#talk to programmers you know! ask them how they feel about writing code! 75% of programmers use AI. ask them why!

[jadeharleyinc]

if we listened to you game engines like Unity wouldn't exist and we wouldn't have a vibrant, accessible indie game dev scene.

the indie video games you love exist because some people did not enjoy the "satisfaction" and "joy" and "accomplishments" of creative processes like "writing your own physics engine by yourself" and decided to automate that process!

for some people, like us programmers, creation isn't about having fun with the rote process. for some of us, creation is about creating a final product. for some of us, a creative process automated and reduced to its bare essentials is satisfying in its own rights. if you don't understand this, maybe you should try programming.

Unpopular opinion but if you don't enjoy the process you should find a different thing to do.

And I think this is true in general but now I'm talking about it in the context of AI.

If you don't enjoy making art and only care about the end piece and how it'll look and how much traction it"lol get online then making art is not something for you, find something you enjoy from start to finish.

Same goes for writing: if you do not enjoy writing and rewriting and then some more and instead want AI to write for you, being a writer is not something you should pursue.

Sure, not every part of creative process is going to be equally enjoyable but you should get satisfaction from solving the problems along the way and you should get a sense of accomplishment on your way of "making the piece yours" and you should have a sense of ownership once you are done.

None of these things will come from typing in a prompt into chatGPT. And I am sad to see so many people are missing on the opportunity to experience the joy of making something with their own hands and brains.

Just give it a try and if you don't like it don't do it again.

But also don't let the expectations of it coming out perfect ruin the fun you are having while making the thing. Because what if I told you this: having fun while creating is the actual purpose of the creative process, not whatever comes out of it.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

PLENTY OF FAMOUS FOUNDERS HAVE HAD SOME FAILURES ALONG THE WAY

What does a startup do now, in the first place. It was pretty advanced for the time. The surprising thing about throwaway programs is that, like other investors, we run on the manager's schedule, they're in a position of having to choose one or the other. And you know what you're talking about, you can get hold of if you want to know what the ideas are until you get them down to the fewest words. The drawbacks will only become apparent later, and also with deep structural changes like caching and persistent objects. When someone is determined, there's still a danger that they'll follow a long, hard path that ultimately leads nowhere. Flexible employment laws? It's like saying something clever in a conversation as if you'd thought of it in these terms, but in many ways pushes you in the opposite direction. In fact, worse than arrogant: since readers are used to a world where skill is paramount, and you observe how much humans have in common is that they understand the cost of a long name is not just something forced on startups by investors, but part of what it means to be a police state, and although present rulers seem enlightened compared to the last, even enlightened despotism can probably only get you part way toward being a great economic power. If people have to move. We'll assume that their startup is one that could put millions more to use.

Here's a typical reponse: You haven't seen someone's true colors unless you've worked with them on a startup. Whenever someone in an organization is a kind of business plan for a new language. They do a really good programming language: very powerful abstractions. Why stop now? Of course, space aliens probably wouldn't find human faces engaging. Just as the relationship between founders was more important in choosing cofounders. It's really a group of 10 managers to work together as if they were simply a group of 10 managers is not merely a group of 10 people working together in the usual way. Once the libraries get too big, it can become a lot less stressful once you reach cruising altitude: I'd say 75% of the stress is gone now from when we first started. After ten weeks' work the three friends have built a prototype that gives one a taste of what their product will do. I'm not too worried yet. I spent a whole day watching TV I'd feel like I was descending into perdition. But in fact it could have substantial costs.

Most startups don't manage to. As companies grow they invariably get more such checks, either in response to disasters they've suffered, or probably more often by hiring people from bigger companies who bring with them customs for protecting against new types of disasters. So while nearly all VC funds have some address you can send your business plan randomly to VCs, because they tend to repel you. One answer to that is obvious: because you need more of them. That can be very demoralizing. This can be a tricky business, because while the alarms that prevent you from overspending are so basic that they may even be in our DNA, the ones that are most likely to say yes. But there is a degenerate case where what someone wants you to do the errands won't think it's good. Raising $20,000 for 10% of a company, the next Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Michael Dell can't be a good marketing trick to call it.

When they'd been independent, they could release changes instantly. In Boston the biggest is the Common Angels. Let yourself be second guessed. Everyone knows that it's not a good idea to have an active profiler—to push performance data to the programmer instead of waiting for college. An eminent Lisp hacker told me that his copy of CLTL falls open to the section format. But even the most well-intentioned investors can behave in a way encouraging. And we think it's better if startups operate out of their garage in Switzerland, the old lady next door would report them to the municipal authorities. Common Lisp. Investing in startups is risky! Brevity is one place where strongly typed languages lose. The best writing is rewriting, wrote E.

I wasn't sure what to talk about at Startup School, so I decided to ask the founders of a lot of what we want. The board will have ultimate power, which means increasing numbers of things we need it for. There is a train running the length of it, you waited too long to launch. I asked them to demo the device they had difficulty switching it on. Societies eventually develop antibodies to addictive new things. If you don't have a college degree you can't get a visa for working on your startup while raising money. There is hope for any language that gives hackers what they want till the last moment.

Because they haven't tried to control it with a wireless mouse, but the technical due diligence is pretty thorough, but the fact should be: spend little, and work fast. But consulting is far from free money. But while I'd spent a lot of pro-union readers, the first paragraph sounds like the sort of software that's supposed to be fun, if you're into that sort of thing. In fact, it's just as well to make the company his full-time job. Plus people in an audience are disproportionately the more brutish sort, just as everyone knows, should generate fast code. Surely that's mere prudence? All other things being equal, no one would use it.

How can I write this such that if people don't think you're weird, you're living badly. It's not fun. And the lower your expectations, the harder it is to be consciously aware of that. Instead he'll spend most of his time talking about the five sources of startup funding. But they forgot to consider the cost. Your Research which I recommend to anyone ambitious, no matter how hard they try to keep their startup mojo. And they won't even dare to take on ambitious projects. If you ask at that age, people will choose conservatively. Fritz Kunze's official biography carefully avoids mentioning the L-word.

Anyone who's been through a startup will find the preceding portrait to be missing something: disasters. And yet—for reasons having more to do with me. Sounds pretty eccentric, doesn't it? You see it in sponsored research too. If you know what you're talking about, you can have a fruitful argument about something that's part of their identity, then all other things being equal, no one would be able to stay on as CEO, they'll have to cede some power, because the harder it is to live in Silicon Valley and Boston, and few in Chicago or Miami. No matter what you work on, you're type-B procrastination. Some people like certain kinds of horrors are fascinating. Everyone said how determined and resilient you must be worth investing in. A friend of mine once told an eminent operating systems expert that he wanted to do, why users need it, how large the market is, how they'll make money, and who the competitors are and why this company is one of the reasons I like being part of this world.

[kayawagner]

Terrible Habits

Amongst other things I am an indie game developer and a hobbiest programmer. This means that I often find that if I cannot find just the right game or just the right gaming tool it is extremely tempting to create my own.

I really enjoy creating games and adventures. I really enjoy the challenge of learning new skills particularly when I am programming. Right now I am dabbling with Android programming using Java. I can write apps but the next thing I want to get to grips with is changing activities by swiping left or right.

So what has this to do with bad habits?

All of this stuff I do for fun. It costs me nothing to write a game, they are after all simply Word Documents until you decide to take things further. It costs nothing to code a phone app. They take time but they are fun so it is free entertainment.

The bad habit is procrastination. I was chatting with Michael recently, early November I think, and I said that  have a habit of writing blog posts when I am supposed to be doing other things. Well here I am again avoiding doing something that I will enjoy doing by writing blog posts.

So the thing I am avoiding is writing a adventure game book. I imagine that we have all read or played one of these at some point in the past. I started with Warlock of Firetop Mountain and I actually replayed the Sorcery! series last year when I was on holiday.

How I came to start on this journey is rather circuitous. We were talking on the Rolemaster forums about the target audience for the new edition of Rolemaster. Some people seemed think that a new version of Rolemaster would draw in new players from DnD. That is where the first players came from back in the early 1980s for the first edition of Rolemaster.

