[Year 12 SofDev] Sand pit environment to teacher programming at Years 9 and 10

[Tyler, Simon J]

Hi Daryl,

I used Code.org and App lab for my year 9s this semester and it worked well. I guided them through a slice of the Computer Science Principles course and finished with an up-to-3 person project. The CSP course also allows you to cover many of the other parts of the Victorian Digital Technologies curriculum (although we were very pressed for time... )
My students split about 50-50 between sticking to the block-based JS and the text-based JS, I think this a reasonable thing given the mix of students. There is nothing inherently better about typing out code. Blocks have the advantage that they basically remove all syntax errors and the block library/menu reminds students what is possible. Text based systems are what most professionals use, so many students wrongly feel slighted at having to use blocks and this needs to be taken into consideration. Code.org allows you to leverage and move between the block and text mode.


  *   CodeHS looks to have improved a lot since I last looked  - but not all of it is free. I'm going to have a closer look and might recommend its Python course to my school's year 11 computing teacher...
  *   I have found Codecademy not to be great for learning. It breaks tasks down too much for students so that they can get through an entire course without retaining or understanding much. It needs to be supplemented by project work and assessment tasks, which is maybe not the best for teachers new to teaching coding.
  *   Grok Learning<https://groklearning.com/> is a decent course as an intro to programming and computational thinking, but it's not free.
  *   The online version of How to Think Like a Computer Scientist<http://interactivepython.org/courselib/static/thinkcspy/index.html> is a good course for more CS inclined students/classes. I'm using part of it as part of the summer holiday homework I've given for my SofDev class.
  *   Microsoft's Touch Develop<https://www.touchdevelop.com/> is a good course with lots of options - but did not feel right for me when I looked last summer...  from memory it's based on TypeScript, which is becoming more popular.
  *   The Khan Academy CS and programming courses are good - HTML, CSS, JS+Processing.js, Databases and Algorithms. They are free, well produced and gamified.
  *   Processing.js (or P5.js) is a good option and there are a few good courses that use it - but other than Khan Academy, not many at the high school level?? I would love to make a cross-curricula course out of something like Shiffman's Nature of Code<https://www.kadenze.com/courses/the-nature-of-code/info> (and book<http://natureofcode.com/>).
  *   PyCharm Education edition also has an intro to Python course built into it, but (from memory) it might not be good for a class without a bit of supplementation.
  *   Dash does look like a good intro to modern frontend web development - but it's only a free taster of their larger courses.
  *   FreeCodeCamp is a good course on HTML, CSS, JS (frontend and backend). It is very project based, but moves quite quickly.

I don't know if any of that helps...

Simon
________________________________
From: sofdev-bounces at edulists.com.au [sofdev-bounces at edulists.com.au] on behalf of Croke, Daryl D [croke.daryl.d at edumail.vic.gov.au]
Sent: Sunday, 27 November 2016 12:49 PM
To: sofdev at edulists.com.au
Subject: [Year 12 SofDev] Sand pit environment to teacher programming at Years 9 and 10

Hi all


Any advice/experience using online environments to teach computer science and programming at year 9/10 level. I have used and like Code.org and App Labs but would also like environments that force students to write line code. It also has to be comfortable for teachers new to teaching coding to use and be free.

CodeHS seems good but haven't used it yet.
DASH for HTML was great.






Cheers

Daryl Croke


Mount Ridley College
8338 3600
http://mountridleycollege.vic.edu.au/


MRC Art & Technology Expo (4/11/2016)
http://arttechexpo.global2.vic.edu.au/


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http://geekstuff.global2.vic.edu.au/
http://physicalcomputing.global2.vic.edu.au/



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