Steve Coxon, M.A.Ed. Center for Gifted Education Ph.D. student at the College of William and Mary [email protected]

COMPUTER PROGRAMMING FOR KIDS

Steve Coxon, M.A.Ed.Center for Gifted EducationPh.D. student at the College of William and [email protected]://stevecoxon.com http://cfge.wm.edu/

My background:

English and biology; started to minor in computer science. Loved the logic, hated the tedium.

Rediscovered the enjoyment of computer programming logic without the tedium while coaching FIRST LEGO League while a fourth grade teacher.

Saw that gifted students in particular (but not only) thrived in the challenging and open-ended environment (low floor, high ceiling).

Today: LEGO WeDo (LEGO robotics for 6-9 year

olds: $140 from http://www.legoeducation.us/ [be sure to get the version that includes software])

Storytelling Alice (Free product of Carnegie Mellon for middle school students at http://alice.org/)

Hypertext short stories (Can be done on almost any computer with word processing software [We’ll use MS Word today])

NOT Today, but recommended: Scratch (Free from MIT at

http://scratch.mit.edu/)

LOGO (This oldie, but goodie is available in many places, but is easy to use immediately on any computer with Internet access at http://www.mathsnet.net/logo/turtlelogo/index.html )

Why use computer programming in the

classroom? Product ownership Problem-solving “Real world”

Shumway, S. (2008). Students designing their own video games. Technology & Children, 12(3), 12-13.

Why use computer programming in the

classroom? Engineering fundamentals Logic

Hixon, R. (2007). Teaching software engineering principles using Robolab and Lego Mindstorms. International Journal of Engineering Education, 23(5), 868-873.

Why use computer programming in the

classroom? Increases motivation to succeed. Focus on open-ended problem

solving

Denner, J., & Werner, L. (2007). Computer programming in middle school: How pairs respond to challenges. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 37(2), 131-150.

Why use computer programming in the

classroom? Science content

Coxon, S. V. (in press). FIRST LEGO League, the sport of the mind. Teaching for High Potential. Waco, TX: Prufrock.

LEGO WeDo

Storytelling Alice

Hypertext Stories

Steve Coxon, M.A.Ed.

Center for Gifted Education

Ph.D. student at the College of William and Mary

[email protected]://stevecoxon.com http://cfge.wm.edu/