch and the second will help you learn how to make calculations - both simple and complex - using Scratch.

The actual process of making the videos is becoming easier with each time - though I'm still pretty nervous when filming and often trip over words - sorry about that.

I've been able to do some real world testing with several of the videos I've made. With my Habitat of 89 learners, we've worked in pairs to make a quiz each. The children had a lot of fun doing this and were, for the most part, able to follow along with that video on their own. Several of the children added their own extras to the work they were doing, which was a nice added bonus. We were able to have some good conversations about coding - which was really the whole goal of the process. I even saw some children use a quiz in Scratch for their iExplore (basically Genius Hour) project. It was nice to see that in action. I did find that the Choose Your Own Adventure video was a bit harder for the children (aged 7-9) to understand, but many of them did get it.

So my recommendation to anyone out there: just give the videos to your students. Let them have a go. If you don't know how to code, do it alongside them. Start the conversation. It's not about being expert coders, but it is about being creative and solving real-world problems and learning how to think logically.

Or, as an educator, you could watch the videos and learn how to do the coding projects on your own and then teach them the way you want. They are meant to help you and help your learners develop this skill and way of thinking.

I'm not sure how many people will make it this far into the post, but I do have a few exciting things in the pipeline.

First off, there are more concrete plans for future videos. The next video will show how to make an interactive display (much like you would find in a museum) and future videos will deal with art, music, VR, spreadsheets and more. Now that I've found a rhythm in making these, the plan will be to have a new one every few weeks. At least that's the plan.

There are two more next steps that I am in various stages of implementing and a third one that will possibly be a bit further off.

The first new thing that I'd like to announce officially here (and announcements on Twitter and Facebook will follow in the coming days) is that there will be a MakerEdNZ newsletter. The current plan is to have a monthly, one page newsletter that will have links to various resources or videos. There will be a coding tie-in, which will highlight a specific coding block or command (and linked into a video which uses the same block or command), a link to a Digital Breakout and some links to ideas that can be used in the classroom. If you are interested in subscribing to this newsletter, please fill out the subscription form below. I expect the first issue to be ready to be emailed out in mid-April.

The second thing I'm starting to explore will be a coding contest. I'm likely to make this NZ-wide. I've still got to work out MANY details of this, but it is definitely in the pipeline and I would like to do this before the end of 2018.

The third thing I'm looking at doing is to start some free meet-ups for educators who are interested in discussing or learning about coding. I want to focus on the other things at the moment, but am definitely open to anyone who is willing to help me run these. But this may be something that comes about in 2019. We shall see.

So that's where things stand at the moment. I'm pretty excited about all the ideas I've been getting the last little while and the fact that now I've got a resource of four videos (over an hour of content).

Have a look at the videos, and if you have feedback it will be greatly appreciated. If you like the videos, subscribe to the channel and use them with your learners. The support will help and it lets me know that they are being used.

Look forward to some new updates in the coming months and in the meantime SUBSCRIBE to the upcoming newsletter.

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It's been a while since I've been able to update any progress on my Innovator Project, due to several events beyond my control, but over the last few weeks, I've been able to renew my focus on these parts of my life and make some fairly significant progress.

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What happens when the robots take our jobs? | TED Talks

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To lose our jobs to our future supreme AI overlords ... or to not? That's the question (and we have some surprising answers).

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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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Summer is almost here and it's a great time to learn a new skill that you can bring into your classroom next fall. One of the skills that seems to be mentioned in almost every education periodical these days is programming or coding. Learning to program isn't as difficult as you might think that is. Each of the following services make it relatively easy to learn to program your own apps. As you learn to program your own app, you'll start to see how your students can do the same and use those skills in your classroom next fall.

MIT App Inventor
Want to create a fully functional Android app? If so, the MIT App Inventor is the place to start. The MIT App Inventor works in your web browser (Chrome is recommended). The only download that is required for App Inventor 2 is the optional emulator. The emulator allows people who don't have Android devices to text their apps on their desktops. If you have an Android device then the emulator is not required and you don't need to worry about installing it. MIT provides excellent support documentation and curriculum for classroom use for new users of App Inventor. Tutorials are available as videos and as written PDFs. A couple of the videos are embedded below.

Metaverse - DIY Augmented Reality Apps
Metaverse launched last summer and became an almost hit with teachers. Through the Metaverse Studio anyone can program an augmented reality app without having any prior coding or programming knowledge. You construct your app in the Metaverse Studio by dragging and dropping media and logic blocks into a sequence. Metaverse Studio has been used by teachers to create digital Breakout games, to create language arts games, and to create local history tours.

