#345 – Free Resources for CSEdWeek

#345 — Free Resources for CSEdWeek

AVID Open Access
10 min

Keywords
CS Ed Week, free resources, computer science, coding activities, Hour of Code, Code.org, Scratch, MIT, block coding, teacher account, professional learning, App Lab, coding community, lifelong skills, career opportunities

Transcript

Paul Beckermann 0:01
Welcome to Tech Talk for teachers. I’m your host, Paul Beckerman.

Transition Music 0:06
Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. What’s in the toolkit? What is in the toolkit? So, what’s in the toolkit? Check it out.

Paul Beckermann 0:17
The topic of today’s episode is Free Resources for CSEdWeek. Computer science education is an area that too often gets overlooked in our K-12 schools. While many schools do not offer requirements or even opportunities to learn coding and other areas of computer science, the working world is increasingly relying on the skills that are critical to this area of study. On the surface level, computers permeate nearly every aspect of our lives, and because of that, there are countless career opportunities in the field. Beyond that, students learn computational skills while studying computer science that transfer to nearly any occupation, skills such as decomposition, pattern recognition, abstraction, and algorithmic thinking. Taken as a group, these skills are foundational to developing solid problem-solving skills. In order to call attention to the value of computer science and to provide students with more opportunities to be introduced to it, Computer Science Education Week, also known as CSEdWeek, was established. CSEdWeek is an annual call to action to inspire K-12 students to learn computer science, advocate for equity, and celebrate the contributions of students, teachers, and partners to the field. This year, CSEdWeek runs from December 9th through the 15th. I encourage you to plan something for your students during this week. You might end up opening up a career field that your students hadn’t considered, and even if your students never pursue it as a career, they will benefit from those lifelong, transferable skills that they’ll be developing by engaging in computer science. To help you do this, I’m going to share four websites packed with free resources that you can use to introduce your students to computer science and coding.

Transition Music 2:04
Here is your list of tips.

Paul Beckermann 2:07
The first website is the official site for CSEdWeek. You can find it by going to www.csedweek.org. The website offers information about CSEdWeek, and the content is broken down into five actionable sections: CS Heroes, Teach & Explore, Advocate, Connect and Celebrate CS. Here’s just a brief description of each area. CS Heroes—here you can download posters celebrating people whose work in computer science has contributed and harnessed the good. There’s a lesson plan available for using the posters, which also involves students creating their own CS Hero Poster. Teach & Explore—this section is dedicated to inspiring others to learn computer science. You can explore strategies and resources here to use in your classroom. One of these options is to host an Hour of Code, which I’ll discuss in more detail a little later in the episode. Advocate—on this part of the website, you’ll find resources for helping you advocate for policies that support computer science education. This includes information about becoming an advocate, ways to get involved with advocacy, a CS equity guide, and a new report about the state of computer science. Connect—here you can find ways to get involved promoting CS for students and community members. You can get ideas for hosting an event for your school or community. Celebrate—use these resources to showcase the computer science work you’re doing in your school, highlight CS activities, and thank CS teachers.

The second website you may want to explore is Hour of Code, which you can find at hourofcode.com. According to the website, the Hour of Code started as a one hour Introduction to Computer Science designed to demystify code, to show that anybody can learn the basics, and to broaden participation in the field of computer science. It has since become a worldwide effort to celebrate computer science, starting with one hour coding activities, but expanding to all sorts of community efforts. These are great resources and activities to help you introduce and engage your students in computer science. There’s even a guide outlining step-by-step how you can get involved. You can use some or all of the suggestions offered, and it’s a helpful place to begin. The heart of the website is probably the large library of free activities. Here you will find activities that are searchable and filterable. You can select a grade band, experience level, identify the type of classroom technology that you have, pick topics to explore, activity type and length, as well as accessibility and computer language preferences. For instance, as I was browsing the page, I found a grade two-block coding activity called “Code with Anna and Elsa.” I’m sure the Disney appeal of that one would draw in some students. I also found an activity called “Poem Art for Grades Two Through Eight.” This one might be a nice option for students who are more drawn to the humanities. It could be a way to bring them in and make a coding connection. Both of these activities were provided by code.org. For any option that you select, you get links to resources such as teacher notes or interactive web pages, a summary of technology and time you’ll need, and alignment with academic standards. The site is very convenient, can save you lots of time, and is intended to help you bring computer science to your students. While these activities are perfect for CSEdWeek, they really can be used at any time of the year.

The third site I recommend is code.org. Code.org is the organizer of Hour of Code so you’ll find lots of their content on the Hour of Code website. You can also go directly to their website for more—code.org. Their website states, “Code.org is an education innovation nonprofit dedicated to the vision that every student in every school has the opportunity to learn computer science and artificial intelligence as part of their core K-12 education.” They strive to inspire students, reach classrooms, prepare new CS teachers, and improve diversity in CS, all in the interest of advancing computer science education. To access all of their content, you’ll need to set up a free teacher account. That allows you to create classroom sections for your students, assign and track student work, enroll in professional learning, and interact with other educators on the teacher form. By setting up free student accounts, your students can explore all code.org courses and activities, join your teacher classroom section, access the work you assign, and save their progress and projects. You’ll find lots of great resources at code.org. As a teacher, you can access their highly rated professional learning, explore the curriculum catalog, and start projects in a variety of areas, including the Sprite Lab, the Game Lab, Minecraft, and artist area, and even an App Lab. I decided to check out the App Lab, so when I clicked on it, I was taken to an interactive lab where I could actually create an app with block-based coding right there on my screen. I could drag elements into the workspace and then run my creation anytime I wanted to to check my progress. It was robust, fairly simple, and free. This is a great site to explore to find both professional learning resources for you, as well as engaging activities for your students.

The fourth and final site I suggest you explore as we approach CSEdWeek is Scratch, which you can find at scratch.mit.edu. Scratch, created by MIT, is the world’s largest free coding community for kids. Using this site, students can create stories, games, and animations, and then share those creations with the world. By clicking the Create menu at the top, you are immediately taken to the Scratch Coding Lab. It features a simplified block coding environment with drag and drop functionality. It also has tutorials embedded right on the page so students can learn and then immediately apply that learning in the same environment. It’s great that they don’t have to navigate anywhere else to learn. You can also click the Explore menu to see projects from other Scratch users, or select the Ideas menu to help you get started. There are great tutorials, as well as activity guides to help guide you and your students through a coding activity. A few examples include projects to animate your name, make a chase game, make music, and create a story. When you click an activity option, you can download the guide or try out a tutorial. If you’re working with younger students, you may want to check out ScratchJr, which is available as a free app and helps inspire coding for younger children, aged five through seven. Like Scratch, it offers activities, tutorials, and helpful resources for you to use. You can find it at www.scratchjr.org. There are many more resources out there than I’ve shared here, but these four options are a great way to “scratch” your CSEdWeek itch. Pun intended there, of course. No matter your own comfort level with computer science and coding, you can find resources to expose your students to this important and powerful field of study, open up potential career options for them, and help them develop important lifelong thinking skills.

To learn more about today’s topic and explore other free resources, visit AvidOpenAccess.org. And, of course, be sure to join Rena, Winston, and me every Wednesday for our full-length podcast, Unpacking Education, where we’re joined by exceptional guests and explore education topics that are important to you. Thanks for listening. Take care and thanks for all you do. You make a difference.