Wednesday, November 20, 2019

Slides from Vermont Fest

I was at the Vermont Fest ed tech conference last week.  Here are some themes that I took away from it:


  • A big emphasis on creativity, both high- and low-tech.
  • Personalization
  • A need to rethink how we do professional development in schools
  • A real movement towards getting more computer science and coding in the curriculum.  Speaking of which...I hope you saw my last post about Hour of Code.

I also wanted to share the slides from my own presentation about using screencasting.  Thank you to Amy Wardwell, Olaf Verdonk, and Nicole Gorman for their contributions. Note that some of the examples may not play because they are not publically shared.

Oh, and here's a nice site I learned about (from watching a keynote speaker use it)-- https://www.flaticon.com/.  Lots of free icons to use in your presentations (attribution required if you have a free account).  I'm a big fan of icons over realistic photos when you want to present a general image over a specific one.

For example, consider this image of a student (from Pixabay.com)




versus this one


Icon made by Smashicons from www.flaticon.com

They're both compelling, but the icon perhaps better represents "all thinkers."

Wednesday, November 6, 2019

Hour of Code

The Hour of Code is coming!  

This year, it takes place during the week of Dec 9-15.  As a reminder, the idea is for all students (and adults, too!) to try their hand at coding for one hour sometime within that week.

Code.org provides lots of ready-to-go self-guided activities here (tip-- filter for grades 9+ and choose "Comfortable."  Switch to "Beginner" for more basic activities).



This is not just for math and technology teachers! There are activities appropriate for all kinds of situations.  Here are some examples.

Sustainability

(part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals project).

Life on Land (Python)
Tynker
Grades 6+ | Python
Part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals project, this Python project will have you create your own tree-planting game.

Tynker
Grades 6+ | JavaScript, HTML, CSS
Part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals project, this coding prompt shows off a short project exploring recycling and reuse. Readers can create their own game by expanding the project.

Art

Peblio
Grades 9+ | JavaScript
Learn to draw and animate shapes with code to create interactive artwork inspired by artists.

Science

STEMcoding project
Grades 9+ | JavaScript
Did you see the images of the black hole that were released in Spring 2019? Do you want to know more about black holes and how to escape from them? Check out this coding activity on how fast you need to go to escape from a gravitational field and what happens when not even light can escape!

Language Arts

Code Avengers
Grades 6+ | Python
Our story-telling app retells a fairytale, with weird and funny results! But the program is poorly written. Writing good code is vital. Help refine this app into something amazing. Look at word classes in English, and use variables, consonants, lists, and functions to reconfigure this program. If you have written a program before and want some style, this is for you.