Whatisschool December 18, 2014

Thank You!

Thank you for voting #whatisschool Best Education Twitter Chat/Hashtag of 2014!  Its been a blast creating a forum that sees over 2 million innovative educators each week. Thank you for all your support and sharing your ideas on how we can change education to develop critical skills for a 21st century workforce. There's a lot more to come in 2015!  Archives from tonight's chat on coding in the classroom are posted below. Merry Christmas! -Laura 

Making Computer Science Work For You

#whatisschool Thursday December 18, 6PM EST

Last week was computer science week, a time in which educators around the world strove to integrate computer science into their classes with an hour of code.  Children teachers and parents joined together to make games, program robots and found out that gaining 21^st century skills is a lot of fun and can be easier than you think.  So how do you get started with coding?

Ambassadors for coding come from all walks of life.  The video below shows this diversity and provides instructions for a simple coding project based on the characters from Frozen that you can do with your students by clicking here. 

Questions #whatisschool Thursday December 18, 6PM EST

1) What projects have you tried or want to try with your students that involve programming or writing code?

2) What is the ideal age to expose students to learning code, why?

3) How can students and teachers use computer programming to integrate arts and core competencies?

4) Does learning to code bridge gaps and create applicable uses for other disciplines taught in school?

5) What types of products would you create, what problems could you solve programming with your students?

6) How can programming and coding help students become future leaders and get them excited about learning?

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