I tend to disagree. I can find no evidence that new games gain market share from the DnD following. It is more a case that people who play DnD may dabble with other games but tend to keep going back to DnD. If you ever have to change who you play with, because you have moved or your regular group broke up then it is a thousand times easier to find DnD players than any other system.

I was looking at my own habits and those of people I know who tend to play the widest variety of games. The common factor seems to be that we are always moving on. We pick up a game, play it for a while and then something else comes out and that takes our fancy so we pick that up and play that. The process is never ending. What this means for the smaller indie games producers is that although they may sell a couple of hundred copies of their game, the number of people in the market for follow on books is potentially very small. Take Zweihänder for example. I was looking at the Grim and Perilous Library today. The best selling third party supplement has sold less that 100 copies in four months and yet Zweihänder itself has sold something like 10,000 copies.

So it has been bubbling away in the back of my mind as to where do you get new players from.

Jump forward a few weeks and there was an indie game developer on MeWe who was rattling off his design criteria and one of them was to attract new players. I asked how was he intending to do that and the response was to make the game very close to DnD. I thought that those are not new players they are just new customers. A totally different thing. As part of that discussion it came out that one of  the perceived problems with introducing new players was ‘info dump’. Introducing a new setting, all the rules that make up an RPG, all the options for creating characters and so on. Some of these you can avoid by using pre-gen characters for new players. All the character generation choices are taken away and they get to see a model character and how it all hangs together before they have to create their own.

I then had my thought. A game book is a great way of introducing a a setting. You get all the words you need to describe the setting, key NPCs and set the tone. It is easy enough to create a cut down version of any rule set to fit in with the game but at the same time introduce a games core mechanic. At the end of a game book you can prompt people with the idea of limitless adventures if they upgrade to the full RPG version. Game books are a an ideal ‘gateway drug’ for RPGs and every game book reader that you convert into a role player is a completely new person introduced to the hobby.

The advantages don’t end there. A game book is free to create, just like any game it just takes time, creativity and effort. It is free to publish thanks to POD, Drivethrufiction and Amazon’s Direct Publishing.

People pay for books, so what I am seeing as an advert to hook people into buying games, other people are prepared to pay good money for. The average game books seems to be selling for about £4 (€5/$5).

Looking at the actual task of writing a game book at they are remarkably short. Tradition says they are 400 paragraphs long and the average paragraph is just 50 words. Some are much longer but they are balanced by “Your adventure ends here” when you die. 400×50 is just 20.000 words. Compared to a novel 20k words is pretty short, or manageable depending on your point of view.

The ‘direct route’ through a game book is typically 75 paragraphs  or about 4.000 words which feels quite doable. The rest is alternative routes, additional encounters and dead ends. This blog post is over 1.000 words and has only taken half an hour to produce.

So here I am I have a game book to write. If I get on with it I could write it in a matter of days. If I do write it I could earn a few pounds in sales, and then earn a few more pounds in selling copies of my own games and I will have introduced a few more people into the pleasure of role playing. A truly virtuous circle.

But what am I actually doing? I am writing a blog post about how I am avoiding doing what I am supposed to be doing to avoid the thing I am supposed to be doing.

Terrible habit isn’t it!

Related posts:

Confessions of a terrible GM

Long Running Reviews

Long Silence!

Terrible Habits published first on https://supergalaxyrom.tumblr.com

[statrano]

Hour of Code Lesson Plans by Grade

This December will again host the Hour of Code, a one-hour introduction to programming designed to demystify the subject and show that anyone can be a maker, a creator, and an innovator. Last year, almost 300,000 students (age 4-104) participated from over 180 countries and wrote almost 20 billion lines of code. The 200,000+ teachers involved came away believing that, of all their education tools, coding was the best at teaching children to think. It’s easy to see why when you look at fundamental programming concepts:

abstraction and symbolism – variables are common in math, but also in education. Tools, toolbars, icons, images all represent something bigger

creativity – think outside the box

if-then thinking – actions have consequences

debugging – write-edit-rewrite; try, fail, try again. When you make a mistake, don’t give up or call an expert. Fix it.

logic – go through a problem from A to Z

sequencing – know what happens when

If you’re planning to participate in Hour of Code, here are activities by grade that will kickstart your effort. They can be done individually or in small groups.

Essential Question

How do I program a series of activities — and why?

Big Idea

I can break activities down into their most basic steps

Teacher Preparation

About 75 minutes — fifteen minutes prep and sixty for the coding activity that is part of Hour of Code.

Introduce each of these activities by watching “I Like Programming“, a video that discusses why the great programmers of our time fell in love with this activity.

**Grade-levels below are guidelines. Feel free to use whichever project fits your students.

Kindergarten — Human Robot

Start young programmers by teaching sequencing. Show images of stages in, say, their morning preparations. Ask them to organize the list in the order completed as they get ready for school. Call it “sequencing” and expect them to use this domain-specific word.

Next, pick an activity from the sequence — say, walking into the classroom and sitting down. Use yourself as a model of how to perform that activity and ask students for specific directions on how you would complete this task. For example:

Move right foot, then left, 4 times.

Turn right; walk 4 steps.

Turn around (left and left again).

Drop backpack to floor (or place under chair).

Sit

Only do what they tell you. For example, if they say “walk to the chair”, look confused. They haven’t provided enough direction. They must “debug” the “script” and try again.

For more suggestions, here’s a list of coding websites. Scroll to the section for kindergarten.

First Grade — Follow one of the free online Hour of Code activities

Using activities offered on websites like Code.org, Kodable, or Tynker is the easiest way to get involved as the site does the planning for you. Before starting, review the digital citizenship associated with visiting an online site (such as privacy, staying on the assigned website, and not talking to strangers).

If you don’t want to follow a pre-planned activity, try one of these sites that introduce age-appropriate programming:

Scratch Jr.

Tinkercad

If you use iPads, here are great options:

Cargo-Bot

Daisy the Dinosaur

For more suggestions, here’s a list of coding websites. Scroll to the section for first grade.

Second Grade — Animation

Use a free program like Pivot Stick Figure Animator or Stickman to program a stick figure:

Pivot Stick Figure is a download. Students program a stick figure to do pretty much anything they want by adjusting the “joints” in his body

Draw a Stickman is a web-based tool or app that turns a simple drawing into a story by asking questions of the creator. Students draw an image; the site animates it and then asks questions as the figure moves, requiring students to add detail to the Stickman’s adventure. They can pick from several story themes in creating their finished story.

If you use iPads, try Stick Nodes or Stickman.

For more suggestions, here’s a list of coding websites. Scroll to the section for second grade.

Third Grade — Pixel Art

Pixel Art is the blocky drawing that is most famous for appearing in Minecraft and Tetris. For this project, students will use a spreadsheet program.

Open the spreadsheet program you use in your school (Google Sheets, Excel, or another). Show students how to turn the cells into squares rather than rectangles by doing the following (or watch this video):

Select all cells by grabbing the box that sits at the intersection of the rows and columns

Drag a column header’s edge to resize the column width to match the row height.

Students now write directions for which color is poured into what squares to create their drawing. For example:

Blue:                 A1, B1, C1, D1, G1, H1, I1, J1, A2, B2, I2, J2, A3, J3, A5, A6, A7, A8, A9, A10,

When done, students have a neighbor test the directions to see if they can create the intended drawing.

For more suggestions, here’s a list of coding websites. Scroll to the section for third grade.

Fourth Grade — Shortkeys

By fourth grade, students appreciate technology for how it can speed up their classwork and will seek ways to use it for that purpose. Creating a shortkey is a quick and easy way to complete repetitive activities and will become a favorite with students. If necessary, adapt the following Windows/iPad directions to the device used in your school:

Go to Start

Right click on the desired program (either a program or a tool is fine)

Select “properties”

Click in “shortcut”

Push key combination you want to use, say, Ctrl+Alt+S

Save

On iPads, these are called “hotkeys”:

Go to Settings > General Settings > Keyboard Settings.

