I get far too excited about the craziest things, and when it comes to technology instruction this is no exception. The world of education has exploded with all kinds of websites and apps that describe themselves as "A Coding Game". Don't get me wrong, my students love Code.org and Tynker.com just as much as anyone, but these are not programming websites. Students who play these games do NOT learn to code. I might be the only teacher on the planet who hears about Hour of Code and responds with, "Meh." All of this has nothing to do with these websites, and everything to do with my students. I do not want to waste my students' time playing games; I want them to learn to code. I suppose to an outsider this might seem like a finer point, but I contend it is this finer point that separates the real from the pretend. While my students might immensely enjoy playing a Star Wars game where they use blocks of prewritten code to move a robot from point A to point B, it won't help them code and app or build a website - not for real, and I am all about the real. I have taught my student the very basic beginning of JavaScript, HTML/CSS and a little bit of SQL. These are real programming languages and just the beginning of what I want to teach them. Some of my students have pursued Ruby on their own, and I will be introducing them to Swift next year. WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE? Allowing kids to play games that utilize code without teaching them to code, leads them to believe that know how to program the computer. As they move on in school, they might choose to sign up for computer programming classes thinking that they are well prepared. Having students sign up for more computer programming classes in both high school and college might seems like a positive thing, but if we have not prepared them to succeed in these classes, we are introducing them to a frustrating experience that may, in fact, cause them to turn away from the very thing we hoped to encourage. Think of it this way, we don't have elementary students play the board game Operation, and then tell them they are surgeons. The game might peak their interests and push them toward studying human anatomy, but it doesn't make them proficient at anything - except keeping their hand steady enough to move a piece of plastic. SAVING THE FUTURE ONE LINE OF CODE AT A TIME My goal is to not only teach my students as much code as possible. I also want to make it possible for teachers to see not only the importance of teaching students to code, but the ease with which it can be done. I hope to set up a website as my part of my capstone piece that not only shows the researched reasons to promote learning true code, but links to ways to easily teach code. It will also have links for students and even parents to build up their own skills. In the future, I am hoping that our school will develop a business in which local businesses can have students create state of the art websites. This will give students real-world experience and provide them with funds to use for the future education, and will create strong ties to our community.
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It was last year that I discovered the wonders of Google Forms. I had used it off and on from time to time, but after attending ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) and was able to squeeze into the room dubbed the "Google Classroom", I learned about all the updates Google had made to their forms feature. They introduced Google Forms - Quizzes, and t was amazing. It was one of the things that really pushed me toward a paperless classroom. Google Forms is a MUCH more efficient way to assess your students, and to provide them with meaningful feed back quickly. I loved how quickly I could type a response to my students with detailed information on how they could make their responses even stronger. I loved that I could return their results within seconds, or if needed hold those results until every section of my class has completed a quiz or a test. I use Google Forms regularly in my class. In my reading class, my students take their weekly (curriculum) required vocabulary tests. I can embed pictures that help them remember the word meanings, and even include video clips of someone signing in ASL which is one way that I teach them meaning. It is so powerful to be able to support them with context clues, so that my students could be successful. I also use Google Quizzes for our weekly comprehension assessments. Here are some of my favorite features:
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AuthorJen has been teaching school for awhile now. She's learned some stuff, but she's got tons more to learn. Archives
October 2017
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