Category Archives: coding

In the late 1980s, early in my educational technology career, I attended a one-day conference about technology in schools.  Held in a hotel in the Washington, DC area — I don’t remember which one — the conference convened a small number of teachers, identified as early adopters, people from that National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, what seemed hundreds of technology consultants from places like Cambridge, Palo Alto, and various state universities, and one older, somewhat fragile woman far ahead in the front of the room, who attended for a short time. 

That was my first encounter with the life of retired Admiral Grace Hopper.  She lived for only a few more years after that, passing away at the age of 85, but I remember her face, her eagle-eyed attention, and the reverence with which others in the room regarded her. 

Yale University has decided to change the name of its residential Calhoun College toGrace Hopper College, honoring the computer scientist who played a significant role in moving the country (and the world) into the age of technology and who became a Rear Admiral in the United States Navy.  Hopper received a master’s degree and PhD in mathematics from Yale and was one of the mathematicians who programmed some of the earliest computers before and during World War II.  Continue reading →

A hackathon is an event attended by students who gather for a few days to focus on solving problems by using their programming skills.  Collaboration is key.  According to Zachary Liu, a manager for the Princeton event, about 600 students attended from over 80 universities. 

Photo used with permission of Hack Princeton Team

A hackathon is 21st Century learning at its best.  The aim of each event is to identify problems that need solving and encourage students to work collaboratively, using their programming (coding) skills, to figure out potential solutions. 

At the Princeton event, and at many other hackathons around the country, there is no charge for room and board, and in some cases buses pick up participants at different schools.  Travel costs can be reimbursed.  Continue reading →

Summer 2016 is almost here.  It’s a great time for family fun, outdoor activities, visiting museums and historical sites, and choosing from all sorts of camps and special programs.  Problem is, many kids spend a lot of their summer vacation in front of screens, and it’s one of the hardest time of the year to focus on digital moderation. 

With less frenetic schedules and no school, the summer months are a good time for parents to learn more about the digital whirl that’s such a huge part of kids’ 21st Century lives.  So when school is out, plan to do some connected world exploring and learning together, concentrating on projects that can help family members — children and their parents — connect with interesting and meaningful work together.  Everyone will figure out more about digital life and add some variety to the types of digital activities that they typically do. 

Check out the May 16, 2016 New Yorker for the article A Whole New Ball Game: The Rolling Robot That Teaches Kids to Code.  Author D.T. Max, describes how Ian Bernstein and Adam Wilson invented the Sphero robot, and he explains how the ideas wereconceived, how Sphero was designed, and the long process of promotion and sales.  The article also includes explanations about how Sphero and other coding toys aim to help children develop 21st Century skills. 

The comments from Sphero creators and from Paul Barberian, who became the first Sphero CEO, provide first-hand descriptions about working with and expanding ideas, connecting with a business incubator, and eventually starting a viable business.  Max reminds readers about the Silicon Valley process — empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test — and how this process is crucial to the success of new inventions and in the schools where students use robot toys to solve problems.  The article also includes thoughts from Barberian about how the business is considering expansion ideas, especially thinking about robots that develop personal attachments with their owners — what’s called adaptive personality.  Continue reading →

Watch this amazing and inspirational video about girls and coding.  It’s worth sharing with kids and keeping it at hand when your child or a student in your class gets discouraged by a challenge in a math or coding activity. 

The video comes out of the Made With Code project where there are lots of other videos to watch. 

We educators offer great gifts to our 21st Century students when we demonstrate that we, too, can learn new things.  By letting children see us mastering unfamiliar information, figuring out problems, overcoming challenges, and yes, even making mistakes, we help them develop more comfort and confidence when they make errors and feel like they are not making progress.  We adults teach all the time, but we probably don’t model learning new material nearly enough, and the kids notice it. 

As Ted Sizer wrote in his book, The Children Are Watching, they notice what we do and what we do not do. ( A good book, by the way, for teachers and parents to read). 

So this year I’m demonstrating how much I have to learn for students in grades one through five who attend my MIT Scratch coding activity.  Literally, they are watching me learn how to code Scratch scripts. 

What if we encouraged young learners, when they encounter a difficult learning task, to replace the words “I don’t get it” with “I haven’t figured out the problem yet”?  Can changing just a few small words make learners more comfortable when they work on unfamiliar or difficult activities? 

I’ve spent the last month mulling over this word change idea after participating in Hour of Code activities with young 21st Century learners at my school in December.  Watching the children in kindergarten and grades three, four and five solve puzzles and play the unfamiliar coding games was eye-opening, because in each class the majority of students — and some of the teachers — were working on learning tasks that they had never encountered before (definitely terra incognita).  Continue reading →

This Blog’s Mission

This blog’s mission is to help parents, teachers, and other adults learn more about helping digital kids grow into thoughtful, collaborative, and savvy digital citizens.  With a range of information-filled posts on digital kids, edtech, digital parenting, medialit, and digital citizenship MediaTechParenting offers adults the opportunity to become familiar with media, the digital world, 21st century learning, and the virtual environment that young people take for granted, thereby serving as models and mentors for the children in their care.