Scroll down and click “add new shortcut.”

Popular shortkeys are to open programs, activate tools, and take screenshots using the digital device’s native tool.

For more suggestions, here’s a list of coding websites. Scroll to the section for fourth grade.

Fifth Grade — Macros

Creating macros gives students an easy way to add a standards-based heading or any other repetitive task required for schoolwork without having to retype it each time. Adapt these MS Word directions to your digital device:

Click View – Macros– Record Macros.

Specify a name for the macro.

Choose whether it should be a keyboard shortcut or a button.

Once you click OK, notice your mouse looks like a cassette tape, indicating that anything you click will be part of the macro. Click all elements you would like to be part of your macro.

Stop recording by clicking View – Stop Recording.

Click for a video on how to create macros.

For more suggestions, here’s a list of coding websites. Scroll to the section for fifth grade.

Sixth Grade — Build an App

If necessary, explain to students what an “app” is and why they want to build one. For this project, follow the videos and directions included in MIT’s App Inventor and create one (or all) beginning level apps such as:

TalkToMe Text-to-speech app

Extended TalkToMe—shake the phone!

BallBounce Game app

Digital Doodle drawing app

Here are three alternative popular app-creation sites:

Game Salad 

Apps Geyser 

TinyTap App

Don’t expect students to complete this project during the Hour of Code. Expect only that they get started.

For more suggestions, here’s a list of coding websites. Scroll to the section for Middle School.

Seventh Grade — Code a Widget 

Widgets are free, personalized mini-apps that do almost anything the user can program, from calculating the calories in a recipe to solving complex problems. Students can browse Wolfram/Alpha’s gallery for a widget that fits their need and embed the code into their personal website, or build their own widget from scratch using Wolfram Alpha’s Builder tool. The level of difficulty will determine how long it takes.

Click to view slideshow.

For more suggestions, here’s a list of coding websites. Scroll to the section for Middle School.

Eighth Grade  — Alice

Alice is a free downloadable programming tool for 8th grade and above that shows students how to create interactive stories, animations, and games. Besides Math Standards, Alice supports these Common Core writing skills:

8.3a Engage and orient the Alice world viewer by establishing a context and point of view and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally and logically.

8.3b Use narrative techniques in the Alice World, such as dialogue, pacing, description, and reflection, to develop experiences, events, and/or characters.

8.3c In Alice world dialogue and action, use a variety of transitions to convey sequence, signal shifts from one time frame or setting to another, and show relationships among experiences and events.

8.3d Use precision and appropriate tools throughout to convey events.

8.3e Provide a conclusion to the Alice world story that follows events.

Divide the class into groups. Have each group pick one of the following resources, preview it, and be prepared to share their thoughts and take questions from classmates:

basic Alice programming instructions 

overview of Alice by Middle School students

Duke University’s Alice “Getting Started” videos are here 

Next, groups open Alice and go through the tutorial by clicking “Start Tutorial” in the Welcome to Alice dialogue box. When done, create an animated avatar as follows:

Choose “room” template, then “Setup Scene.”

Choose “class Biped,” “class Person,” then child, female, light and avatar that is shown.

Push OK until avatar appears in the room.

Using circle at avatar’s feet, turn him/her until s/he faces right, and then press “edit code.”

In tab that says “this child/person,” click on heavy black arrow facing down. Then click arrow facing right to reach individual body parts. Choose a body part and give it direction. Run program to see results. Debug program if it doesn’t work.

If students get stuck, they can go through Alice online documentation, Help files, or ask for assistance from classmates. Remind them not to give up. Keep making changes. It will work.

If you have time: In groups, students watch movie trailer of Despicable Me (or similar).  Analyze how avatars move their limbs, mouths, and how they walk. Compare this to humans. For example, which leg moves first? How do joints move? How do arms and legs move in relation to each other? Does body bob up-down or side-to-side as avatar moves? List the movements and then construct a walking avatar in Alice world.

Click to view slideshow.

High School

Here’s a list of great activities geared for the high school student.

***

What are you doing for Hour of Code? Share your projects in the comments.

More on Hour of Code:

Lesson plan bundle for Hour of Code

10 Unusual Projects to Energize Hour of CodeHour of Code: Scratch Jr.

Hour of Code 101

Augmented Reality with Metaverse

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-8 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice reviewer, CAEP reviewer, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today and TeachHUB, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

Hour of Code Lesson Plans by Grade published first on https://seminarsacademy.tumblr.com/

[evnoweb]

Hour of Code Lesson Plans by Grade

This December will again host the Hour of Code, a one-hour introduction to programming designed to demystify the subject and show that anyone can be a maker, a creator, and an innovator. Last year, almost 300,000 students (age 4-104) participated from over 180 countries and wrote almost 20 billion lines of code. The 200,000+ teachers involved came away believing that, of all their education tools, coding was the best at teaching children to think. It’s easy to see why when you look at fundamental programming concepts:

abstraction and symbolism – variables are common in math, but also in education. Tools, toolbars, icons, images all represent something bigger

creativity – think outside the box

if-then thinking – actions have consequences

debugging – write-edit-rewrite; try, fail, try again. When you make a mistake, don’t give up or call an expert. Fix it.

logic – go through a problem from A to Z

sequencing – know what happens when

If you’re planning to participate in Hour of Code, here are activities by grade that will kickstart your effort. They can be done individually or in small groups.

Essential Question

How do I program a series of activities — and why?

Big Idea

I can break activities down into their most basic steps

Teacher Preparation

About 75 minutes — fifteen minutes prep and sixty for the coding activity that is part of Hour of Code.

Introduce each of these activities by watching “I Like Programming“, a video that discusses why the great programmers of our time fell in love with this activity.

**Grade-levels below are guidelines. Feel free to use whichever project fits your students.

Kindergarten — Human Robot

Start young programmers by teaching sequencing. Show images of stages in, say, their morning preparations. Ask them to organize the list in the order completed as they get ready for school. Call it “sequencing” and expect them to use this domain-specific word.

Next, pick an activity from the sequence — say, walking into the classroom and sitting down. Use yourself as a model of how to perform that activity and ask students for specific directions on how you would complete this task. For example:

Move right foot, then left, 4 times.

Turn right; walk 4 steps.

Turn around (left and left again).

Drop backpack to floor (or place under chair).

Sit

Only do what they tell you. For example, if they say “walk to the chair”, look confused. They haven’t provided enough direction. They must “debug” the “script” and try again.

For more suggestions, here’s a list of coding websites. Scroll to the section for kindergarten.

First Grade — Follow one of the free online Hour of Code activities

Using activities offered on websites like Code.org, Kodable, or Tynker is the easiest way to get involved as the site does the planning for you. Before starting, review the digital citizenship associated with visiting an online site (such as privacy, staying on the assigned website, and not talking to strangers).

If you don’t want to follow a pre-planned activity, try one of these sites that introduce age-appropriate programming:

Scratch Jr.

Tinkercad

If you use iPads, here are great options:

Cargo-Bot

Daisy the Dinosaur

For more suggestions, here’s a list of coding websites. Scroll to the section for first grade.

Second Grade — Animation

Use a free program like Pivot Stick Figure Animator or Stickman to program a stick figure:

Pivot Stick Figure is a download. Students program a stick figure to do pretty much anything they want by adjusting the “joints” in his body

Draw a Stickman is a web-based tool or app that turns a simple drawing into a story by asking questions of the creator. Students draw an image; the site animates it and then asks questions as the figure moves, requiring students to add detail to the Stickman’s adventure. They can pick from several story themes in creating their finished story.

If you use iPads, try Stick Nodes or Stickman.

For more suggestions, here’s a list of coding websites. Scroll to the section for second grade.

Third Grade — Pixel Art

Pixel Art is the blocky drawing that is most famous for appearing in Minecraft and Tetris. For this project, students will use a spreadsheet program.

