Curriculum approach is an interesting piece when you look at what you need in a coding curriculum. It basically comes down to the way that a curriculum platform teaches coding. It needs to be engaging, interactive, and really catch the attention of students, and there a couple of very clear ways to do that.
It starts with the ways you teach students, and do those ways translate from both a block format to also being in text formats. There are really two ways that make sense to approach this. The first is with puzzles. These are where you are putting blocks together to move a character to a goal. While most block programs have these, I think what you will find is that many of the text coding platforms will get away from these even they are great to get students started with basic concepts. I think looking for these and the engagement that comes with them is always important, The other activity that you will see in platforms projects. These are the creative output that comes with coding, and really the key with them is how platforms progress students to create better projects. Are there tutorials to get them started? Do those tutorials start simply and then gradually add more skills? It’s always something to consider. I think when you look at the curriculum approach you have to also look at goals. What is the platform leading students to create? Are they trying to build games, animation, or stories? Are they coding to show what they know in CORE classes? The better ones that are out there take things that kids are interested in and they drive learning with them. Really, the key is how the platform peaks a student’s interest and keeps it. If see something like lots of video tutorials it’s probably not great. If you see engaging interactives that you know will keep kids in, you should latch on to it.
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Let’s get back to looking at things to ask about a coding curriculum. We have been doing conference preview blogs since February is such a heavy conference season, but as we move into March that schedule slows down and this series will be the focus of the blog for the next couple of weeks.
This week we focus on a massive factor when it comes to a coding curriculum. It also applies to coding hardware and tools. It’s all about ease of entry. Can someone start that coding curriculum, hardware, or tool easily? As we expand out to teachers who have not taught coding before, this might be the most important question, and really that ease of entry should be there for both teachers and students. What does this mean for teachers? It can start with having a platform that is a familiar format. If you model it after an LMS that familiar format is there. They can start with building a class and assigning lessons, and they can choose lessons from a pre-determined bunch. It takes out the guesswork. You can then add in a host of teacher resources that allow someone who has never taught coding to feel comfortable. This ease of use has to be there since we don’t have enough programmers who want to go into the classroom. We have to be able to depend on others. Ease of use also matters on the student side. It all starts with their dashboard. Can they get into the classroom easily? Are assignments easy to find? Once that is there, can students easily move to creation? You don’t want the dashboard and the experience to get in the way, but you want to have a dashboard that gives them things like tutorials to easily progress. The ease of use factor also comes into play as you look at coding hardware. A great example is the category of microcomputers. There are a ton of them out there but many of them require a lot of training for both teachers and students to get started. They may be powerful, but if you can’t unlock that power there is really no point. It’s why micro:bit is such a great starting point. It allows any student who can read to get started with block coding to build almost anything. The best tools are those ones that combine this ease of use with an incredibly high ceiling. When you find those, you find magic. Two conferences in one week! What can be better? This year I am taking advantage of Ohio’s move to virtual and I will be part of OETC the week of February 14th-18th. It’s a great Valentine's Day surprise. OETC is one I have never done, and hopefully I can go next year in person.
My Sessions at OETC
Another one of my favorite conferences is coming up! It’s IDEA in Illinois which was formerly ICE. This is a conference that is almost a second home to me as one of my first friends in Ed Tech calls this home and several of my other friends have come to this one over the years. It’s a hybrid one this year, so I have both an in-person session and a virtual one. They include:
Everything's bigger in Texas right? Well, their Ed Tecch conference is no exception. TCEA is around the corner, and it’s always one of the biggest and best conferences out there. They bring in a multitude of national level presenters and the great local ones are bountiful too. I have the privilege of being part one again, and I am delivering 6 sessions that I would love to see my Texas friends at!
Those 6 sessions are
As you look at coding tools, you need to look for diversity and inclusion. It needs to match both the student and the student's level of learning. Students need to be able to see themselves in the characters and stories that they can tell. It also needs to have the tools necessary to adapt to any learning challenge a student might have. Let’s look at how you might be able to get there.
