All resources in Learning Environments & TechnologiesCourse (final projects)

Scratch: Programming for Teachers

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Programming is becoming a more and more important skill to have. Childhood is a great time to start learning programming and to develop computational thinking, creativity, and problem- solving skills. In this course you will learn the basics of programming and how to teach it yourself as a primary or secondary school teacher. This MOOC teaches programming in Scratch through fun videos which explain programming in an inspiring and clear way. Every week you build a different Scratch project yourself: a flappy bird game, a virtual pet or a Mondriaan like artwork. Also weekly, new programming blocks are taught and together we’re working on ways to improve your written code. In addition, you will learn how you can integrate the same programming lessons in your class for both primary and secondary education. Many programming principles covered in Scratch also apply to other programming languages such as JavaScript and Python. An introduction to Python as well as hardware such as robotics and a micro:bit are a part of this online course should you want to broaden your scope. The content of this course is based on a course that was used in primary schools in The Netherlands with great success. The material follows the educational curriculum for programming in primary education of The Netherlands.

Material Type: Full Course

Author: dr. F. Hermans

Completing the Circuit

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In the everyday electrical devices we use calculators, remote controls and cell phones a voltage source such as a battery is required to close the circuit and operate the device. In this hands-on activity, students use batteries, wires, small light bulbs and light bulb holders to learn the difference between an open circuit and a closed circuit, and understand that electric current only occurs in a closed circuit.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Authors: Daria Kotys-Schwartz, Denise W. Carlson, Janet Yowell, Joe Friedrichsen, Malinda Schaefer Zarske, Sabre Duren, Xochitl Zamora Thompson

Lesson Activity: Music of the Future

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The "Music of the Future" is a lesson activity that combines STEAM/Maker Education, programming with Scratch, and MakeyMakey. This lesson activity aims to develop 21st-century skills, which are the basics of product design, block-based programming, electronic programming, and collaboration skills. Here, we present the overview of this lesson activity, the comprehensive lesson plan for the teachers, and instruction for the students. 

Material Type: Lesson, Lesson Plan, Student Guide

Authors: Marcellina Adinda Dwiarie, Daria Zaikovskaia, Willemijn Weterings, Santiago Wang, Krystof Ekl, Jari Laru

C# Programming

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Although C# is derived from the C programming language, it introduces some unique and powerful features, such as delegates (which can be viewed as type-safe function pointers) and lambda expressions which introduce elements of functional programming languages, as well as a simpler single class inheritance model (than C++) and, for those of you with experience in "C-like" languages, a very familiar syntax that may help beginners become proficient faster than its predecessors. Similar to Java, it is object-oriented, comes with an extensive class library, and supports exception handling, multiple types of polymorphism, and separation of interfaces from implementations. Those features, combined with its powerful development tools, multi-platform support, and generics, make C# a good choice for many types of software development projects: rapid application development projects, projects implemented by individuals or large or small teams, Internet applications, and projects with strict reliability requirements. Testing frameworks such as NUnit make C# amenable to test-driven development and thus a good language for use with Extreme Programming (XP). Its strong typing helps to prevent many programming errors that are common in weakly typed languages.

Material Type: Textbook

CS Discoveries 2019-2020: Interactive Animations and Games Lesson 3.22: Project - Design a Game

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Students will plan and build their own game using the project guide from the previous two lessons to guide their project. Working individually or in pairs, students will first decide on the type of game they'd like to build, taking as inspiration a set of sample games. They will then complete a blank project guide where they will describe the game's behavior and scope out the variables, sprites, and functions they'll need to build. In Code Studio, a series of levels prompts them on a general sequence they can use to implement this plan. Partway through the process, students will share their projects for peer review and will incorporate feedback as they finish their game. At the end of the lesson, students will share their completed games with their classmates. This project will span multiple classes and can easily take anywhere from 3-5 class periods.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

CS Discoveries 2019-2020: Interactive Animations and Games Lesson 3.17: Complex Sprite Movement

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Students learn to combine the velocity properties of sprites with the counter pattern to create more complex sprite movement. In particular students will learn how to simulate gravity, make a sprite jump, and allow a sprite to float left or right. In the final levels of the Code Studio progression students combine these movements to animate and control a single sprite and build a simple game in which a character flies around and collects a coin. Students are encouraged to make their own additions to the game in the final level.