Open the spreadsheet program you use in your school (Google Sheets, Excel, or another). Show students how to turn the cells into squares rather than rectangles by doing the following (or watch this video):

Select all cells by grabbing the box that sits at the intersection of the rows and columns

Drag a column header’s edge to resize the column width to match the row height.

Students now write directions for which color is poured into what squares to create their drawing. For example:

Blue:                 A1, B1, C1, D1, G1, H1, I1, J1, A2, B2, I2, J2, A3, J3, A5, A6, A7, A8, A9, A10,

When done, students have a neighbor test the directions to see if they can create the intended drawing.

For more suggestions, here’s a list of coding websites. Scroll to the section for third grade.

Fourth Grade — Shortkeys

By fourth grade, students appreciate technology for how it can speed up their classwork and will seek ways to use it for that purpose. Creating a shortkey is a quick and easy way to complete repetitive activities and will become a favorite with students. If necessary, adapt the following Windows/iPad directions to the device used in your school:

Go to Start

Right click on the desired program (either a program or a tool is fine)

Select “properties”

Click in “shortcut”

Push key combination you want to use, say, Ctrl+Alt+S

Save

On iPads, these are called “hotkeys”:

Go to Settings > General Settings > Keyboard Settings.

Scroll down and click “add new shortcut.”

Popular shortkeys are to open programs, activate tools, and take screenshots using the digital device’s native tool.

For more suggestions, here’s a list of coding websites. Scroll to the section for fourth grade.

Fifth Grade — Macros

Creating macros gives students an easy way to add a standards-based heading or any other repetitive task required for schoolwork without having to retype it each time. Adapt these MS Word directions to your digital device:

Click View – Macros– Record Macros.

Specify a name for the macro.

Choose whether it should be a keyboard shortcut or a button.

Once you click OK, notice your mouse looks like a cassette tape, indicating that anything you click will be part of the macro. Click all elements you would like to be part of your macro.

Stop recording by clicking View – Stop Recording.

Click for a video on how to create macros.

For more suggestions, here’s a list of coding websites. Scroll to the section for fifth grade.

Sixth Grade — Build an App

If necessary, explain to students what an “app” is and why they want to build one. For this project, follow the videos and directions included in MIT’s App Inventor and create one (or all) beginning level apps such as:

TalkToMe Text-to-speech app

Extended TalkToMe—shake the phone!

BallBounce Game app

Digital Doodle drawing app

Here are three alternative popular app-creation sites:

Game Salad 

Apps Geyser 

TinyTap App

Don’t expect students to complete this project during the Hour of Code. Expect only that they get started.

For more suggestions, here’s a list of coding websites. Scroll to the section for Middle School.

Seventh Grade — Code a Widget 

Widgets are free, personalized mini-apps that do almost anything the user can program, from calculating the calories in a recipe to solving complex problems. Students can browse Wolfram/Alpha’s gallery for a widget that fits their need and embed the code into their personal website, or build their own widget from scratch using Wolfram Alpha’s Builder tool. The level of difficulty will determine how long it takes.

Click to view slideshow.

For more suggestions, here’s a list of coding websites. Scroll to the section for Middle School.

Eighth Grade  — Alice

Alice is a free downloadable programming tool for 8th grade and above that shows students how to create interactive stories, animations, and games. Besides Math Standards, Alice supports these Common Core writing skills:

8.3a Engage and orient the Alice world viewer by establishing a context and point of view and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally and logically.

8.3b Use narrative techniques in the Alice World, such as dialogue, pacing, description, and reflection, to develop experiences, events, and/or characters.

8.3c In Alice world dialogue and action, use a variety of transitions to convey sequence, signal shifts from one time frame or setting to another, and show relationships among experiences and events.

8.3d Use precision and appropriate tools throughout to convey events.

8.3e Provide a conclusion to the Alice world story that follows events.

Divide the class into groups. Have each group pick one of the following resources, preview it, and be prepared to share their thoughts and take questions from classmates:

basic Alice programming instructions 

overview of Alice by Middle School students

Duke University’s Alice “Getting Started” videos are here 

Next, groups open Alice and go through the tutorial by clicking “Start Tutorial” in the Welcome to Alice dialogue box. When done, create an animated avatar as follows:

Choose “room” template, then “Setup Scene.”

Choose “class Biped,” “class Person,” then child, female, light and avatar that is shown.

Push OK until avatar appears in the room.

Using circle at avatar’s feet, turn him/her until s/he faces right, and then press “edit code.”

In tab that says “this child/person,” click on heavy black arrow facing down. Then click arrow facing right to reach individual body parts. Choose a body part and give it direction. Run program to see results. Debug program if it doesn’t work.

If students get stuck, they can go through Alice online documentation, Help files, or ask for assistance from classmates. Remind them not to give up. Keep making changes. It will work.

If you have time: In groups, students watch movie trailer of Despicable Me (or similar).  Analyze how avatars move their limbs, mouths, and how they walk. Compare this to humans. For example, which leg moves first? How do joints move? How do arms and legs move in relation to each other? Does body bob up-down or side-to-side as avatar moves? List the movements and then construct a walking avatar in Alice world.

Click to view slideshow.

High School

Here’s a list of great activities geared for the high school student.

***

What are you doing for Hour of Code? Share your projects in the comments.

More on Hour of Code:

Lesson plan bundle for Hour of Code

10 Unusual Projects to Energize Hour of CodeHour of Code: Scratch Jr.

Hour of Code 101

Augmented Reality with Metaverse

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-8 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice reviewer, CAEP reviewer, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today and TeachHUB, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

Hour of Code Lesson Plans by Grade published first on https://medium.com/@DigitalDLCourse

[endevia]

Websites for Hour of Code by Grade

This December will again host the Hour of Code, a one-hour introduction to programming designed to demystify the subject and show that anyone can be a maker, a creator, and an innovator. Last year, almost 300,000 students (age 4-104) participated from over 180 countries and wrote almost 20 billion lines of code. The 200,000+ teachers involved came away believing that, of all their education tools, coding was the best at teaching children to think. It’s easy to see why when you look at fundamental programming concepts:

abstraction and symbolism – variables are common in math, but also in education. Tools, toolbars, icons, images all represent something bigger

creativity – think outside the box

if-then thinking – actions have consequences

debugging – write-edit-rewrite; try, fail, try again. When you make a mistake, don’t give up or call an expert. Look at what happened and fix where it went wrong.

logic – go through a problem from A to Z

sequencing – know what happens when

If you’re planning to participate in Hour of Code, here are a series of activities — broken down by grade — that will kickstart your effort. They can be done individually or in small groups.

Essential Question

How do I program a series of activities — and why?

Big Idea

I can break activities down into their most basic steps

Teacher Preparation

About 75 minutes — fifteen minutes prep and sixty for the coding activity that is part of Hour of Code.

Introduce each of these activities by watching “I Like Programming“, a video that discusses why the great programmers of our time fell in love with this activity.

**Grade-levels below are guidelines. Feel free to use whichever project fits your students.

Kindergarten — Human Robot

Start young programmers by teaching sequencing. Show images of stages in, say, their morning preparations. Ask them to organize the list in the order completed as they get ready for school. Call it “sequencing” and expect them to use this domain-specific word.

Next, pick an activity from the sequence — say, walking into the classroom and sitting down. Use yourself as a model of how to perform that activity and ask students for specific directions on how you would complete this task. For example:

Move right foot, then left, 4 times.

Turn right; walk 4 steps.

Turn around (left and left again).

Drop backpack to floor (or place under chair).

Sit

Only do what they tell you. For example, if they say “walk to the chair”, look confused. They haven’t provided enough direction. They must “debug” the “script” and try again.

First Grade — Follow one of the free online Hour of Code activities

Using activities offered on websites like Code.org, Kodable, or Tynker is the easiest way to get involved as the site does the planning for you. Before starting, review the digital citizenship associated with visiting an online site (such as privacy, staying on the assigned website, and not talking to strangers).

Instead of following a pre-planned activity, try one of these sites that introduce age-appropriate programming:

Minecraft (especially if you have the education edition)

Scratch Jr.

