Make Create Educate

When creating projects using pencilcode.net one of my classes had some problems when the program would stop and get an error.  So they created a list of rules to help find the errors. We called it "debugging their program".  Things to look for with errors Highlighted row (2) Message on the right side in a grey box. Red writing in the bottom right with a description of the error. To create the rules students got into small groups (2-3 people) and opened a program that worked. Then they changed things in the program to see what would happen.  Please comment if you have some more rules that could be added. Rules for Pencilcode.net These rules are specific to pencilcode.net but they could be used as a guide for other programs. Check your spelling. Check your indenting & spacing. Use spaces between your words. Check punctuation eg: “ ”, (), [ ], { }, @, >, < Check the size of your jumps. Check the things you type. Check that you don’t put a

Pencilcode.net has some very neat tricks. Did you know it can play music. This was information was originally sent to me as an example by David Bau the pencilcode creator.  https://twitter.com/pencilcoder Using the play command you can make music.  http://imerinet.pencilcode.net/edit/FirstPlay A quaver (or half note) is play "c/2' A crotchet (1 beat) is play "c" A minum (2 beat) is play "c2" A semibreve (4 beats) is play "c4" A dotted crotchet (1 1/2 beats) is play "c11/2" A rest is z Use ^ (for sharp) for c# use play "^c" Use _ (for flat) for Bb use play "_b" Use ' for an octave higher play "c'c" Use , for an octave lower play "c,c" You can do chords by surrounding more than one note in [brackets] play "[G^DG,]" Type this into a new file in Pencilcode.net: play “  F ^G c f  [gE] c ^G  g [^g^D] c  ^G ^g [dD]  ^A F d  [^

#AISDigiSTEM17 conference 23-24 October 2017 The 2017 conference for Association of Independent schools focussed on future applications for technology. One theme was drones. Dr Catherine Ball was the keynote on Day 1 and spoke of future applications for drones and gender equity in education Jackie Slaviero and Bob ran a workshop on Drone safety and regulations. Summary of the Drone Workshop with Jackie Slaviero and Bob Carpenter from One Giant Leap Australia https://twitter.com/JackieSlav http://onegiantleapaustralia.com/ WHS and Legislation CASA owns the airspace from the grass up Can’t fly over people ever Drone must be in visual line of sight at all times unaided - no goggles Must be 30m away from people and buildings Only fly one drone at a time Must not fly if within 5.5km from all airport or airstrip or helipad as of 20/10/17 Must not fly near emergency operations or somewhere with public safety. Public schools students under Year

What are your plans? Ada Lovelace is truely cross curricula, her father was a poet, she studied maths and science and she is credited with being the first programmer before there were computers to be programmed.  Why Ada Lovelace Day Matters. Who is Ada Lovelace? Source Did you know Lord Byron the poet only had one legitimate a daughter? Her name Ada Lovelace Byron. His wife -  Lady Anne Isabella Milbanke Byron ,  only tolerated his philandering ways for a short while and left him when Ada was 8 weeks old. Lady Anne had Ada tutored in Maths and Science so she was not go the way of her father. Ada went on to study Advanced mathematics at a time when women did not study mathematics or go to university. At 17, Ada went on to work with Charles Babbage who is credited with inventing the first programmable computer.  Ada was later asked to translate an article on Babbage's analytical engine that had been written by Italian engineer Luigi Federico Menabrea

How do you create an animation using ScratchJr.org ScratchJr is a app designed to introduce children to coding. See this post for more information on the resources on the ScratchJr website. ScratchJr can be used to create animations. The video above was made using multiple sprites A sun A cloud (ensure the cloud is hidden) Rain (made by the student) (ensure the rain is hidden) Down Arrow (made by the student) Up Arrow (made by the student) Read this project for information on how to create your own sprite. This project introduces the idea of sending messages between sprites to trigger an action in another sprite. To hide a sprite before coding it, you drag the hide button off the tool bar and tap it. The sprite will disappear. It can be dragged back to the toolbar when finished. The animation starts with the sun. When you press the green flag the sun grows and shrinks then sends an orange message to the cloud. The cloud will not move until it receiv

Coding is not as complicated as it sounds. If you are introducing coding to a class https://www.scratchjr.org/ is a perfect way to begin. It is designed for young children to 7 years. But it is also suitable for a first platform for primary aged students who have next coded or for use with old special needs children as a differentiation tool. If you are using it with older children it would be expected that you would move onto more complicated programs. For people new to coding there are many resources on the  https://www.scratchjr.org/teach/activities website. The cards  introduce users to the basic functions. The cards can be downloaded and printed for use in the classroom. This would be an introduction to the concepts. It would be expected that one you have completed these you would move onto building your own games. To learn about animation access the lessons through the Teach, Curricula menu and click the Animated Genre link For games to reinforce skills access pl

As published on the ClassCover Blog http://www.classcover.com.au/teachers/features/ Updated with new NSW link Dec 20 2017 Updated AITSL and accreditation details October 20 2019 Coding and Robotics are the buzz word in the media and in schools. But why do we teach it? Coding and Robotics are just one of many approaches to teach students computational thinking.. Computational Thinking is the process of finding a solution to open ended problems. Computational Thinking is usually associated with computer science however it incorporates the way we set problems in all key learning areas (Google for Education).   The four stages of computational thinking are: Decomposition : breaking a large problem into smaller parts Pattern Recognition : identifying similarities and differences Abstraction: Identifying the general principles that generate these patterns Algorithm Design : step by step strategy for solving a problem ( Google for Education ) Jeanette Wing