Material Type: Lesson Plan

Micro:bit intro to CS lesson

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            The lesson will be started by showing the class a Micro:bit under a document camera, pressing the side A button, and showing how the Micro:bit lights up in a specific pattern. Next, the instructor presses the side B button and shows how a new pattern lights up in a specific pattern. This will spark a discussion on what is making the Micro:bit light up, and how that program might work. The introduction is aimed at showing the students the Micro:bit and how they will be able to program theirs to light up and complete other tasks.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: Kayli King

Scratch colors

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Students follow a tutorial to create a Scratch program that uses stamping, colors, loops, and events to create a compelling visual program. Students experiment with using Scratch’s system of numbered colors and with using the stamp block to stamp images of the sprite on the stage. Students experience the need for code to initialize their program when it starts, and they will write code to do that. By the end of the lesson, students will have created an interactive, colorful program that responds to the mouse pointer. Scratch’s color effects, stamping, and sprite movement will be important in the final coding project at the end of the unit.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: NYC Computer Science for All

Teacher's Guide to Passion Projects (Genius Hour)

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This is a guide to help teachers implement Genius Hour or Passion Projects in their classes. Passion Projects are projects where students are allowed to work on their passions during a specific time carved out in school. They choose what they want to learn and how they are going to learn it. It fosters innovation, creativity, and personalization during set period of school time by encouraging student choice and voice.

Material Type: Lesson Plan, Teaching/Learning Strategy

Author: Erica ZImmer

Erasmus+ KA2 “F.A.S.T.E.S.T.” - Digital Storytelling for Entrepreneurship in VET agroindustrial schools