Tinkercad

If you use iPads, here are some great options:

Cargo-Bot

Daisy the Dinosaur

For more suggestions, here’s a list of coding websites. Scroll to the section for first grade.

Second Grade — Animation

Use a free program like Pivot Stick Figure Animator or Stickman to program a stick figure. Both are simple to use, but offer different options. Preview them first to pick the one best suited to your student group.

Pivot Stick Figure is a download. Students program a stick figure to do pretty much anything they want by adjusting the “joints” in his body

Draw a Stickman is a web-based tool or app that turns a simple drawing into a story by asking questions of the creator. Students draw an image; the site animates it and then asks questions as the figure moves, requiring students to add detail to the Stickman’s adventure. They can pick from several story themes in creating their finished story.

If you use iPads, try Stick Nodes, Stickman, or Scribble Movie.

Third Grade — Pixel Art

Pixel Art is the blocky drawing that is most famous for appearing in Minecraft. For this project, students will use a spreadsheet program.

Open the spreadsheet program you use in your school (Google Sheets, Excel, or another). Show students how to turn the cells into squares rather than rectangles by doing the following (or watch this video):

Select all cells by grabbing the box that sits at the intersection of the rows and columns

Drag a column header’s edge to resize the column width to match the row height.

Students now write directions for which color is poured into what squares to create their drawing. For example:

Blue:                 A1, B1, C1, D1, G1, H1, I1, J1, A2, B2, I2, J2, A3, J3, A5, A6, A7, A8, A9, A10,

When done, students have a neighbor test the directions to see if they can create the intended drawing.

Fourth Grade — Shortkeys

By fourth grade, students appreciate technology for how it can speed up their classwork and will seek out ways to use it for that purpose. Creating a shortkey is a quick and easy way to complete repetitive activities and will become a favorite with students. If necessary, adapt the following Windows/iPad directions to the device used in your school:

Go to Start

Right click on the desired program (either a program or a tool is fine)

Select “properties”

Click in “shortcut”

Push key combination you want to use, say, Ctrl+Alt+S

Save

On iPads, these are called “hotkeys”:

Go to Settings > General Settings > Keyboard Settings.

Scroll down and click “add new shortcut.”

Popular shortkeys are to open programs, activate tools, and take screenshots using the digital device’s native tool.

Fifth Grade — Macros

Creating macros gives students an easy way to add a standards-based heading or any other repetitive task required for their schoolwork without having to retype it each time. Adapt these MS Word directions to your digital device:

Click View – Macros– Record Macros.

Specify a name for the macro.

Choose whether it should be a keyboard shortcut or a button.

Once you click OK, notice your mouse looks like a cassette tape, indicating that anything you click will be part of the macro. Click all elements you would like to be part of your macro.

Stop recording by clicking View – Stop Recording.

Click for a video on how to create macros.

Sixth Grade — Build an App

If necessary, explain to students what an “app” is and why they want to build one. For this project, follow the videos and directions included in MIT’s App Inventor and create one (or all) beginning level apps such as:

TalkToMe Text-to-speech app

Extended TalkToMe—shake the phone!

BallBounce Game app

Digital Doodle drawing app

Here are three alternative popular app-creation sites:

Game Salad 

Apps Geyser 

TinyTap App

Don’t expect students to complete this project during the Hour of Code. Expect only that they get started.

Seventh Grade — Code a Widget 

Widgets are free, personalized mini-apps that do almost anything the user can program, from calculating the calories in a recipe to solving complex problems. Students can browse Wolfram/Alpha’s gallery for a widget that fits their need and embed the code into their personal website, or build their own widget from scratch using Wolfram Alpha’s Builder tool. The level of difficulty will determine how long it takes.

Click to view slideshow.

Eighth Grade  — Alice

Alice is a free downloadable programming tool for 8th grade and above that shows students how to create interactive stories, animations, and games. Besides Math Standards, Alice supports these Common Core writing skills:

8.3a Engage and orient the Alice world viewer by establishing a context and point of view and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally and logically.

8.3b Use narrative techniques in the Alice World, such as dialogue, pacing, description, and reflection, to develop experiences, events, and/or characters.

8.3c In Alice world dialogue and action, use a variety of transitions to convey sequence, signal shifts from one time frame or setting to another, and show relationships among experiences and events.

8.3d Use precision and appropriate tools throughout to convey events.

8.3e Provide a conclusion to the Alice world story that follows events.

Divide the class into groups. Have each group pick one of the following resources, preview it, and be prepared to share their thoughts and take questions from classmates:

basic Alice programming instructions 

overview of Alice by Middle School students

Duke University’s Alice “Getting Started” videos are here 

Next, groups open Alice and go through the tutorial by clicking “Start Tutorial” in the Welcome to Alice dialogue box. When done, create an animated avatar as follows:

Choose “room” template, then “Setup Scene.”

Choose “class Biped,” “class Person,” then child, female, light and avatar that is shown.

Push OK until avatar appears in the room.

Using circle at avatar’s feet, turn him/her until s/he faces right, and then press “edit code.”

In tab that says “this child/person,” click on heavy black arrow facing down. Then click arrow facing right to reach individual body parts. Choose a body part and give it direction. Run program to see results. Debug program if it doesn’t work.

If students get stuck, they can go through Alice online documentation, Help files, or ask for assistance from classmates. Remind them not to give up. Keep making changes. It will work.

If you have time: In groups, students watch movie trailer of Despicable Me (or similar).  Analyze how avatars move their limbs, mouths, and how they walk. Compare this to humans. For example, which leg moves first? How do joints move? How do arms and legs move in relation to each other? Does body bob up-down or side-to-side as avatar moves? List the movements and then construct a walking avatar in Alice world.

Click to view slideshow.

***

What are you doing for Hour of Code? Share your projects in the comments.

–published first on TeachHUB

More on Hour of Code:

Lesson plan bundle for Hour of Code

Hour of Code: Scratch Jr.

Hour of Code–Why Not

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-8 technology for 15 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-8 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, CSG Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, CAEP reviewer, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, and a weekly contributor to TeachHUB. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

Websites for Hour of Code by Grade published first on http://ift.tt/2x0Vr0e

[corpasa]

Websites for Hour of Code by Grade

This December will again host the Hour of Code, a one-hour introduction to programming designed to demystify the subject and show that anyone can be a maker, a creator, and an innovator. Last year, almost 300,000 students (age 4-104) participated from over 180 countries and wrote almost 20 billion lines of code. The 200,000+ teachers involved came away believing that, of all their education tools, coding was the best at teaching children to think. It’s easy to see why when you look at fundamental programming concepts:

abstraction and symbolism – variables are common in math, but also in education. Tools, toolbars, icons, images all represent something bigger

creativity – think outside the box

if-then thinking – actions have consequences

debugging – write-edit-rewrite; try, fail, try again. When you make a mistake, don’t give up or call an expert. Look at what happened and fix where it went wrong.

logic – go through a problem from A to Z

sequencing – know what happens when

If you’re planning to participate in Hour of Code, here are a series of activities — broken down by grade — that will kickstart your effort. They can be done individually or in small groups.

Essential Question

How do I program a series of activities — and why?

Big Idea

I can break activities down into their most basic steps

Teacher Preparation

About 75 minutes — fifteen minutes prep and sixty for the coding activity that is part of Hour of Code.

Introduce each of these activities by watching “I Like Programming“, a video that discusses why the great programmers of our time fell in love with this activity.

**Grade-levels below are guidelines. Feel free to use whichever project fits your students.

Kindergarten — Human Robot

Start young programmers by teaching sequencing. Show images of stages in, say, their morning preparations. Ask them to organize the list in the order completed as they get ready for school. Call it “sequencing” and expect them to use this domain-specific word.

Next, pick an activity from the sequence — say, walking into the classroom and sitting down. Use yourself as a model of how to perform that activity and ask students for specific directions on how you would complete this task. For example:

Move right foot, then left, 4 times.

Turn right; walk 4 steps.

