Information Technology Education

I'm moving along with CSDiscoveries and this week continued with lesson 6 called Processing with Bits.  This lesson was awesome!! My students really enjoyed going through all the levels and figuring them out in pairs.  They used the pixel filtering tool to explore how colors are represented using on/off options and combinations. I tried to make the connection to previous lessons ( L4 - what is a computer ?; L5 - representing with binary ) explicit so that students could connect what they did with the face up/down challenge to input/processing/output and representing information using binary in this lesson. I did not go into colors, binary, and computers, but just treated this lesson at face-value and had students go through the leveled puzzles that were scaffolded really well. The initial task of identifying the 8 colors along with their 'binary representation' was important and students could use that to refer to as they completed the subsequent puzzle levels. I ended up ...

With the new year, comes new challenges and...new curriculum that I am piloting this semester. I am so excited that Code.org's long-awaited computer science curriculum for 7th-9th graders is here. It's called CS Discoveries. At its heart, it truly has the middle schooler in mind. With a focus on personal expression through a project-based approach, it is appealing to this age range and there desire to express their unique perspectives, interests, and goals. It is designed to be accessible to every learner, and provides the perfect transition to typed code from block programming. At the same time, the tools used in this course such as App Lab and Game Lab are open-ended enough to be engaging for all students, regardless of programming background. Physical computing is also integrating into this course, providing students with the opportunities to 'make things happen' with an Arduino platform. The heartbeat of the course is the problem-solving process which is integrated ...

Now you can! Google's  Santa Tracker  is just in time for the holidays where students can code a snowflake, track Santa using Google maps and more. New activities and lessons unlock throughout the month of December and are connected to subject areas such as computer science, geography, social studies, and language.  Play, learn, watch, code, and explore!  Here is a sampling: Code Boogie - Choreograph a dance for the elves using code Holiday Traditions - Learn about traditions all around the world from Canada to Ghana, France to Australia. Learn Languages - See and hear different holiday greetings translated into different languages Play Present Bounce - Try to get the present to land in just the right place There are these and more activities to come throughout the month, right here in Santa's Village.   On the 24th, there is an invitation to come back and track Santa all night!

A few years ago, Google came out with a paper entitled, "Women Who Choose Computer Science - What Really Matters." The link to the entire paper is available here.   It's an incredible paper in many ways, but the big takeaway for me was that we are in a position to do something to close the gender gap in education right now. To me, this was incredibly empowering - to realize that there are factors substantiated by research that make a tremendous difference in a girl's life in terms of choosing CS as a degree major. According to the paper, it all comes down to encouragement and exposure. Specifically, this paper found four key influencing factors: social encouragement, self perception, academic exposure, and career perception. Even more amazing was that this research found that uncontrollable factors such as parental occupation play a limited role in women choosing a CS degree. Armed with this understanding of the impact that exposure and encouragement can have, I start...

I am so excited to share about the more than 200 Hour of Code activities available here . What is the Hour of Code? It's a global effort to "celebrate computer science" that has engaged communities all over in one-hour tutorials.  It is held during Computer Science Education Week to recognize " Amazing Grace' s" birthday. One of my favorite quotes from Grace Hopper herself: "I've always been more interested in the future than in the past." How fitting a statement to describe the Hour of Code as it inspires our future with the wonders and possibilities of computer science. A really awesome feature on the Hour of Code site  here  is the filter tool that allows searching by grade level, teacher experience, student experience, classroom technology available (Android, iPad, no computers and more), topic, activity type, length, and language (blocks, typing, or other). For those with no computers or devices, it is still possible to teach computer scie...

It's been a while since I first wrote posts about computational thinking and the resources available since those first posts have grown tremendously. One of my favorite ones for educators is the Computational Thinking for Educators course with Google available here .  While the original course is finished, the modules are still available on the website. Here is a brief video introducing the course: What I love about it is that it really brings computational thinking (CT)into the world of educators. Through simulations and tasks that participants can interact with, learners see that CT can be applied to various subject areas. For example, in the 'traveling problem,' learners experiment with finding the shortest, most efficient path on an actual Google map with the goal of exploring algorithms. There is the opportunity to explore and find patterns in music using an activity created using Pencil Code.  With Turtle geometry, learners have the opportunity to apply CT while findi...

In an increasingly globalized world, it is all the more essential that students not only gain knowledge of world around them, but also gain experiences of engaging global collaboration.  Indeed, global awareness is one of the interdisciplinary themes that the Partnership for 21st Century Skills includes in its framework (P21, 2007).  Specifically, this theme includes not only being able to address global issues, but also engaging in global collaboration with others from diverse cultures (P21, 2007).  The thread of global awareness coupled with the theme of learning and innovation which highlights the imperative to focus on creativity, critical thinking, collaboration and communication (Larmer, Ross, & Mergendoller, 2009) provides a powerful way to approach research into global collaborative inquiry.  Implicit in this is a focus on students’ ability to work in a creative way with others which emphasizes their ability to be openminded to new ideas while incorporati...