It’s Summer of Code at our house…
Phase 1 (Group)
Everyone works through Course 2, Course 3, and Course 4 at Code.org to ensure that we have basic conceptual understanding of key terms and ideas. I have a teacher account and can print certificates of completion!
Phase 2 (Individualized)
My youngest (5th grade) is diving back into Scratch, taking on more complex tasks and trying to create more challenging games (including, apparently, making Wack-A-Demon!). He likes to make his own board games so we may also try to figure out how to integrate our Makey Makey into his next one. If that works, maybe I’ll borrow my agency’s Hummingbird Robotics kit and see if we can go even further.
My two high school kids are learning Python. Here are some resources that we’re using:
- http://codecombat.com
- https://www.python.org/about/gettingstarted
- http://www.codecademy.com/en/tracks/python
- https://teamtreehouse.com/tracks/learn-python
- http://www.learnpython.org
- https://pythonroom.com
- http://www.quora.com/How-do-I-learn-Python-3
We also found some additional Python suggestions from Carl Cheo:
- Start with a code editor like Sublime Text, then maybe move on to IDE like PyCharm or PyDev for more complex projects.
- Free courses
I am teaching MIT’s App Inventor 2 to 7th grade girls at STEM camp this week at Simpson College. It’s a great program and gives you a “Course in a Box” for all of your resources.
Can you give me feedback comparing hour of code, scratch and bits box.org?
Hour of Code is sponsored by Code.org. Instead of just doing ‘1 hour,’ my kids are working through three of Code.org’s four courses (linked above in the post). The fourth course, Course 1, is for kids younger than mine…
Scratch is from MIT and is another block-coding resource. More open-ended than Code.org.
I hadn’t seen Bitsbox.com until you referenced it. I’ll check it out!
Hope this helps!
Scott– how come we need to wait til summer to do this type of learning? Schools continue to hold off the “good stuff” until summer or as afterschool “enrichment,”
This will exasperate the equity issue
Agreed. If our local schools were doing this, then we wouldn’t have as great a need or desire to do this at home, right? So now my kids get a little further ahead than many others…
There are a few rays of hope here and there (see, e.g., http://bit.ly/1GmHFzG)…