Scratch is a great introduction to programming. By using code blocks, students and staff can quickly assemble a working program. But, the limitations of Scratch become more and more apparent as you try to create more sophisticated programs. That’s where Pico-8 from Lexaloffle comes in. Pico-8 – the programmable virtual game console The Pico-8 is a…
Hour of Code is a global event which aims to pull back the curtain on technology and give students a chance to see what coding (programming) is like. There are over 200 activites and lesson plans encompassing students from pre-readers up to high school. The search activities page has a set of categories so you can search for exactly…
Present at a conference is part 11 of 13 Ways Teachers Can Hack Their Learning. One of the best ways to learn is to share and help others learn. This is only of the tenets of teaching, but once we become teachers, we kind of forget about sharing and teaching our peers. You may feel…
Up until just a few years ago, I got around 350 emails a day, which presented me with an exhausting, time-consuming daily task that I grumbled about plenty. Now, because of social media and messaging services, that number has been cut by more than half. But things are actually worse. These days, messages come at…
Over the weekend I stumbled up Twitter’s Emoji artwork, which is Creative Commons licensed, and thought how the emoji could be used to create some cool badges. I had also been looking for a project to try out Teachers Pay Teachers, and the Emoji Badges project was born. I’ve been playing around with gamefication in…
The Real Value of Computer Science Providing students with open ended opportunities to think critically (with or without coding) creates problem solvers and independence, both of which are required skills for today’s industry. Experts have branded a set of skills as “21 Century Competencies” which include computational thinking. Coding also supports spatial sense and makes…