On Fri, Apr 28, 2017 at 9:59 AM, <jeannine.cou...@use.salvationarmy.org> wrote:
> I am also new to this community. I am interested in learning how to > implement Python coding into lessons for elementary students. > > Sincerely, > Ms. Jeannine S. Coutts > Education Technology Specialist > Hi Jeannine, welcome to edu-sig. I'm one of the two listowners currently, Naomi Ceder the other, though for decades on edu-sig that wasn't true i.e. I'm relatively new in that capacity. We've been fortunate over the years to have done a lot of brainstorming, all archived, but then the vista keeps changing so it's not like there's a point where everything we could say has been said. :-D I used to be a high school math teacher long ago and more recently have worked with junior high aged. Only in the last few months have I had much first hand experience in a classroom populated with 1st graders tackling Scratch, or 5th graders tackling Codesters. My sense of what's realistic and possible is still developing. I'm almost 60 years old myself, lots of white hair. What we find at the company I work for is that Chromebooks are adequate for getting into the cloud via WiFi, where a host of on-line tools makes coding accessible even to the very young. However when you have to hunt for every keyboard key, and fight mightily with a track pad, just to slide some blob around, you're hardly ready to do much typing. Codesters.com offers a drag and drop approach to Python programming, free of charge, however it's built to imitate MIT Scratch, with which it helps to be familiar with first. Before Scratch, you have games like at Code.org, which help develop the finer motor skills. Example: https://studio.code.org/hoc/1 (may trigger a promotional video, PR for Learning to Code, then it takes you to an exercise I'm actually seeing used with 1st graders here in Portland, along with MIT Scratch). I'm about to dive into Codesters myself to see if I can get a tic-tac-toe thing going in the canvas, rather than console-based, which is already provided. Here on this list, Andre has developed Reeborg's World: http://reeborg.ca/index_en.html Also, we've enjoyed the presence of Gregor Lingl who maintains the turtle module. Right out of the box, Python comes with turtle graphics, if you have IDLE installed. https://docs.python.org/3.6/library/turtle.html Older debates on this listserv have been about whether kids that young shouldn't be out developing gross motor skills first, like is so much screen time really ideal? However not all kids are alike in their interests and for those really eager to dive in, its great to have some options. Another resource I enjoy: repl.it Just last night I was working on this one: https://repl.it/H7VF/11 (a window pops up asking you to sign up, but you don't have to) There's a ton of stuff out there! More every day it seems. Kirby PS: Here's a talk I'm lining up to give at the Linus Pauling House next Tuesday, a meet-up place in my neighborhood (Portland claims to Linus's or Lini, both Torvalds and Pauling, the latter a 2x Nobel Prize winner, unshared, for both chemistry and peace, though he credited his wife Ava Helen for a lot of his courage in doing peace work). *What Does the Future Bode, in Terms of Learning to Code?* The "code school" business is still shaping up in a rough and tumble world, full of uncertainties. *O'Reilly Media* finally threw in the towel, closing its fledgling *School of Technology*. So then what happened to Wanderer Kirby Urner, one of the school's full time Python mentors (souvenir biz cards will be available)? He's branched out into mentoring much younger folk, in addition to sometimes hosting a night gig for professional adults, off and on (a forty hour ordeal). He did a Python for Wanderers a few years ago, Allen Taylor attending. *Coding with Kids* is the new company, based in Redmond, so you might be thinking Windows, but we use Chromebooks on resources in the cloud, what Kirby plans to project. After school, in schools (both public and private). Given Kirby's unique perspective from the front lines, along with years spent developing curriculum for his Oregon Curriculum Network [1], we should get some interesting discussion going, starting with a 20 minute show and tell (projected) featuring some of the latest tools now in use in education. *Presenter's bio*: Kirby is a former full time math teach (St. Dom's in Jersey City), text book editor, political activist etc., an early childhood denizen of Portland with an upbringing overseas (Rome, Manila) and a degree from Princeton (philosophy a focus). He returned to Portland in his later twenties to met his late wife Dawn Wicca and raise a family. (ISEPP was one of Dawn's bookkeeping clients back in the 1990s). Kirby specialized in writing programs for nonprofits and for medical research. Full resume: http://grunch.net/kirby-urner Want to optionally do some homework ahead of time? Read these to bone up on the presenter's views: *On Medium*: https://medium.com/@kirbyurner/is-code-school-the- new-high-school-30a8874170b https://medium.com/@kirbyurner/the-plight-of-high-school-math-teachers- c0faf0a6efe6 *Ongoing Debate @ Math Forum*: http://mathforum.org/kb/thread.jspa?threadID=2852324 [1] Oregon Curriculum Network http://4dsolutions.net/ocn/cp4e.html http://4dsolutions.net/ocn/ http://wikieducator.org/Digital_Math
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