The first thing to look at is the diversity of characters. Many coding platforms will go with characters that don’t have genders or skin tones to avoid this, but if you can find one that leans into diversity, it should stand out a bit more. Look for one that has a variety of skin tones, various genders, non-gendered characters, and even the ability for students to make characters look like themselves. It’s always fun to code with real people, and it gives you the option to use coding in specific school content. Just make sure you do it with characters that bring out the best in all students. As we look at diversity and inclusion, you also have to look at how you can make learning work for every student. You have to be able to personalize student interests, strengths, and weaknesses. Just imagine that one student may be a bit ahead of the others. How do you teach to that? To personalize their coding content, I would look for two things in a coding platform: personalized assignments and the ceiling. The first is easy. Can you assign different content to different students in the same class? Look for things like the ability to assign a Python project to one student in a class while the others get a block project. That will tell you about personalization quickly. The ceiling is also so important. How many different things can kids create, and in how many other formats? Having a low ceiling means the options for students who need a more personalized approach are minimal. Having a high ceiling makes that personalized approach limitless as you can tweak content for the student, and they can create what fits them. Looking at inclusion can also mean other tools. Can the coding resource use another language like Spanish? Does it have a voiceover? If it doesn’t, can you add it? Anything that a student needs to engage at their level should be able to be there. In conclusion, diversity and inclusivity comes down to how things are presented and can you make every student feel welcome. While coding tools are still progressing to this goal, you can still make it a point to look for diversity and inclusion needs. Students deserve it! Can this week go by faster? It’s that time of year again to go to my FAVORITE conference, and I can’t wait to get there. FETC is coming soon!
I love FETC because it’s a great conference, but it’s also the place where I am most likely to get to hang out with my Ed Tech friends. Over the years Florida has been like a second home to me, and I deeply missed this conference last year. This conference is just pure fun, but it also is one of my favorites content-wise. FETC does an amazing job every year of bringing an awesome mix of both national level, next level, and local presenters to the conference. You can get all kinds of perspectives. I think the best thing is that you get really good presenters who are trying to make their name and want to give the most thoughtful learning experience. I was a little nervous about getting into FETC but I have three full sessions including 2 workshops! They include:
I have neglected to write the “COVID” post for months because I wasn’t on the frontlines in the classroom. I work from home, so most days, I am safe in the cocoon of my home office. I am not day in and day out instituting Covid protocols. I am not telling kids to “wash their hands” or “pull up their masks.” I do not have to navigate virtual learning because Omicron has spread so rapidly. I also did not want to wade into the politics in this blog, but I think it’s time to. I think it’s time we find that happy medium that we have been missing. Let me lay out what I mean.
Before I get started, though, let’s get one thing very clear. I genuinely believe you need to protect yourself and your family in the way you see fit. If you live with someone immunocompromised, elderly, or more susceptible, this post doesn’t apply to you. You need to do everything possible to make sure those folks are okay physically and mentally. Who cares what everyone else says, and protecting your loved ones is paramount. This post applies to everyone else. I think I have come to a place where there is a happy medium we will have to live with, and we need to start moving that way. COVID isn’t going anywhere. It’s here to stay, and we have to find that line we can live with it which means don’t be too far to either side. Let’s start with what seems like the simplest way to protect ourselves, and it’s the vaccine. I know that taking the vaccine is a personal choice, but I know for my family and me, all the data points to it being effective (no vaccine is 100%) and safe. Data from multiple hospitals proves that it limits the likely hood you can become infected, and if you do, it dramatically limits the symptoms. I would think most teachers would believe this data (it’s in our nature to believe science), but I know some don’t. I also think most teachers are looking for any way to protect themselves because they know things spread easily in schools and don’t want students bringing it home to people who are more likely to have severe complications. If you are one of those that don’t believe in the vaccine, I have to ask you for a straightforward thing. Make that choice personal, not verbal. It pushes you more to that happy medium because you aren’t trying others to make a choice that they could possibly regret. How we vaccinate and who we vaccinate can be that personal choice, but we don’t have to hate others who believe something different. As someone who is vaccinated, I also think we need to stop pressure campaigns. We are to a point where those that aren’t are dug in, and constant peer pressure won’t help. It still needs to be that personal choice. With everything else, I think the key is that happy medium. Both us as individuals and schools need to be smart but not strict. For