Coding your way

through school!

Dr. Martine Ceberio

Associate Professor of Computer Science

The University of Texas at El Paso

mceberio@utep.edu

Today’

s agenda

What is Coding? Computational Thinking?

Resources out there available for everyone

Some inspiring Efforts

Some Demonstrations

Brainstorming and Q&As… all under 50 minutes…

Codin

g?

Usually understood as:

writing in a language

that can be processed

by a computer (possibly

via computer software)

The process of writing

instructions – to achieve

a given task / solve a

given problem – so that a

computer can understand

Codin

g…

… in t

he

class

room

???

Tasks can be varied… not

necessarily science related Computer used as a

support for computations

(science?), for coded presentations (social

sciences? languages? etc.)

How hard is that????

… we’ll get to that point

Why c

ode?

Computers are everywhere! Computer literacy: we

know how to read, why not

know how to talk to a

computer? Understand how computers work… so it is

not black magic! And more: see below…http://www.edutopia.org/discussion/coded-success-benefits-learning-programhttp://www.codeconquest.com/what-is-coding/benefits/

Why

code?

In n

um

bers

!

Everybody in this country should learn

how to program a computer… because it

teaches you how to think

—Steve Jobs

Com

puta

tional

thin

king?

= problem-solving

process It can be: Algorithmically solving

problems of scale Formulating problems such

that computers can assist

Analyzing and logically

organizing data Generalizing and applying this

process to other problems

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_thinking

Codin

g a

nd

Com

puta

tional

Thin

kin

g?

Coding teaches: Understanding the

problem to be solved Posing a problem /

defining tasks to be achieved Problem-solving

Being able to list steps to

be taken to solve a problem = breaking

problems into smaller

ones

In y

our

class

room

Computers as just another

support Like a notepad Like a camera Like a poster Examples: Math: design of experiments,

playing with expressions

Languages: coding, rather than

recording, videos Social Studies: researching apps

ideas for some area of

improvement / research

Also:

http://scratch.mit.edu/starter_projects/

http://www.alice.org/HourOfCode/introduction.html

http://studio.code.org

How

can y

ou d

o

it? How easily? Using which tool?

How steep is the learning

curve? Is this expensive? Does this involve math?

(Alm

ost

) Endle

ss

reso

urc

es

Tools: Alice: http://www.alice.org/index.php

Snap: http://snap.berkeley.edu

Scratch: http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/editor/?tip_bar

=getStarted Light-bot: http://lightbot.com

Processing: http://hello.processing.org

Code Studio: http://studio.code.org

Many more at http://code.org/learn

Others?

Endle

ss

reso

urc

es

Curricula: Code.org: http://code.org/educate

Exploring CS:http://code.org/files/ECSonepager.pdf

CS principles: http://code.org/files/CSPcurriculumflyer.p

df

CSTA.acm.org Engage CS: http://www.engage-

csedu.org

Opport

unit

ies

Code.org Professional development District partnerships Inspire students The Hour of Code

NCWIT.org Aspirations in Computing Data, best practices,

etc.

Ideas Let us look at what

can be done… … and then brainstorm about what

we can do

Sum

mary

Computers as just another

support (beyond paper,

cardboard, videos) Computers as just another

skill (in addition to reading,

writing, arithmetic) And it is not even hard:

Plenty of resources No need to prior knowledge

in most cases

And t

o c

oncl

ude

… Since I hear there is a

Super-Hero theme

at this conference!...

My

superh

ero

!C

odin

g is

like

havi

ng

super

pow

ers

!

Thank y

ou

for

your

att

enti

on!!

!

Please feel free to contact

me at:

mceberio@utep.edu