Hour of Code Week: Engaging Students in Coding

In addition to textual, numeric, and graphic literacies for today's world, technology is another. But it isn't just about playing with or using devices, it's about being able to design sequences to operate them.

Hour of Code is a December 9 - 15th campaign to encourage students to try coding, and a number of sites are available to coach students through coding processes. 

The Computer Science in Education site provides terrific resources for learners and teachers: http://csedweek.org

Khan Academy introduces learners to  tutorials with this brief intro:

Welcome to our Hour of Code!: 
Pamela welcomes you to our programming community here. If YouTube is blocked for you and this video doesn't load, just keep going!



In addition, startups like Play-i are hosting live events that allow students to program two of their toys, Bow andYana, two programmable toys very successfully funded by crowdsourcing: http://www.wired.com/design/2013/11/these-little-robots-teach-kids-to-code/

While the following brief video is a product promo, the method of embedding learning into play comes across, and it is a very old idea--in the past, children were often given toys to model activities they would do as adults.

Why I Have Not Been Blogging

I know there is a relationship between blog content and other social media. My excuse? I've been reading and writing offline this summer and fall.

To that end, I read and reviewed a book on scenario based e-learning, and am about to revise a co-authored chapter on competency-based instructional design. 

The review is out online (paper to follow) and is available here:

So glad to have had the chance to read and review Ruth Colvin Clark's Scenario-Based e-Learning: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/08923647.2013.837639 …