Scratch
I couldn't write a blog post about learning to program without mentioning Scratch and ScratchJr. Scratch is a free program designed to introduce users to programming concepts. Through Scratch you can create animations, games, and videos. Students program in Scratch through a process of dragging and dropping blocks into sequences. Each block represents a command. Users test their programs right in their web browsers and instantly know if the program works or doesn't work.

There are many places to find Scratch tutorials, but the best place to start is on the Scratch for Educators site. There you will find many tutorials, activity guides, and a curriculum guide. The ScratchEd community is the place to go for inspiration from other teachers who are using Scratch in their classrooms. For example, in ScratchEd you might find something like this Google Doc filled with ideas for using Scratch in elementary school mathematics lessons.

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Three Ways to Develop Programming Skills This Summer

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Summer is almost here and it's a great time to learn a new skill that you can bring into your classroom next fall. One of the skills that seems to be mentioned in almost every education periodical these days is programming or coding. Learning to program isn't as difficult as you might think that is.

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"We must think of coding not as a skill but as a literacy" Before I begin a big thank you to MINDLAB for their assistance in this PLD. After attending the ANZAC Day Dawn Service this week, I completed the Digital Passport course which gave me an insight into the new curriculum.

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I first discovered computer science (CS) and coding more than 20 years ago while completing my undergraduate work. Little did I know that one day CS would be the future of education or that I would be working with others to make these skills accessible to all students.

It takes will, know-how, technology tools, practical strategies and patience to do this work. Having coached many educators in project-based learning (PBL) and engineering by design (EbD) I've come to realize that computer science is best integrated across content areas by teaching design and inquiry practices in tandem with CS.

In my previous role as a technology and engineering education (TEE) curriculum specialist at Richmond Public Schools (RPS), I collaborated with fellow TEE teacher Nicholas Briley to develop the coding skills of the students in our engineering classes while teaching them how to build and use electronic circuits. Here's how we did it in four steps:

Step 1: Learn the skills and the tools.

Before introducing new CS concepts and practices to students, I highly recommend being very clear about which learning objectives you want them to master. With that in mind, we had already done considerable integration in our TEE program with LEGO Mindstorms and VEX IQ kit s to help kids master programming robots and learn how different components like gears, motors and sensors work. Now we needed to help them learn basic coding principles, but first we needed to learn them ourselves.

My colleague and I spent a couple of weeks after school learning to use the Code Kit by littleBits. The Code Kit is a tech tool that teaches learners basic coding principles through app tutorials while helping them apply coding skills to building games that are controlled by Google Blockly-based code.

For us, learning to code was a bit daunting because it requires time and consistency to be a good coder, and time is something that is in short supply for teachers. Also, to be a proficient coder, it's critical to learn how to develop a product, not just write code.

But we carved out time and immersed ourselves in learning the basics (input/output, functions, loops and variables). We got a little better each day, and we applied the new skills to the Code Kit design products. When we felt confident enough to use, teach and troubleshoot with the tool, we then began working with students.

Step 2: Start with computational thinking, algorithmic thinking and design.

At first, we didn't directly tell our students that they would be learning to code in this new project. Instead, we told them they would be learning and applying new skills but within familiar contexts of electronics, engineering design and model making.

We already knew that some of our students needed assistance mastering computational thinking thought processes so we focused on helping them gain a better understanding of algorithmic thinking by instilling in them the importance of knowing and taking steps to solve a problem, which is crucial knowledge for coding.

We introduced it this way so that they wouldn't initially focus so much on coding but more on the steps of the design (or project) that would include coding for successful implementation.

To familiarize them with the technology and coding learning environment, we allowed them to explore the Code Kit, app and videos. All were excited by the cool gadgets and electronics, but some were intimidated by the app and the unfamiliar coding tutorials.

We eased these concerns by sharing insights that Briley and I had learned to improve our own coding skills. We even modeled the use of the app by exploring its sections on the electronic whiteboard with students. And we finished by showing them a working model of a hot potato game we built and how to use the app for implementation. We also let the students know that we would be right there with them as they learned to use the tools.

Step 3: Introduce new knowledge and tools through inquiry or design.

Like many educators, we were already using engineering design as an ongoing student-centered process for helping our students construct new knowledge and technological literacy. In this new project, we allowed them to apply each step in the design process but this time we included coding.

We quickly discovered that some of the students already knew the basics even better than we did. Since we already were well versed in the use of the Code Kit, we used the app to practice effective differentiation techniques by conducting mini-lessons and providing scaffolds of the concepts our learners needed most (either individually or in groups).

Some of the mini-lessons we covered were on specific coding skills, such as looping and functions, documentation of learning and reading instructions. This technique helped to personalize learning and to assist those who needed assistance while letting the others push forward.

There was a lot of variation in our student's mastery of the coding principles (like loops and functions) or how electronic circuits can add light, sound and or motion to design projects. The experience taught us that everyone wasn't or didn't need to be to be in the same place academically within the project (or any given project). I also include us - the teachers - when I say, everyone! We all learn on our own timelines, and that's OK.

For teachers who aren't specifically teaching kids engineering, having students employ other systematic approaches for measurement, observation, experiments (i.e., the scientific method), integration of the arts and also design thinking will heighten their levels of cognition.

When educators structure their learning environments to include design and inquiry processes consistently, we increase the development of students who are both analytical and critical thinkers. Both have the ability to innovate.

While not every learner will become a scientist or an engineer, by knowing the practices of a scientist or an engineer, all students can understand how to solve problems, how systems work, how natural phenomena behave, and how effective use of technology and their subjects connect. These skills have wide-ranging career and job applications, including technicians, operators, customer service representatives, or health and medical professionals in a career and technical education program.

Step 4: Incorporate reflection into your work with students.

A John Dewey quote that I always share with educators is, "We do not learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience." Incorporating reflection into our work with students is something that we began doing at various stages of the design process. We found the practice beneficial for helping students make critical connections to other branches of knowledge, to learn from failure and also for deepening their understanding of the subject matter.

In this project, we had students reflect by writing in engineering notebooks and would often follow up with either group discussions or individual consultations (a scientific journal can serve a similar purpose). Among the reflections we asked students to make were, how could engineers apply the use of electronic tools and the coding skills to control a technological system designed to meet human needs (i.e., clean water, safe modes of transportation, green building/construction, etc.)

Student responses included:

Coding is used by engineers to give machines a purpose or specific function.

Engineers use electronic circuits to power everything around us.

Engineers help make the world better by creating systems that use electronics and coding.

By helping our students connect their new learning to specific engineering careers (mechanical, electrical, etc.), and understand how they can use knowledge and tools to help others, we gained more know-how for developing design thinkers who are also global citizens (as emphasized in the ISTE Standards for Students).

Remember, computer science is fun!

Before introducing new CS content or technology tools to students, it's essential to assess your knowledge of the content and skills needed for effective teaching as well. Once you're set to start, make time for researching, learning, playing and testing either on your own or with a colleague. Don't forget to have fun with your learners and also, remember that learning has no finish line! As author Tony Robbins says, "Repetition is the mother of skill!"
Jorge Valenzuela is a graduate teaching assistant and doctoral student at Old Dominion University, a national faculty of the Buck Institute for Education and a national teacher effectiveness coach with the International Technology and Engineering Educators Association (ITEEA). He is a member of the first Lead Educators Cohort for littleBits. You can connect with Jorge on Twitter @JorgeDoesPBL to continue the conversation.

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Teach kids computer science through design and inquiry

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I first discovered computer science (CS) and coding more than 20 years ago while completing my undergraduate work. Little did I know that one day CS would be the future of education or that I would be working with others to make these skills accessible to all students.

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Mātauranga hangarau - information technology - Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand

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From tribal sites to political news Māori have embraced the internet - if they have a phone line or can afford to run a computer. There is Māori-language desktop navigation and Māori Google, and internet advocacy groups plan an Aotearoa internet domain. New Zealand Māori use the net to stay in touch with 'cuzzies' in Australia.

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Newsela | Celebrate Computer Science Education Week

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Newsela is an Instructional Content Platform that supercharges reading engagement and learning in every subject.

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3. - Knowledge-based industries - Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand

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Weta Workshop in Wellington was set up in 1993 by Peter Jackson, designers Richard Taylor and Tania Rodgers, and film editor Jamie Selkirk, to provide digital and visual effects for Jackson's movies. By 2008 Weta had won four Oscars.

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Computational Thinking (CT) is a problem solving process that includes a number of characteristics and dispositions. CT is essential to the development of computer applications, but it can also be used to support problem solving across all disciplines, including math, science, and the humanities. Students who learn CT across the curriculum can begin to see a relationship between subjects as well as between school and life outside of the classroom.

CT involves a number of skills, including:

Formulating problems in a way that enables us to use a computer and other tools to help solve them

Logically organizing and analyzing data

Representing data through abstractions such as models and simulations

Automating solutions through algorithmic thinking (a series of ordered steps)

Identifying, analyzing, and implementing possible solutions with the goal of achieving the most efficient and effective combination of steps and resources

Generalizing and transferring this problem solving process to a wide variety of problems

These skills are supported and enhanced by a number of dispositions or attitudes that include:

Confidence in dealing with complexity

Persistence in working with difficult problems

Tolerance for ambiguity

The ability to deal with open ended problems

The ability to communicate and work with others to achieve a common goal or solution

CT concepts are the mental processes (e.g. abstraction, algorithm design, decomposition, pattern recognition, etc) and tangible outcomes (e.g. automation, data representation, pattern generalization, etc) associated with solving problems in computing. These include and are defined as follows:

Abstraction: Identifying and extracting relevant information to define main idea(s)

Algorithm Design: Creating an ordered series of instructions for solving similar problems or for doing a task

Automation: Having computers or machines do repetitive tasks

Data Analysis: Making sense of data by finding patterns or developing insights

Data Collection: Gathering information

Data Representation: Depicting and organizing data in appropriate graphs, charts, words, or images

Decomposition: Breaking down data, processes, or problems into smaller, manageable parts

Parallelization: Simultaneous processing of smaller tasks from a larger task to more efficiently reach a common goal

Pattern Generalization: Creating models, rules, principles, or theories of observed patterns to test predicted outcomes

Pattern Recognition: Observing patterns, trends, and regularities in data

Simulation: Developing a model to imitate real-world processes

See our Computational Thinking Concepts Guide for a printable version of this list, along with teaching tips for each concept.

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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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🤓 #sheetsgeek resources - Coding is for Losers: Computational Thinking with Sheets

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And I mean that in the nicest, most respectful way. The benefits of coding for developing computational thinking skills are well known. However many believe they will never really need the ability to "code". Enter Sheets. Computational thinking is also improved by learning how to use spreadsheets to address a problem of practice or area of need.

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M Davidson Resources - Coding Across the Curriculum

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Click on the image to find out whether the items are input or output devices.

JavaScript is required to view this activity.

This content uses functionality that is not supported by your current browser. Consider upgrading your browser.

An input device is something you connect to a computer that sends information into the computer. An output device is something you connect to a computer that has information sent to it.

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Computers can only interact with the world using input and output devices. Inputs receive data for the computer and outputs send information from the computer.

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Learn computer science. Change the world.

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Every student in every school deserves the opportunity to study computer science.

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Search the Lesson Ideas | Digital Technologies Hub

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Find learning sequences purpose-written to support the Australian Curriculum: Digital Technologies.

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Understanding DT

Engage with the Digital Technologies curriculum to plan, implement and assess effective lessons.

Plan and prepare

Guidance and support to develop and implement a whole-school plan.

Teach and assess

Students can learn to code and create using digital technologies, and find out about relevant careers.

For families

Find out about Digital Technologies to support your child to learn skills, create digital solutions and find a related career.

Programming

This series of three infographics provide an explanation of 'Programming' with relevant examples for each Year band and 'I can' statements

Algorithms

This series of three infographics provide an explanation of 'Algorithms' with relevant examples for each Year band and 'I can' statements.

Data representation

This series of three infographics provide an explanation of 'Data representation' with relevant examples for each Year band and 'I can' statements.

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Support for the Australian Curriculum: Digital Technologies with lesson plans, case studies, advice for school leaders, activities for students and for families. See links to the digital technologies industry events and programs. Get support with the development of computational thinking and coding skills in Australian students.

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Understanding DT

Engage with the Digital Technologies curriculum to plan, implement and assess effective lessons.

Plan and prepare

Guidance and support to develop and implement a whole-school plan.

Teach and assess

Students can learn to code and create using digital technologies, and find out about relevant careers.

For families

Find out about Digital Technologies to support your child to learn skills, create digital solutions and find a related career.

Programming

This series of three infographics provide an explanation of 'Programming' with relevant examples for each Year band and 'I can' statements

Algorithms

This series of three infographics provide an explanation of 'Algorithms' with relevant examples for each Year band and 'I can' statements.

Data representation

This series of three infographics provide an explanation of 'Data representation' with relevant examples for each Year band and 'I can' statements.

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Support for the Australian Curriculum: Digital Technologies with lesson plans, case studies, advice for school leaders, activities for students and for families. See links to the digital technologies industry events and programs. Get support with the development of computational thinking and coding skills in Australian students.

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The University of Adelaide in partnership with Google has created free online professional development courses and resources to help you implement Digital Technologies Curriculum in your classrooms. Designed for the Australian Digital Technologies Curriculum these courses are also applicable to anyone introducing computational thinking & computer science concepts in the classroom.

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Lesson resources for teachers

Planning and teaching with the micro:bit

Primary ages 7-11

Complete, editable computing units of work and resources with cross-curricular links for art, science, geography and more, curriculum-linked to England KS2 and Code.org elementary CS Fundamentals.
Search primary lessons
Secondary ages 11-14

Units of work with downloadable, editable resources covering computing fundamentals through to cyber security, cryptography and creative design projects, curriculum-linked to England KS3.
Search secondary lessons

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Planning and teaching with the micro:bit Complete, editable computing units of work and resources with cross-curricular links for art, science, geography and more, curriculum-linked to England KS2 and Code.org elementary CS Fundamentals. Search primary lessons Units of work with downloadable, editable resources covering computing fundamentals through to cyber security, cryptography and creative design projects, curriculum-linked to England KS3.

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Hello! We continue to be inspired by early adopters using Minecraft in their classrooms, and momentum continues to build. Classrooms in more than 100 countries have logged on to collaborate and create. We continue to add to Minecraft: Education Edition with feedback from the over 120,000 of you who have started your journey. Our professional learning community at education.minecraft.net now has over 30,000 profiles created and hundreds of educator-created lesson plans. Minecraft can be used to calculate slope, create Boolean logic gates, or even as a vehicle to teach empathy. Minecraft has a unique advantage that it reaches any student, as not only an open world game, but as a gateway to coding as well. The number one request we hear from educators is the importance of coding and computational thinking as essential for college and career readiness. Through our partnership with Code.org, we have seen over 50 million hours of code, showing the appetite for engaging and innovative ways to teach and learn coding.

Learning can be done best when you don't think that you're learning, you just think that you're enjoying yourself. -Hadi Partovi, CEO of Code.org

Today, we are proud to announce Code Builder for Minecraft: Education Edition. Code Builder is a brand-new feature that allows educators and students to explore, create, and play in an immersive Minecraft world - all by writing code.

Connecting to learn-to-code packages like ScratchX, Tynker, and a new open source platform called Microsoft MakeCode, players start with familiar tools, templates and tutorials. And, Code.org will bring Code Studio to Code Builder later this year to support even more learning opportunities. "It allows for the students to still think about algorithms and how to solve problems, and they can demonstrate this with the Agent," says Melissa Wrenchey, Educator at Tesla STEM High School. Click below for more about Melissa and her students' experience with Code Builder.

Minecraft is first and foremost about our players. Later this Spring, we will launch the next update for Minecraft: Education Edition, version 1.0.1. This update includes Command Blocks, additional languages, texture pack support, villager trading, adventure mode, concrete and terracotta blocks, and - wait for it - llamas! We are also updating Classroom Mode for Minecraft: Education Edition with additional toggles to support teaching and learning. Educators can now manage chat, blocks that cause damage like lava and TNT, weather, and mobs.

And one more thing - Starting today, a one-year subscription to Minecraft: Education Edition will be included with qualifying purchases of Windows 10 computers and tablets, making it simpler to add Minecraft to your tools for classroom learning. For more information about this amazing offer, head to our offer page here. Starting today, you can join our open beta of Code Builder for Minecraft: Education Edition. Just head over to the education.minecraft.net download page. If you want to try Code Builder yourself, you can also head to any Microsoft Store starting today, where a demo experience awaits you. As always, we look forward to continuing this journey along with all of you and seeing how Minecraft is transforming how you teach and learn.

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Code Builder, Command Blocks, and More Come to Education Edition | Minecraft: Education Edition

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Hello! We continue to be inspired by early adopters using Minecraft in their classrooms, and momentum continues to build. Classrooms in more than 100 countries have logged on to collaborate and create. We continue to add to Minecraft: Education Edition with feedback from the over 120,000 of you who have started your journey.

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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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Hour of Code

This year, we're taking Hour of Code to new heights by offering coding opportunities that encompass both artificial intelligence (AI) and non-AI components.

Want to keep learning? Go beyond an hour

Teachers: Host an hour or read the How-To Guide

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Use computer science to explore and learn about AI!