Summary. Coding to Connect is a professional development workshop developed to fill the gap in equity-based professional development for advanced computer science educators. Learners that have experience with block based coding are challenged to create coding projects that feature community building, text-based Python programming, and physical computing projects.
Cover slides were made for each workshop in the Community Gamechangers package.
The Problem. When it became clear that the Community Gamechangers program was in need of more advanced support for computer science education than we've developed resources for, I created the workshop Coding to Connect. It features projects across a variety of coding tools that are designed to get learners to share their projects with one another like a customized nickname generator and a Madlibs poem.
The Goal. At the time of development, the primary audience was after school STEM program educators that have experience with basic educational programming tools (Scratch, Microsoft MakeCode, etc.) However, in an effort to maximize the impact of our content development time, I also had to consider the additional ways this content can be used within the Rec2Tech program and larger Digital Harbor Foundation programming. In addition, I updated many of the graphics (see below) within the existing advanced CS content because it contained images that were not part of our intellectual property.
To aid community members learning computational thinking for the first time, I created a friendly graphic to use as an anchor in discussion.
The Solutions. The year prior, I developed a 3 part, state accredited professional development workshop for K-12 educators titled Coding Across the Curriculum. I chose this as my starting point so that the Coding to Connect workshop could act as a sequel as well as a standalone workshop. This way the overall program can work as either a preparatory program for informal learning spaces that are beginning to implement their own STEM programming (utilizing Coding Across the Curriculum), as a terminal training program to develop independence in programming (utilizing Coding to Connect), and as a set of individual workshops that we can offer free at a later time to our loyal community of advanced CS educators.
This workshop goes deeper into the skills necessary to succeed with programming. While Coding Across the Curriculum introduces the idea of computational thinking (see above), Coding to Connect moves these concepts into the focus. The extra attention given to these skills is crucial for community based tech coaches that may not have formal training in computer science education.
The introductory part of my Micro:bit one-pager for easy curriculum building.
In order to allow educators to dedicate their time to learning emerging technologies and building relationships with their learners, I developed one page summaries (samples posted above and below) for each tool to help them retain the knowledge & resources shared during the workshop.
More from my Micro:bit one-pager. This shows the mix & match approach I developed for my learners that are short on time but still want to keep things original and fun.
