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.
This cool looking car—the GoPiGo Robot from Dexter Industries—is a great tool for helping students advance their coding skills. It’s buildable, so they get the engineering aspect of STEM education and, once they have it built, it’s programmable over a simple Wi-Fi connection! The single GoPiGo kits are great for children at home, at school, or in a camp.
If you’ve ever explored our site (if you haven’t, now is a pretty good time), you’ve likely seen hundreds of different EdTech tools, including some for every single age group and ones that cover just about every STEM area imaginable. We’ve got a gift for each of the 15 days of techXmas and, hopefully, you can learn something, too.
Most of the time, the best part of hands-on learning is the collaboration that comes with it. Thanks to the classroom packs recently added by Wonder Workshop, that remains the case. Over the last few years, the Dash and Dot Robots have helped students code, create, and become Future Ready with their engaging activities.
The micro:bit measures 4cm by 5cm and is completely programmable. It has 25 LEDs that students can code to light up and display various images, numbers, and text, as well as two buttons, inputs, outputs, an accelerometer, and a magnetometer that each can be individually programmed.
We don’t care how. We just want to help teachers get kids coding. And what better time of the year to do so? We trust that everyone has been having a great CS Ed Week, but if you want to try some new things towards the end of it or carry it over into next week or even next year, we’ve got some suggestions for how you can do it.
The meeperBOT 2.0 is an affordable, programmable, and LEGO-compatible robot recommended for kids aged five and up that features a simple design but packs some great capabilities. Kids can drive, program, and video their bot using three different drive modes and various command functions in the meeperBOT app.
If you’re looking to incorporate hands-on play and inspire innovative thinking at an early age, you’re going to love Puzzlets! Puzzlets are a Bluetooth-enabled accessory for tablets or phones that kids can use to play games that teach things like coding, art, and math. It is designed for kids in K-2, helping them explore logic, cause and effect, and more.
The Code–a–pillar is a robotic tool for introducing kids as young as three to coding. Its replaceable sections—just like the ones on a real caterpillar—represent different actions and kids customize them and control the robot’s movements! No other early education STEM tool provides a better balance of programming and play than the Code–a–pillar.
Unfortunately, we can’t take all the credit, but we’d like to think that we play a small role in helping usher teachers into the 21st century. Now that most schools in the country and in the world are focusing a lot more on STEM education, upgrades need to be made to that as well. What’s the saying? Most of what you learn is obsolete two years from now?
Coding is arguably far and away the most important skill that our students need to learn and the structure of today’s economy certainly supports that belief. It’s not that simply the highest-paying jobs require workers to be proficient in coding—it’s even starting to trend towards the entire workforce needing coding skills in some form or another.
