'You can Code your own way'

'You can Code your own way' - what Fleetwood Mac may have written if they started out today (try unhearing the word 'code' now when you hear that track...). How we let staff have a go at coding/robotics, do it their own way, and the success of that.

Our final e-learning PLD session this year we used as a taster, to setup thinking for next year. Some of us have been exploring the use of coding in our Options program, and I have recently started using Edison Bots within maths. While we have talked about these things at staff meetings, we have had little uptake...so this session was designed to let people explore.

As a lead-in we set some 'pre-readings' to get people thinking. We included some Maker Movement stuff from Core Ed, to set the scene in terms of children 'creating', 'building', and 'playing' as a part of their learning. Also, dropped in an Hour of Code promo clip...

Those videos were good, but what this Herald article was a definite winner...1) because it showed NZ kids and teachers using coding and robotics as a part of learning, and 2) because it was 'old' if that was 2 years ago, then we needed to get cracking.

The session started with a massive win...we asked the staff to discuss what learning could come from these technologies, and we heard back from then about developing:
- creativity
- problem solving
- communication
- agency
- collaboration
All things that we have been unpacking and working on as a school, coding etc was seen as a vehicle to teach and develop those attributes.

For the 'playing' part of the session we took the learning approach of...describe the instructions for use with minimal detail, and give them the seed of an activity/idea to follow. We hoped that this would promote discussions between the people working together (trying to figure out how to use the tech), and would lead to creative application...as we didn't prescribe the end result.

In the leadup we were nervous about how staff were going to approach the session, but it was fantastic. people really got into it, and the discussions were great. The outcomes of some of the stations were far more creative than what we had suggested...reinforcing to me that having a prescribed outcome is ot always best.

The slides are embedded below, and include links to useful websites with further ideas.


We ended up showing this clip about iLuminate, the dance crew. I wanted to end by showing that coding really has nothing to do with computers, it is just another tool to develop creativity. The video is amazing, and the amount of probem-solving and collaboration that must go into her works, wow. The video served its purpose, and broke down the barrier for some people...they could see then that coding had application in the arts, in farming, in whatever field of choice...it is just another tool to arm children with.

It's not about the Coding, it's about the Thinking

At Mind Lab last week a Steve Jobs quote was shared "Everyone should learn to program a computer, because it it teaches you to think". A few people disagreed with the quote, pointing out that thinking and learning were much broader than 'coding'.

At this point Rochelle introduced the term 'computational thinking'. At first glance I took it to mean coding, and related it back to Jobs' quote...but after a short discussion it turns out that computational thinking IS what we want from our students, and the skills it brings with it are at the core of 21st C learning.

Computational thinking is a way of solving problems, designing systems, and understanding human behavior that draws on concepts fundamental to computer science. To flourish in today's world, computational thinking has to be a fundamental part of the way people think and understand the world.

Being able to problem solve, communicate, translate ideas into action, innovate and create...these skillsets are important to develop, and are a core part of computational thinking. It is much, much more than just being able to code a machine.

Google has an online course for Computational Thinking, and it describes 4 elements:
- Decomposition: Breaking down data, processes, or problems into smaller, manageable parts
- Pattern Recognition: Observing patterns, trends, and regularities in data
- Abstraction: Identifying the general principles that generate these patterns
- Algorithm Design: Developing the step by step instructions for solving this and similar problems

Again at first glance they seem to be computer related, but I love the ideas they also post to break this misunderstanding...they are mainly secondary-based, but illustrate well the CT concept inside a traditional application of learning

I think having this in mind when planning some work...how can I take these 4 elements of computational thinking, and allow students to apply to their learning...would be a great start. It's not about the coding, it's about the thinking.