example, kids who can go to school can go without masks, especially in schools with students of vaccination age. It doesn’t mean, though, that people need to stand right next to each other in a closed space or sit right next to another student at lunch (1 seat away won’t hurt someone). We should be able to go into a store without a mask and stay away from folks. However, we likely need to wear a mask on a plane where we are in a closed tube for a long time, sitting right next to a stranger. It really can be a smarter, not harder, approach. To bring it home, I think I actually live in a fascinating area with the politics related to schools and the coronavirus. Parents, teachers, and schools do not just use a hands-off approach to COVID, but they are also aren’t going to go off the deep end and have virtual learning for months on in. You can see inadequate approaches. A great example was at my son’s school when they sent him home from a close contact. When he returned, they asked him to wear a mask, but they sat him right next to another student at lunch. To me, that’s the place where things can pass the easiest, so they could have put some space there. They did it all last year successfully (my kids were back in October of 2020), but why could they not do it now? I have also seen the good through my youngest daughter’s school. They ask for masks, but only when the kids are right next to each other. Seems pretty sensible to me. Throughout all of this, we just need to go with a level of understanding and kindness. People have different opinions and want to see other things in their community, yet there is such a level of hatred for people that believe different things permeate this country that the extremes come out. If we all would just remember that happy medium is what matters, we would be much better off. We could live our lives while also not doing things like overwhelming our schools, teachers, and even health care facilities. We need to do better, and it all starts with respecting each other. Coding can be a creative activity. It can be something every teacher does and uses, but how do we get to that goal? Coding is not something many teachers have training for, so convincing them takes a particular connection to content. There are coding resources that make it easy, though. Let’s use this blog to discuss how to find one.
Getting core teachers (science, social studies, math, and ELA) to code comes down to two things: ease of use and a clear connection. If either one of those isn’t there, most will give up on the product quickly. Remember those two things, and you can’t go wrong. Ease of use includes how to assign content, where to find it, and how to assess it. It means you need a platform that is familiar and a teacher can start with quickly. The best way to do that is to build it on a classroom management system similar to any LMS they are using. If you have both a place where teachers can assign lessons (including pre-built content) and see student progress, they will be able to acclimate without any issues! Coding is also not natural for core teachers, so it helps to give them a starting place. While pre-built content isn’t always the best in other subjects, it becomes vital for subjects teachers aren’t trained in coding and digital citizenship. These pre-built lessons are on content, and they are getting to the heart of what students need by allowing them to build animations, games, stories, and more. The key to better pre-built lessons, though, is that you can customize them. Think about it in a layered way. A teacher can start with pre-built core curriculum content; then they can move to customize those pre-built lessons, and then they can move to build their own. Can you have that progression in one platform? Yes, you can, and I might know one. Of course, this all has to connect with standards. You might find that some of the national standards connect directly (like Common Core and NGSS), but with coding being a creative activity, it can apply to any standard. Building these lessons just requires your imagination. As you look at a coding curriculum, you may never find every bit of content you need. The curriculum may have great coding lessons and great core class lessons, but it will never cover every standard in 50 different states. There is simply too much content for almost any company to fill, including the big boys.
That means the ability to create custom lessons becomes very important. It’s a higher-level skill, but as you get deeper into coding, you should be able to diagnose what you need to complete that creative activity quickly. Building that content has a couple of needs, which is what this blog is all about! Let’s start by talking about building content with a block language. At that level, you need to have a clear tutorial for younger students to follow to build a component project. You could add items such as required blocks, graphics, and voiceover to that tutorial. It’s also great to add outside content like Google Docs, YouTube, Padlet, and FlipGrid to upgrade that experience. These need to be more about the learning experience students get from coding rather than the actual code. If you are going to do this with scripted languages, you can use almost any platform. Most scripted languages have a commenting feature that allows you to add content that does not affect the actual code. For instance, if you add a # sign in Python, anything after it does not apply to the code. Each language has its own system. It’s just a matter of finding the correct command. The other key with custom content is the ability to share and assign it easily. Some platforms have easy-to-use classroom setups, and others allow you to share the URL. It’s just a matter of finding a system that works well for you. |
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