Turn around (left and left again).

Drop backpack to floor (or place under chair).

Sit

Only do what they tell you. For example, if they say “walk to the chair”, look confused. They haven’t provided enough direction. They must “debug” the “script” and try again.

First Grade — Follow one of the free online Hour of Code activities

Using activities offered on websites like Code.org, Kodable, or Tynker is the easiest way to get involved as the site does the planning for you. Before starting, review the digital citizenship associated with visiting an online site (such as privacy, staying on the assigned website, and not talking to strangers).

Instead of following a pre-planned activity, try one of these sites that introduce age-appropriate programming:

Minecraft (especially if you have the education edition)

Scratch Jr.

Tinkercad

If you use iPads, here are some great options:

Cargo-Bot

Daisy the Dinosaur

For more suggestions, here’s a list of coding websites. Scroll to the section for first grade.

Second Grade — Animation

Use a free program like Pivot Stick Figure Animator or Stickman to program a stick figure. Both are simple to use, but offer different options. Preview them first to pick the one best suited to your student group.

Pivot Stick Figure is a download. Students program a stick figure to do pretty much anything they want by adjusting the “joints” in his body

Draw a Stickman is a web-based tool or app that turns a simple drawing into a story by asking questions of the creator. Students draw an image; the site animates it and then asks questions as the figure moves, requiring students to add detail to the Stickman’s adventure. They can pick from several story themes in creating their finished story.

If you use iPads, try Stick Nodes, Stickman, or Scribble Movie.

Third Grade — Pixel Art

Pixel Art is the blocky drawing that is most famous for appearing in Minecraft. For this project, students will use a spreadsheet program.

Open the spreadsheet program you use in your school (Google Sheets, Excel, or another). Show students how to turn the cells into squares rather than rectangles by doing the following (or watch this video):

Select all cells by grabbing the box that sits at the intersection of the rows and columns

Drag a column header’s edge to resize the column width to match the row height.

Students now write directions for which color is poured into what squares to create their drawing. For example:

Blue:                 A1, B1, C1, D1, G1, H1, I1, J1, A2, B2, I2, J2, A3, J3, A5, A6, A7, A8, A9, A10,

When done, students have a neighbor test the directions to see if they can create the intended drawing.

Fourth Grade — Shortkeys

By fourth grade, students appreciate technology for how it can speed up their classwork and will seek out ways to use it for that purpose. Creating a shortkey is a quick and easy way to complete repetitive activities and will become a favorite with students. If necessary, adapt the following Windows/iPad directions to the device used in your school:

Go to Start

Right click on the desired program (either a program or a tool is fine)

Select “properties”

Click in “shortcut”

Push key combination you want to use, say, Ctrl+Alt+S

Save

On iPads, these are called “hotkeys”:

Go to Settings > General Settings > Keyboard Settings.

Scroll down and click “add new shortcut.”

Popular shortkeys are to open programs, activate tools, and take screenshots using the digital device’s native tool.

Fifth Grade — Macros

Creating macros gives students an easy way to add a standards-based heading or any other repetitive task required for their schoolwork without having to retype it each time. Adapt these MS Word directions to your digital device:

Click View – Macros– Record Macros.

Specify a name for the macro.

Choose whether it should be a keyboard shortcut or a button.

Once you click OK, notice your mouse looks like a cassette tape, indicating that anything you click will be part of the macro. Click all elements you would like to be part of your macro.

Stop recording by clicking View – Stop Recording.

Click for a video on how to create macros.

Sixth Grade — Build an App

If necessary, explain to students what an “app” is and why they want to build one. For this project, follow the videos and directions included in MIT’s App Inventor and create one (or all) beginning level apps such as:

TalkToMe Text-to-speech app

Extended TalkToMe—shake the phone!

BallBounce Game app

Digital Doodle drawing app

Here are three alternative popular app-creation sites:

Game Salad 

Apps Geyser 

TinyTap App

Don’t expect students to complete this project during the Hour of Code. Expect only that they get started.

Seventh Grade — Code a Widget 

Widgets are free, personalized mini-apps that do almost anything the user can program, from calculating the calories in a recipe to solving complex problems. Students can browse Wolfram/Alpha’s gallery for a widget that fits their need and embed the code into their personal website, or build their own widget from scratch using Wolfram Alpha’s Builder tool. The level of difficulty will determine how long it takes.

Click to view slideshow.

Eighth Grade  — Alice

Alice is a free downloadable programming tool for 8th grade and above that shows students how to create interactive stories, animations, and games. Besides Math Standards, Alice supports these Common Core writing skills:

8.3a Engage and orient the Alice world viewer by establishing a context and point of view and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally and logically.

8.3b Use narrative techniques in the Alice World, such as dialogue, pacing, description, and reflection, to develop experiences, events, and/or characters.

8.3c In Alice world dialogue and action, use a variety of transitions to convey sequence, signal shifts from one time frame or setting to another, and show relationships among experiences and events.

8.3d Use precision and appropriate tools throughout to convey events.

8.3e Provide a conclusion to the Alice world story that follows events.

Divide the class into groups. Have each group pick one of the following resources, preview it, and be prepared to share their thoughts and take questions from classmates:

basic Alice programming instructions 

overview of Alice by Middle School students

Duke University’s Alice “Getting Started” videos are here 

Next, groups open Alice and go through the tutorial by clicking “Start Tutorial” in the Welcome to Alice dialogue box. When done, create an animated avatar as follows:

Choose “room” template, then “Setup Scene.”

Choose “class Biped,” “class Person,” then child, female, light and avatar that is shown.

Push OK until avatar appears in the room.

Using circle at avatar’s feet, turn him/her until s/he faces right, and then press “edit code.”

In tab that says “this child/person,” click on heavy black arrow facing down. Then click arrow facing right to reach individual body parts. Choose a body part and give it direction. Run program to see results. Debug program if it doesn’t work.

If students get stuck, they can go through Alice online documentation, Help files, or ask for assistance from classmates. Remind them not to give up. Keep making changes. It will work.

If you have time: In groups, students watch movie trailer of Despicable Me (or similar).  Analyze how avatars move their limbs, mouths, and how they walk. Compare this to humans. For example, which leg moves first? How do joints move? How do arms and legs move in relation to each other? Does body bob up-down or side-to-side as avatar moves? List the movements and then construct a walking avatar in Alice world.

Click to view slideshow.

***

What are you doing for Hour of Code? Share your projects in the comments.

–published first on TeachHUB

More on Hour of Code:

Lesson plan bundle for Hour of Code

Hour of Code: Scratch Jr.

Hour of Code–Why Not

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-8 technology for 15 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-8 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, CSG Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, CAEP reviewer, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, and a weekly contributor to TeachHUB. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

Websites for Hour of Code by Grade published first on http://ift.tt/2xZuhEK

[statrano]

Websites for Hour of Code by Grade

This December will again host the Hour of Code, a one-hour introduction to programming designed to demystify the subject and show that anyone can be a maker, a creator, and an innovator. Last year, almost 300,000 students (age 4-104) participated from over 180 countries and wrote almost 20 billion lines of code. The 200,000+ teachers involved came away believing that, of all their education tools, coding was the best at teaching children to think. It’s easy to see why when you look at fundamental programming concepts:

abstraction and symbolism – variables are common in math, but also in education. Tools, toolbars, icons, images all represent something bigger

creativity – think outside the box

if-then thinking – actions have consequences

debugging – write-edit-rewrite; try, fail, try again. When you make a mistake, don’t give up or call an expert. Look at what happened and fix where it went wrong.

logic – go through a problem from A to Z

sequencing – know what happens when

If you’re planning to participate in Hour of Code, here are a series of activities — broken down by grade — that will kickstart your effort. They can be done individually or in small groups.

Essential Question

How do I program a series of activities — and why?

Big Idea

I can break activities down into their most basic steps

Teacher Preparation

About 75 minutes — fifteen minutes prep and sixty for the coding activity that is part of Hour of Code.

