1. Coding your way through school! Dr. Martine Ceberio Associate Professor of Computer Science The University of Texas at El Paso mceberio@utep.edu

2. 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… … all under 50 minutes…

3. Coding?   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

4. Coding… … in the classroom???  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 … we’ll get to that point

5. Why code?  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-program http://www.codeconquest.com/what-is-coding/benefits/

6. Why code? In numbers!

7.  Everybody in this country should learn how to program a computer… because it teaches you how to think —Steve Jobs

8. Computational thinking?  = 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

9. Coding and Computational Thinking? 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

10. In your classroom  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

11. Also: http://scratch.mit.edu/starter_projects/ http://www.alice.org/HourOfCode/introduction.html http://studio.code.org

12. How can you do it?  How easily?  Using which tool?  How steep is the learning curve?  Is this expensive?  Does this involve math?

13. (Almost) Endless resources  Tools:  Alice: http://www.alice.org/index.php http://www.alice.org/index.php  Snap: http://snap.berkeley.edu http://snap.berkeley.edu  Scratch: http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/editor/?tip_bar=ge tStarted http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/editor/?tip_bar=ge tStarted http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/editor/?tip_bar=ge tStarted  Light-bot: http://lightbot.com http://lightbot.com  Processing: http://hello.processing.org http://hello.processing.org  Code Studio: http://studio.code.org http://studio.code.org  Many more at http://code.org/learn http://code.org/learn  Others?

14. Endless resources  Curricula:  Code.org: http://code.org/educate http://code.org/educate  Exploring CS: http://code.org/files/ECSonepager.pdf http://code.org/files/ECSonepager.pdf  CS principles: http://code.org/files/CSPcurriculumflyer.pdf http://code.org/files/CSPcurriculumflyer.pdf  CSTA.acm.org  Engage CS: http://www.engage- csedu.org http://www.engage- csedu.org http://www.engage- csedu.org

15. Opportunities  Code.org  Professional development  District partnerships  Inspire students  The Hour of Code  NCWIT.org  Aspirations in Computing  Data, best practices, etc.

16. Ideas  Let us look at what can be done…  … and then brainstorm about what we can do

17. Summary  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

18. And to conclude…  Since I hear there is a Super-Hero theme at this conference!...

19. My superhero! Coding is like having super powers!

20. Thank you for your attention!!!  Please feel free to contact me at: mceberio@utep.edu