In our latest class we learned about coding and education, I connected to this topic as I have taught in coding kids camps before. I think that I would have added a section about animation too as this can have similar applications as coding in making videos and games.
Scratch
In this class we went off into different groups to explore different coding ideas, I went into the scratch group and made a little game. Below I have a video showing how to make a basic movement block of code which is probably the most important scratch basic.
Another unique and important educational feature of scratch is the ability to ‘look behind the curtain’ and look into the coding behind the games. This is super important for students trying to learn specific game dynamics.
As you can see here I went into the code and explored the different animations known in the scratch as ‘costume changes’. When exploring the code I removed the eye blinking animation.
Other kinds of educational coding
Other resources that stood out to me were scratch jr and the code BC website. Because I didn’t get a chance to experience scratch JR I found a video that explains it which I have linked below.
For more information on Code BC I checked out their website at https://codebc.ca/?fwp_home_grade_level=grade1 and looked through some of the different curricular connections they offered to different grades.
featured Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash