The Norwegian curriculum is focused on learning the students about Information Technology. It's listed as one of the five basic skills in Norwegian education beside reading, writing, speaking and counting.

Though it's listed as one of the five basic skills, most teachers do not understand what the students need to learn or how they are supposed to teach it.

Focus often seems to be teaching the students how to search the web, use Word and create presentation in Powerpoint.

1.2 Teach the importance of coding

I sometimes use robots in my classes to introduce them to the importance of coding. It's easy for the students to see the connection between what I do on my computer and what the robot do. The Lego Mindstorms NXT and EV3 are brilliant examples of how to introduce students to the importance of coding (and engineering).

1.3 Skills to be focused on

The website CSUnplugged.org has a lot of good activities for teaching Computer Science without a computer. A nice one is to let a group create a picture of a person in the group doing an artistic figure using post-it notes. A fun task, demanding both social skills, language and communication, and also learning the students how pixels in a picture looks like.

1.4 Computational thinking

• Decomposition: Breaking a task or problem into steps or parts.
• Pattern Recognition: Make predictions and models to test.
• Pattern Generalization and Abstraction: Discover the laws, or principles that cause these patterns.
• Algorithm Design: Develop the instructions to solve similar problems and repeat the process.

CSUnplugged website is full of activities focusing on computing not using computers. They are excellent to use to give an introduction to the system behind the code, and training other skills connected to computing; collaboration, problem solving, analytic thinking, creativity and step-by-step work.

2.2 Focus on collaboration

Pair Programming is a great way of training collaboration. It is also a great way to train students in problem solving, because two heads often is better than one... I've used pair programming in almost every computing activity I've done in the classroom. It gives both the students and the teacher a better learning situation. Two heads are better than one in many ways. Good communication is the key factor in this type of work, and gives the opportunity for better problem solving, analytic thinking, step-by-step work and creativity.

2.3 Focus on engaging girls

Many different projects have been initiated to introduce and keep girls into computing. My experience is that boys are basically more interested in computing than girls, but the girls in my computing classes are usually among the top students. Their mind seems to be more built to do these types of things.

In primary school classes I experience that the difference are less significant in secondary schools. Maybe the tasks given and the tools given are more suitable for both sex than some of the tools suitable for older students?

2.4 Cross curriculum thinking

Often "box" thinking around computing limits the actual possibilities using computing in school. The effects of using computing in a wider range of teaching or in a context can give more learning and more interesting outcome than originally thought. Using ScratchJr to tell fairytales or stories gives the students more learning than just computing. Stories need to be written, storylines to be created, backgrounds and figures to be found or drawn, and the story itself has to coded into the program.

This year we introduced 4th graders to Lego Mindstorms during our Space and robot project, based on the Wall-E movie. We also learned the 7th graders to use Sploder to create games based on storylines they created, and exchange them with students in Denmark.

Lego has two systems for robotics. WeDo for the youngest and NXT/EV3 for the elder. I've used both NXT and EV3 with my students, and they are great tools to learn about communication, math, digital competence, collaboration and social interaction. I also use them as a part of the First Lego League, a great science and technology competition for kids between 10 and 16. FLL works as a great cross curriculum project for about 6-8 weeks, and the 2014-15 season gathered more than 25000 teams from all over the world. The Lego WeDo is a great tool for the younger students, and is also used in the JrFLL, a competition for kids between 6-10 years.

3.2 - I've never used Bee-Bots or WeDo in school, but have used Lego NXT and EV3. They are great for training social skills, language and collaboration, in addition to math, ICT and physics. We also include a lot of writing (log and descriptions) as activities.

Watch this video for this seasons FLL robot challenge:

Some tools - Kodu, Project Spark, UDK, Scratch, ScratchJr, Powerpoint, 2SimpleDIY,

Sploder - to talk about story telling, create scenery, story lines

I've used both Scratch and ScratchJr with my students. They are very popular, and we try to use them as often as possible. I've also used a system named Sploder. This is an online platform where students can create their own games, with that much coding.

Here is a game I prepared for my students for Christmas.

I've used Kodable and BeeBot in the youngest classes at my school, and are planning to use ScratchJr with the 3rd years students in a writing project about fairy tales.

I've heard about HopScotch and Tynker but never used them. The language barrier is the main reason. Scratch has a Norwegian template, but Tynker is in English. Maybe Tynker is a good alternative for my older students?

Nearly 20 years ago I created a website together with some 11 year old students as a part of a school project. We had to do most of it by coding HTML, and I was very difficult for the kids to maintain a good structure. Later I've created a few blogs together with students during projects at school. We use http://wordpress.com , because it's free and easy to use. Other teachers I've been talking to uses http://weebly.com by the same reasons. 

In Norway tests show that searching is one of the most ignored activities in our ICT curriculum. Some teachers together with a government institution created a site name http://www.iktplan.no to learn teachers about what they need to learn and what they are supposed to teach the students. Also some good tutorials about searching.

Short URL: http://v.gd/ErB97J