Introduce each of these activities by watching “I Like Programming“, a video that discusses why the great programmers of our time fell in love with this activity.

**Grade-levels below are guidelines. Feel free to use whichever project fits your students.

Kindergarten — Human Robot

Start young programmers by teaching sequencing. Show images of stages in, say, their morning preparations. Ask them to organize the list in the order completed as they get ready for school. Call it “sequencing” and expect them to use this domain-specific word.

Next, pick an activity from the sequence — say, walking into the classroom and sitting down. Use yourself as a model of how to perform that activity and ask students for specific directions on how you would complete this task. For example:

Move right foot, then left, 4 times.

Turn right; walk 4 steps.

Turn around (left and left again).

Drop backpack to floor (or place under chair).

Sit

Only do what they tell you. For example, if they say “walk to the chair”, look confused. They haven’t provided enough direction. They must “debug” the “script” and try again.

First Grade — Follow one of the free online Hour of Code activities

Using activities offered on websites like Code.org, Kodable, or Tynker is the easiest way to get involved as the site does the planning for you. Before starting, review the digital citizenship associated with visiting an online site (such as privacy, staying on the assigned website, and not talking to strangers).

Instead of following a pre-planned activity, try one of these sites that introduce age-appropriate programming:

Minecraft (especially if you have the education edition)

Scratch Jr.

Tinkercad

If you use iPads, here are some great options:

Cargo-Bot

Daisy the Dinosaur

For more suggestions, here’s a list of coding websites. Scroll to the section for first grade.

Second Grade — Animation

Use a free program like Pivot Stick Figure Animator or Stickman to program a stick figure. Both are simple to use, but offer different options. Preview them first to pick the one best suited to your student group.

Pivot Stick Figure is a download. Students program a stick figure to do pretty much anything they want by adjusting the “joints” in his body

Draw a Stickman is a web-based tool or app that turns a simple drawing into a story by asking questions of the creator. Students draw an image; the site animates it and then asks questions as the figure moves, requiring students to add detail to the Stickman’s adventure. They can pick from several story themes in creating their finished story.

If you use iPads, try Stick Nodes, Stickman, or Scribble Movie.

Third Grade — Pixel Art

Pixel Art is the blocky drawing that is most famous for appearing in Minecraft. For this project, students will use a spreadsheet program.

Open the spreadsheet program you use in your school (Google Sheets, Excel, or another). Show students how to turn the cells into squares rather than rectangles by doing the following (or watch this video):

Select all cells by grabbing the box that sits at the intersection of the rows and columns

Drag a column header’s edge to resize the column width to match the row height.

Students now write directions for which color is poured into what squares to create their drawing. For example:

Blue:                 A1, B1, C1, D1, G1, H1, I1, J1, A2, B2, I2, J2, A3, J3, A5, A6, A7, A8, A9, A10,

When done, students have a neighbor test the directions to see if they can create the intended drawing.

Fourth Grade — Shortkeys

By fourth grade, students appreciate technology for how it can speed up their classwork and will seek out ways to use it for that purpose. Creating a shortkey is a quick and easy way to complete repetitive activities and will become a favorite with students. If necessary, adapt the following Windows/iPad directions to the device used in your school:

Go to Start

Right click on the desired program (either a program or a tool is fine)

Select “properties”

Click in “shortcut”

Push key combination you want to use, say, Ctrl+Alt+S

Save

On iPads, these are called “hotkeys”:

Go to Settings > General Settings > Keyboard Settings.

Scroll down and click “add new shortcut.”

Popular shortkeys are to open programs, activate tools, and take screenshots using the digital device’s native tool.

Fifth Grade — Macros

Creating macros gives students an easy way to add a standards-based heading or any other repetitive task required for their schoolwork without having to retype it each time. Adapt these MS Word directions to your digital device:

Click View – Macros– Record Macros.

Specify a name for the macro.

Choose whether it should be a keyboard shortcut or a button.

Once you click OK, notice your mouse looks like a cassette tape, indicating that anything you click will be part of the macro. Click all elements you would like to be part of your macro.

Stop recording by clicking View – Stop Recording.

Click for a video on how to create macros.

Sixth Grade — Build an App

If necessary, explain to students what an “app” is and why they want to build one. For this project, follow the videos and directions included in MIT’s App Inventor and create one (or all) beginning level apps such as:

TalkToMe Text-to-speech app

Extended TalkToMe—shake the phone!

BallBounce Game app

Digital Doodle drawing app

Here are three alternative popular app-creation sites:

Game Salad 

Apps Geyser 

TinyTap App

Don’t expect students to complete this project during the Hour of Code. Expect only that they get started.

Seventh Grade — Code a Widget 

Widgets are free, personalized mini-apps that do almost anything the user can program, from calculating the calories in a recipe to solving complex problems. Students can browse Wolfram/Alpha’s gallery for a widget that fits their need and embed the code into their personal website, or build their own widget from scratch using Wolfram Alpha’s Builder tool. The level of difficulty will determine how long it takes.

Click to view slideshow.

Eighth Grade  — Alice

Alice is a free downloadable programming tool for 8th grade and above that shows students how to create interactive stories, animations, and games. Besides Math Standards, Alice supports these Common Core writing skills:

8.3a Engage and orient the Alice world viewer by establishing a context and point of view and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally and logically.

8.3b Use narrative techniques in the Alice World, such as dialogue, pacing, description, and reflection, to develop experiences, events, and/or characters.

8.3c In Alice world dialogue and action, use a variety of transitions to convey sequence, signal shifts from one time frame or setting to another, and show relationships among experiences and events.

8.3d Use precision and appropriate tools throughout to convey events.

8.3e Provide a conclusion to the Alice world story that follows events.

Divide the class into groups. Have each group pick one of the following resources, preview it, and be prepared to share their thoughts and take questions from classmates:

basic Alice programming instructions 

overview of Alice by Middle School students

Duke University’s Alice “Getting Started” videos are here 

Next, groups open Alice and go through the tutorial by clicking “Start Tutorial” in the Welcome to Alice dialogue box. When done, create an animated avatar as follows:

Choose “room” template, then “Setup Scene.”

Choose “class Biped,” “class Person,” then child, female, light and avatar that is shown.

Push OK until avatar appears in the room.

Using circle at avatar’s feet, turn him/her until s/he faces right, and then press “edit code.”

In tab that says “this child/person,” click on heavy black arrow facing down. Then click arrow facing right to reach individual body parts. Choose a body part and give it direction. Run program to see results. Debug program if it doesn’t work.

If students get stuck, they can go through Alice online documentation, Help files, or ask for assistance from classmates. Remind them not to give up. Keep making changes. It will work.

If you have time: In groups, students watch movie trailer of Despicable Me (or similar).  Analyze how avatars move their limbs, mouths, and how they walk. Compare this to humans. For example, which leg moves first? How do joints move? How do arms and legs move in relation to each other? Does body bob up-down or side-to-side as avatar moves? List the movements and then construct a walking avatar in Alice world.

Click to view slideshow.

***

What are you doing for Hour of Code? Share your projects in the comments.

–published first on TeachHUB

More on Hour of Code:

Lesson plan bundle for Hour of Code

Hour of Code: Scratch Jr.

Hour of Code–Why Not

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-8 technology for 15 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-8 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, CSG Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, CAEP reviewer, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, and a weekly contributor to TeachHUB. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

Websites for Hour of Code by Grade published first on http://ift.tt/2iEL915

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Websites for Hour of Code by Grade

This December will again host the Hour of Code, a one-hour introduction to programming designed to demystify the subject and show that anyone can be a maker, a creator, and an innovator. Last year, almost 300,000 students (age 4-104) participated from over 180 countries and wrote almost 20 billion lines of code. The 200,000+ teachers involved came away believing that, of all their education tools, coding was the best at teaching children to think. It’s easy to see why when you look at fundamental programming concepts:

abstraction and symbolism – variables are common in math, but also in education. Tools, toolbars, icons, images all represent something bigger

creativity – think outside the box

if-then thinking – actions have consequences

debugging – write-edit-rewrite; try, fail, try again. When you make a mistake, don’t give up or call an expert. Look at what happened and fix where it went wrong.

logic – go through a problem from A to Z

sequencing – know what happens when

If you’re planning to participate in Hour of Code, here are a series of activities — broken down by grade — that will kickstart your effort. They can be done individually or in small groups.

