Code, Play, and Learn! – Cancelled

[Best practice]

The workshop is designed for classroom educators to acquire hands-on experiences on programing that can form the basis for a didactic redesign. The focus is on the learner, who through a playful and experimental approach programmes apps, games etc. and gets a fundamental understanding of programming.

Place: Session B – 15:30 at INCUBA 143.

Introduction and Background
Today technology is a natural part of everyday life for children and adults. Digital skills and competencies are essential for us when we learn, in the workplace and in general to participate in a digital world. A part of digital literacy is knowing something about how the technology works and to be able to control the technology, for example by programming or understanding basic html code.

Therefore, many teachers are eager to integrate programming into their teaching, partly to let the learner understand how the technology works and more importantly to create an environment were the learner can design their own games and apps and give their ideas a concrete form by creating a range of content.

Experiences so Far
Quite provocative to some Papert writes in his book “Mindstorms”: `Many children are held back in their learning because they have a model of learning in which you have either ‘got it’ or ‘got it wrong.’ But when you program a computer you almost never get it right the first time. Learning to be a master programmer is learning to become highly skilled at isolating and correcting bugs … The question to ask about the program is not whether it is right or wrong, but if it is fixable. If this way of looking at intellectual products were generalized to how the larger culture thinks about knowledge and its acquisition we might all be less intimidated by our fears of ‘being wrong.’

Our experience is that coding is the ticket to being creative with technology. Children go from being consumers of technology to creators of technology. In this way, they also experience of technology can enable them to have an impact on their environment and perhaps change the way we do some things.

About the Workshop
The workshop is designed for school teachers and educators, designers and practitioners who work with children attending the 4th to 9th grade. Max. 15 participants. The workshop has an academic focus on mathematics and technology understanding and will cover partly an brush up on fabrication design processes and structured design methods and partly give hands on experience with a range of programming software.

Program:

  1. Introduction to the educational use of programming and coding with children focusing on a playful approach.
  2. Hands on programming
    a. Simple programming with code.org b. Learn how to code a game by playing
    b. 3D game using Code Hero
    c. Invent, code and share with Scratch
    d. Programming with an iPad with Codea
    e. Move the turtle 4+, Tynker 4+, CargoBot 4+ and more…..
  3. Joint presentation, discussion and reflection

Materials:
Programming software and video tutorials, laptops and iPads

Outcome:
This workshop is designed for classroom educators to acquire concrete tools for teaching students to become engineering designers

Learning outcome:

  • Basic programming skills
  • Taking complex ideas and break them into simpler parts
  • Learning is a process not a product
  • Getting frustrated and keep on going – working with others
  • Creativity

About the Workshop Facilitator
Jeppe Dalsgård is part of an ICT taskforce in the municipality of Aarhus. The taskforce is one of a number of measures in Aarhus that are taken to ensure the optimization of teachers skills and competences. It includes work-based learning and involvement of resource persons for new inspiration.

In 2013/14, teachers with skills in Danish, English, Mathematics and Music / Art have been part of the taskforce. The aim is that through cooperation, sharing knowledge and inspiration from the outside – including from researchers and developers – the municipality of Aarhus will create a innovative and strong resource team to support schools in the pedagogical and didactic use of ICT.

Jeppe Dalsgård is a also a teacher at Skåde skole. He teaches 4th – 9th graders. He has various experience with fabrication design, both on a school-level as a practionar close to the children and on a municipal level by sharing knowledge and networking across schools in Aarhus. Besides that he works with games in education and is at the moment focusing on the educational potentials in games like Minecraft EDU and SimCity EDU

Download full workshop description