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Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership project called "Food & Agroindustrial Schools Toward Entrepreneurship by Storytelling & digital Technology" (Project No. 2015-1-IT01-KA202-004608), about developing entrepreneurship in VET agrifood students through digital storytelling techniques Aim of the project is to develop in VET teachers functional skills to integrate systematically in the curricula entrepreneurship education to develop active citizenship and employability, supporting person-centered and experiential learning, through the creation of OER of “Digital storytelling “. Context: the project aims to involve multi-disciplinary teams of teachers, as “agents of change”, and students, as a new generation of potential entrepreneurs but also as workers with an “entrepreneurial approach”, of VET schools of secondary level of IT, PT, RO and BG, similar among themselves because of the lack of a systematic training-for-trainers in relation to entrepreneurship, with consequences of absence of entrepreneurship as a field of learning in the regular curricula. The focus is on schools and companies related to the agro-industrial sector, in all countries, that needs an injection of new businesses to emerge from a state of heightened shortage of skilled professionals and young people in working cohorts. Activities and methodology: creation of 1) action-research that prefigures: terms of educational value of storytelling for the development of an entrepreneurial mind-set; didactical sustainability of practices of digital manipulation in the development of educational programs for the development of entrepreneurial skills; new skills required by teachers for the effective use of the methodology to support the acquisition of entrepreneurial skills; 2) multilingual hypervideos (pupil-led experimentations); 3) Training Programmes for the blended use of hypervideos revised by teachers (teacher-led experimentations); 4) Methodological guidelines for the effective use of digital storytelling for learning entrepreneurial skills in school context – systematization of experimentations for their release as OERs. Number and profile of participants: they will be directly involved in the project activities: 12 teachers/school principals – in interdisciplinary teams and transnational learning/teaching/training activities; 12 ICT experts and 16 representatives of business sector for O1; 40 teachers in 8 focus groups for O1; min. 8 entrepreneurs of FDMP sector for O2; 160 students for O2 and other 160 students for O3; at least 160 “local participants” in the 4 multiplier events. In terms of expected results, the use of hypervideos as OERs will allow direct knowledge of the related production chain; their creation will enable a “learning by doing”, with a direct experience of the entrepreneurial skills necessary for the realization of a complex project (experimental meta-learning). It is expected an increase of the dialogue between schools and businesses, able to prevent, in the long term, any gap in the professional knowledge necessary to the efforts of innovation required in an evolving industrial sector. Impacts for VET: spread / enhance different learning styles (innovative teaching); expand the provision of curricular training; increase motivation among the “digital generation”; open to contributions from experts in the business sector; create a more fluid and productive dialogue between formal and informal knowledge – take informal knowledge and transform it into digital resources. Benefits: the VET system will increase its attractiveness, expand its training offer and modernize its teaching approaches, reduce cases of ESL, qualify its staff members (refer to either digital and entrepreneurial skills), root further in the territory by consolidating relations with the socio-economic context. Impacts for learners: increase of entrepreneurial skills applied in life and school paths; increase of motivation for further education; stimulus to entrepreneurship as a realistic professional opportunity after school; increase of digital skills through the “generative” choice to produce Learning Objects (benefits: spread of technical-scientific culture and reducing of digital divide). Impacts for business/FDMP sector: connecting with local educational institutions and new generations of workers (role of “virtual business angel”); reflection on entrepreneurial mind-set skills on a personal and a corporate level; study of the potential of digital storytelling to tell / sell a company, for information, marketing or training purposes. Benefits: increased level of entrepreneurship / entrepreneurial spirit in FDMP. Please download all the Intellectual Outputs from http://www.cisita.parma.it/cisita/progetti-internazionali/progetto-erasmus-ka2-fastest/ www.fastesteu.com Intellectual Output 1: Research Action about the current state of exploitation of storytelling and digital storytelling for didactic purposes in the participating EU countries (Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, Portugal) Intellectual Output 2: Creation of 8 hypervideos about stories of success and interviews to local entrepreneurs from the agroindustrial sector (Tomato industry, cheese industry, meat industry, bakery industry, wine industry). Videos are made by made by students at school with teachers' supervision and guidance about gaining knowledge and meaning out of the experience. Videos are then turned into hypervideos by students themselves, adding further hypermedia contents from the web about entrepreneurship and /or sector-related information Intellectual Output 3: Exploitation and testing of the hypervideos as didactic and teaching tools on students who did not take part in the video-making experience. Elaboration of 4 teaching programs (one for each of the 4 participating countries Italy, Bulgaria, Romania and Portugal) about entrepreneurship using hypervideos to create a blended learning experience Intellectual Output 4: Methodological guidelines for future users or makers of new hypervideos. How to use the project's Output for educational purposes and how to make brand new hypervides from scratch. Technical guide about how to deal with a videomaking & editing process.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Case Study, Interactive, Lesson Plan

Author: Cisita Parma scarl

Remix

Life Story-Digital Storytelling Project

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This lesson was created by Courtney Baker as part of the Nebraska ESUCC Special Project Digital Age Skills. We all look forward to occasions that give us time to spend time with family and friends and to give thanks for all the blessings they bring to your life. This project will result in the creation of a Life Story video honoring a family member or someone else special to you. The following list of activities will provide you with background and information you need to complete this project.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson, Lesson Plan

Authors: Molly Aschoff, Amy Coufal

Book Trailers: Digital Storytelling Project

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In this extended digital storytelling project, students will create a book trailer video for a favourite book. This can be used with grades 4 through 9 and may be spread out over 8 to 16 class sessions. This project leverages students’ familiarity with movie trailers and motivation for videos to encompass multiple curricular goals. The emphasis is on an iterative and extended process to create an authentic, public product students can be proud of. This instructional plan is intended for use with Chromebooks and Google Classroom, but could be easily adapted for use with any number of other video creation or digital storytelling tools.

Material Type: Homework/Assignment, Lesson Plan, Teaching/Learning Strategy

Author: Rhiannon Rutherford