Essential Question

How do I program a series of activities — and why?

Big Idea

I can break activities down into their most basic steps

Teacher Preparation

About 75 minutes — fifteen minutes prep and sixty for the coding activity that is part of Hour of Code.

Introduce each of these activities by watching “I Like Programming“, a video that discusses why the great programmers of our time fell in love with this activity.

**Grade-levels below are guidelines. Feel free to use whichever project fits your students.

Kindergarten — Human Robot

Start young programmers by teaching sequencing. Show images of stages in, say, their morning preparations. Ask them to organize the list in the order completed as they get ready for school. Call it “sequencing” and expect them to use this domain-specific word.

Next, pick an activity from the sequence — say, walking into the classroom and sitting down. Use yourself as a model of how to perform that activity and ask students for specific directions on how you would complete this task. For example:

Move right foot, then left, 4 times.

Turn right; walk 4 steps.

Turn around (left and left again).

Drop backpack to floor (or place under chair).

Sit

Only do what they tell you. For example, if they say “walk to the chair”, look confused. They haven’t provided enough direction. They must “debug” the “script” and try again.

First Grade — Follow one of the free online Hour of Code activities

Using activities offered on websites like Code.org, Kodable, or Tynker is the easiest way to get involved as the site does the planning for you. Before starting, review the digital citizenship associated with visiting an online site (such as privacy, staying on the assigned website, and not talking to strangers).

Instead of following a pre-planned activity, try one of these sites that introduce age-appropriate programming:

Minecraft (especially if you have the education edition)

Scratch Jr.

Tinkercad

If you use iPads, here are some great options:

Cargo-Bot

Daisy the Dinosaur

For more suggestions, here’s a list of coding websites. Scroll to the section for first grade.

Second Grade — Animation

Use a free program like Pivot Stick Figure Animator or Stickman to program a stick figure. Both are simple to use, but offer different options. Preview them first to pick the one best suited to your student group.

Pivot Stick Figure is a download. Students program a stick figure to do pretty much anything they want by adjusting the “joints” in his body

Draw a Stickman is a web-based tool or app that turns a simple drawing into a story by asking questions of the creator. Students draw an image; the site animates it and then asks questions as the figure moves, requiring students to add detail to the Stickman’s adventure. They can pick from several story themes in creating their finished story.

If you use iPads, try Stick Nodes, Stickman, or Scribble Movie.

Third Grade — Pixel Art

Pixel Art is the blocky drawing that is most famous for appearing in Minecraft. For this project, students will use a spreadsheet program.

Open the spreadsheet program you use in your school (Google Sheets, Excel, or another). Show students how to turn the cells into squares rather than rectangles by doing the following (or watch this video):

Select all cells by grabbing the box that sits at the intersection of the rows and columns

Drag a column header’s edge to resize the column width to match the row height.

Students now write directions for which color is poured into what squares to create their drawing. For example:

Blue:                 A1, B1, C1, D1, G1, H1, I1, J1, A2, B2, I2, J2, A3, J3, A5, A6, A7, A8, A9, A10,

When done, students have a neighbor test the directions to see if they can create the intended drawing.

Fourth Grade — Shortkeys

By fourth grade, students appreciate technology for how it can speed up their classwork and will seek out ways to use it for that purpose. Creating a shortkey is a quick and easy way to complete repetitive activities and will become a favorite with students. If necessary, adapt the following Windows/iPad directions to the device used in your school:

Go to Start

Right click on the desired program (either a program or a tool is fine)

Select “properties”

Click in “shortcut”

Push key combination you want to use, say, Ctrl+Alt+S

Save

On iPads, these are called “hotkeys”:

Go to Settings > General Settings > Keyboard Settings.

Scroll down and click “add new shortcut.”

Popular shortkeys are to open programs, activate tools, and take screenshots using the digital device’s native tool.

Fifth Grade — Macros

Creating macros gives students an easy way to add a standards-based heading or any other repetitive task required for their schoolwork without having to retype it each time. Adapt these MS Word directions to your digital device:

Click View – Macros– Record Macros.

Specify a name for the macro.

Choose whether it should be a keyboard shortcut or a button.

Once you click OK, notice your mouse looks like a cassette tape, indicating that anything you click will be part of the macro. Click all elements you would like to be part of your macro.

Stop recording by clicking View – Stop Recording.

Click for a video on how to create macros.

Sixth Grade — Build an App

If necessary, explain to students what an “app” is and why they want to build one. For this project, follow the videos and directions included in MIT’s App Inventor and create one (or all) beginning level apps such as:

TalkToMe Text-to-speech app

Extended TalkToMe—shake the phone!

BallBounce Game app

Digital Doodle drawing app

Here are three alternative popular app-creation sites:

Game Salad 

Apps Geyser 

TinyTap App

Don’t expect students to complete this project during the Hour of Code. Expect only that they get started.

Seventh Grade — Code a Widget 

Widgets are free, personalized mini-apps that do almost anything the user can program, from calculating the calories in a recipe to solving complex problems. Students can browse Wolfram/Alpha’s gallery for a widget that fits their need and embed the code into their personal website, or build their own widget from scratch using Wolfram Alpha’s Builder tool. The level of difficulty will determine how long it takes.

Click to view slideshow.

Eighth Grade  — Alice

Alice is a free downloadable programming tool for 8th grade and above that shows students how to create interactive stories, animations, and games. Besides Math Standards, Alice supports these Common Core writing skills:

8.3a Engage and orient the Alice world viewer by establishing a context and point of view and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally and logically.

8.3b Use narrative techniques in the Alice World, such as dialogue, pacing, description, and reflection, to develop experiences, events, and/or characters.

8.3c In Alice world dialogue and action, use a variety of transitions to convey sequence, signal shifts from one time frame or setting to another, and show relationships among experiences and events.

8.3d Use precision and appropriate tools throughout to convey events.

8.3e Provide a conclusion to the Alice world story that follows events.

Divide the class into groups. Have each group pick one of the following resources, preview it, and be prepared to share their thoughts and take questions from classmates:

basic Alice programming instructions 

overview of Alice by Middle School students

Duke University’s Alice “Getting Started” videos are here 

Next, groups open Alice and go through the tutorial by clicking “Start Tutorial” in the Welcome to Alice dialogue box. When done, create an animated avatar as follows:

Choose “room” template, then “Setup Scene.”

Choose “class Biped,” “class Person,” then child, female, light and avatar that is shown.

Push OK until avatar appears in the room.

Using circle at avatar’s feet, turn him/her until s/he faces right, and then press “edit code.”

In tab that says “this child/person,” click on heavy black arrow facing down. Then click arrow facing right to reach individual body parts. Choose a body part and give it direction. Run program to see results. Debug program if it doesn’t work.

If students get stuck, they can go through Alice online documentation, Help files, or ask for assistance from classmates. Remind them not to give up. Keep making changes. It will work.

If you have time: In groups, students watch movie trailer of Despicable Me (or similar).  Analyze how avatars move their limbs, mouths, and how they walk. Compare this to humans. For example, which leg moves first? How do joints move? How do arms and legs move in relation to each other? Does body bob up-down or side-to-side as avatar moves? List the movements and then construct a walking avatar in Alice world.

Click to view slideshow.

***

What are you doing for Hour of Code? Share your projects in the comments.

–published first on TeachHUB

More on Hour of Code:

Lesson plan bundle for Hour of Code

Hour of Code: Scratch Jr.

Hour of Code–Why Not

Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-8 technology for 15 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-8 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, CSG Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, CAEP reviewer, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, and a weekly contributor to TeachHUB. You can find her resources at Structured Learning.

Websites for Hour of Code by Grade published first on http://ift.tt/2gZRS4X