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"This morning I was thinking about the things that all young people should know how to do regardless of income, geographical location, life goals, etc. I started a list – see below. Some have “always” been true – some are unique to this century of learning. Let me know of any other universal skills you believe young people should know how to do."
Beth Dichter's insight:
What do young people need to know? Jackie Gerstein provides a great visual as well as a list of 18 ideas, and each has a link for additional information. She also requests that you send her additional ideas. After you review the list you might consider how many of these skills are taught in your school, or consider which should be taught in school. * How to be a self-directed learner – finding and using resources (both face-to-face and online) to learn and improve personal interests * How to evaluate websites and online tools for credibility * How to work in mixed-age groups * How to code * How to set and achieve goals 
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not a tutorial, this tool shows what you are creating as you code
Beth Dichter's insight:
Are you interested in learning coding? Thimble helps you create web pages. You type html on the left side and see your work appear (or not) on the right side. In other words "you get instant feedback." There have many questions online recently about the need for students to learn how to code. This tool provides students with the option of learning through exploring. It may not work for all students. For those who would prefer tutorials there are some provided at the end of the post.
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From
gigaom
Rather than making young people wade through incomprehensible strings of words and numbers, writing code in Hopscotch consists of dragging and dropping different cute characters and running scripts on them.
Beth Dichter's insight:
This free app for the iPad will help students learn how to code! It is geared to students between the ages of 8 and 12. Using drag and drop students should be able to create games and animations. A ongoing debate in education is around the issue of teaching programming to students. This app may provide opportunities for students to begin to explore the concept of programming easily.
Monica S Mcfeeters's curator insight,
May 10, 2013 8:41 PM
Here's something we need most even more than algebra. Girls and Boys that can code are in high demand for awhile. |
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"As the cities that have hosted Code for America teams will tell you, the greatest contribution the young programmers bring isn't the software they write. It's the way they think. It's a principle called "computational thinking," and knowing all of the Java syntax in the world won't help if you can't think of good ways to apply it."
Beth Dichter's insight:
Should we be teaching coding to our students? What does computer literacy mean? And what is computational thinking? These are some of the questions addressed in this article from Mother Jones. Let's start with the question 'What is computational thinking?' Below is a quote from the article. "If you've ever improvised dinner, pat yourself on the back: You've engaged in some light CT...If seeing the culinary potential in raw ingredients is like computational thinking, you might think of a software algorithm as a kind of recipe: a step-by-step guide on how to take a bunch of random ingredients and start layering them together in certain quantities, for certain amounts of time, until they produce the outcome you had in mind." There are so many quotes I could pull from this article to share. Below are two more and I would urge you to take the time to click through and read the entire article (and it is quite long). Along with a information on the history of literacy (as in reading and writing as well as computer) you will find a video of individuals (some of whom you will recognize) talking about how they became involved in computational literacy as well as many graphs and images. On to the quotes... "Computational thinking involves solving problems, designing systems, and understanding human behavior," she writes in a publication of the Association for Computing Machinery. Those are handy skills for everybody, not just computer scientists. And while many kids have mad skills in movie editing or Photoshopping, such talents can lull parents into thinking they're learning real computing. "We teach our kids how to be consumers of technology, not creators of technology," notes the NSF's Cuny.
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Beth Dichter's insight:
EdSurge had put together a great guide, Teaching Kids to Code, that provides 14 posts that look at coding from a variety of perspectives and a table that lists 40 tools for learning online programming. The table is divided into sections which include learning coding with: * apps * hardware * visual blocks * formal coding language Many of the suggested tools are free. There are many who suggest that all students should learn to code. If you are interested in helping students learn to code or would like to learn about a variety of resources check out this post.
JessikaJake's comment,
May 23, 2013 1:37 AM
I followed the link through to https://www.edsurge.com/n/2013-05-13-heading-off-to-summer-coding-camp and was happy to see that iD Tech Camps was on the list! We love them. Jade went 2 years in a row and learned Flash, C+, Video Editing and more.
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Mitch Resnik, the creator of the super-simple Scratch programming language and head of the Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab, gave a TEDx talk about the value of coding and computer literacy in early education.
Beth Dichter's insight:
If you have not checked out Scratch, a free programming language from the MIT Media Lab, take the time to listen to this talk by the creator, and then check out the program at the Scratch site, http://scratch.mit.edu/. You may download the program, join an educator's community, check out projects, watch tutorials and much more. One question that is being discussed more and more is if we should teach students programming. We are also told we need to have our students be creators of materials. Scratch may be a program that will help us meet both these goals.
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The best question she asks is 'Which are taught in school? Which should be?' These are great questions to explore as a staff in looking at these universal skills.