Coding is, of course, a hugely important area of 21st century education. Whether they're as young as Pre-K or ready to enter college, coding is extremely relevant to almost every student's future. Thankfully, millions of educators and administrators realize the importance of teaching kids to code. Whether it's a curricular requirement or part of an informal school club, programming experiences are amazingly valuable for students. There's also plenty of options, so educators can find something without complicated or pricey features. In this section, you'll see a lot of different topics related to K-12 coding. These include features on particular STEM tools, insights on coding integration, skills students can develop and more. There's also something for teachers of all grade levels. Whether you teach the early grades or have students with the foundation to take the next step, you'll find helpful resources for teaching coding in the classroom.
These class packs help ensure educators deliver efficient instruction, provide actionable feedback to students, and maximize the teaching potential of the Dash. Recently revamped, the latest Dash Classroom Packs are perfect for introductory coding lessons and continue to be an incredibly effective option for facilitating high-quality STEM lesson plans.
EdScratch is very user-friendly and designed for students as young as 10 years old. Students can use it to explore the more challenging aspects of coding, such as changing the input commands within blocks and setting their own values for distance, time, and speed. Also, whereas EdBlocks is icon-based, EdScratch enables hybrid coding with the Edison Robot.
To kick off 2022, we’re hearing from Allison Miller, an assistant principal in the Jackson R2 School District in Jackson, Missouri. Allison has seen students benefit from tech-based learning experiences in a number of ways, including enhanced authenticity, bringing the 4 Cs to life, and many other outcomes. Keep reading to learn more about her efforts!
Tania works with students from diverse backgrounds and understands the importance of creating equitable STEM opportunities. This factor certainly weighed into her decision when she was evaluating what to request as part of the award. Ultimately, she decided on Root Robots—largely due to their versatility. Head inside to learn more about her plans.
Back in 2020, the Wonder Workshop team released their virtual Dash Robot environment, which allows students to program an authentic but digital version of the Dash. Typically, students and teachers can access this environment through Class Connect on a computer but there’s also another option for mobile coding—the Blockly iOS app.
Since many students missed out on furthering their computer science development during the pandemic, online coding environments began booming as educators looked for alternative options to ensure they didn’t fully lose the skills they’d developed from previous experiences. One of those online coding tools is Robotify and it’s this week’s Rising Resource!
Recent updates to the Ozobot Classroom platform have seen it evolve to today’s teaching and learning. It’s completely web-based, making it easy to access and it’s very intuitive for educators without a lot of prior coding experience. Essentially, it helps simplify class setup with easy features for assigning lessons and helps generate insights on student progress.
From the Bee-Bot and Blue-Bot robots for early education coding to the incredibly effective and immersive RobotLAB VR Expeditions 2.0 kits, some of the newest STEM products on our store pack a big punch in the classroom. Head inside to learn more about these five new additions and how they can help enhance hands-on instruction.
Coding experiences are worthwhile for students starting in Pre-K and kindergarten and up through high school and college. If you already have a plan for CS Ed Week, that’s great but, if you need recommendations, we have plenty of those inside, including coding tools from top STEM manufacturers, screen-free options, or those that are completely virtual.
Over the last couple months, we’ve teamed up with professionals from some of our top partners to bring educators a webinar series focused on addressing social-emotional learning and STEAM education. Throughout this time, we’ve worked with some great colleagues and, now that it’s wrapped up, we wanted to put all the resources in one place.
