Sunday 4 December 2016

Delving into the Depths of the Pit

I've spent the last two days in the depths of the learning pit... being the learner.



CORE Education have collaborated with Gamefroot, to deliver a workshop designed to get teachers taking Gaming into the classroom.
We collaborated to thrash around a wealth of ideas around ways in which coding could be accessible to the various curriculum levels.
PDF's of code blocks could be using in conjunction with developing oral language in the junior school. The positional language transfers between math and the fundamentals of oral language.
If our akonga were beginning to use this language, in conjunction with coding bricks, in the classroom, at such a young age, they would be able to apply it onscreen later on. The beginnings on programmers in the making!

Over the first two days, I developed my first game from the ground up. I admit, it is not the game to end all games, however there is a huge amount of learning, mistake making and frustration that went into it. I am pleased to say that both the laptop and all concerned survived the ordeal!

Here is the game I created:



On the last day, I had the privilege of taking 3 akonga with me, to the workshop. They had a play with the games that we teachers created, exploring what they liked and what they would change about them.
They then had the opportunity to learn to create their own game FROM SCRATCH!, exploring their errors and fixing them as they went.



We've been learning to:
  • collaborate...
  • use digital co-ordinates 
  • use x and y axis
"It could help you with your future jobs that will need computer programming."
"We've been learning something new and how to be the teacher to our friends."

Overall, I am super excited to get kids gaming in the classroom.
The plan for 2017 is:
  • to begin a coding club.
  • dust the mothballs off the robotics and get them back in use, within the classrooms, as opposed to separate use for just a few select students.
  • Share innovative ways for getting the coding basics into the classroom, such as PDF's of code blocks, that can be used from the juniors up, to develop visual awareness as well as oral language and coding vocabulary.
Overall it's all very exciting!

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