Tynker User Guide for Teachers User Guide for Educators.pdf · User Guide for Educators Tynker ... Lesson Plan ... sign up for Tynker, add students and create a programming classroom

User Guide for Educators

Tynker

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© Tynker. All Rights Reserved Confidential 2

Contents Introduction to Teachers ....................................................................................... 3

Tynker Workshop .............................................................................................. 4 Preparing for Class ............................................................................................... 5

Equipment Setup ............................................................................................... 5 Administration ....................................................................................................... 5

Teacher Account ............................................................................................... 5 Logging In as an instructor ................................................................................ 6 Teacher Dashboard ........................................................................................... 7 Classroom Tabs ................................................................................................ 7 Creating Student accounts ................................................................................ 8 Distributing Student Login Information ............................................................. 8 Checking Lesson Progress ............................................................................... 8 Lesson Plan ....................................................................................................... 9 Assigning Lessons ............................................................................................. 9 Tracking Student Progress ................................................................................ 9 Concept Map ................................................................................................... 10 Class Showcase .............................................................................................. 11 Sample Showcases ......................................................................................... 11

Student Accounts ............................................................................................... 11 Online Account ................................................................................................ 11 Student Accounts on Tynker ........................................................................... 11 Lost Passwords ............................................................................................... 11 First Time Login for Students .......................................................................... 12 Types of Lesson Modules ............................................................................... 13

Tynker Workshop ................................................................................................ 14 Character Animation Studio ............................................................................ 15 Art Studio ......................................................................................................... 15 Media Library ................................................................................................... 16 Physics Engine ................................................................................................ 16

Tynker Tips from Teachers ................................................................................. 18 Frequently Asked Questions ............................................................................... 20



Introduction to Teachers Tynker is very educator friendly – it has been built with the specific needs of teachers in mind. To begin with, it is really easy to set up - a teacher can freely sign up for Tynker, add students and create a programming classroom in minutes.

Teachers with minimal or no prior programming experience are also able to use the Tynker platform and ensure real learning of programming concepts and skills among their students.

Teachers choose how they want to use Tynker – as an end-to-end platform to teach a structured programming course, as a tool to aid and enhance learning in subjects like math and physics, or as a means for student expression in projects, field trips, or creative writing.

There is extensive support for schools and educators on Tynker, the key features being:

• Classroom & Student Management tools - Extensive tools for teachers to manage their classes and students effectively. Teachers create a classroom and add students in minutes. Integration with Google logins makes it even easier to login to Tynker. Teachers can pass out coding assignments, collect and grade student projects, communicate one-on-one with students in real-time.

• Lesson Plans - Augment the freely included starter packs with a set of ready to use thematic lesson plans that teach a variety of skills such as animation, storytelling, game design, physics, math art, and more. Each lesson plan has several lesson units packaged into 45-minute activities that can be used in a session. You can use these in order or customize it to your students’ specific needs.

• Advanced lesson-planning features - Enables teachers to manage a Netflix-like queue for lessons and use them over the course of time.

• Class Showcase - A class showcase ensures that interesting projects done by kids can be put up for parents and other students to see.

• Safe and secure private cloud - Tynker's digital classroom for programming establishes a safe and secure private cloud environment where teachers and students collaborate to create and share.

• Student Assessment and Metrics - Track your class as they progress through the programming skills concept map. The Class Assessment chart is a consolidated view of the skills and concepts that the students have been exposed to, are learning, and have mastered across all students in the class. The individual student performance report lets you focus on the progress of a single student. Tynker’s patent pending technology enables a deep and detailed understanding of each student’s progress.



• Anywhere Online Access - With this students may use Tynker anytime anywhere, even from their home computers.

Tynker Workshop Tynker is a creative learning environment where kids learn programming by doing. Kids solve puzzles and create stories, mini-games while learning and applying skills they pick up on the way: design conception, pattern recognition, algorithmic thinking, and problem solving. Tynker is browser-based, totally device independent, and runs 100% in the cloud, which makes it is very easy to set up and very simple to use. The interface for using Tynker is the Tynker Workshop - an excellent web based environment with unique and user-friendly features:

• Lego®-like visual code blocks - Coding with Tynker is not syntax driven, but completely visual and conceptual. This eliminates the typical frustration elementary and middle schoolers face when dealing with syntax in a traditional programming language. Kids can now focus on the underlying programming logic, not the language.

• TynkerBlocks - Fully functional and ready to use packaged objects. Tynkerblocks are interesting objects with behaviors and codes associated with them. Kids can plug in these complex objects into their projects, making the experience more exciting, and opening up more creative possibilities.

• Searchable Rich Media Library - Hundreds of high quality characters, animation frames, sound effects and music. The Tynker Media Library is unparalleled in quality and range of age-appropriate media, ensuring high interest and engagement. Kids can also import their own drawings, or draw using the in-built drawing tool.

• Built-in Tutor - Tynker provides guided tutorials and puzzles to enable self-paced learning. Tynker gives kids the flexibility to learn at their own pace, reviewing concepts or moving or jumping ahead to more complex ones if they feel ready for it.

In addition to the Tynker Workshop and features, there are some important principles of learning that are built into the Tynker experience:

• Lesson Delivery Platform - Tynker provides the opportunity for kids to go through a cycle of learning programming concepts and applying them. This ensures that the kids are grounded to complete a task rather than getting frustrated or jumping around concepts.



• Collaboration - Tynker provides the means for sharing and collaboration across the board - with classmates where students remix, with the teacher, and with parents and friends.

• Learning Continuum - The Tynker learning curriculum is structured along a continuum of Introductory, Advanced, and Expert levels, ensuring kids are not limited by age or grade, and allowing for flexible learning.

Preparing for Class Equipment Setup

• Each class needs computers (Laptops,

netbooks, or chrome books) • 1 Computer is required per student. • The teacher needs a computer to

assign lessons. • The computers must be Internet

enabled with a modern browser such as Chrome, IE9, Safari or Firefox.

• If iPads are available, the Tynker iPad puzzles can be incorporated into the session. The Tynker app must be downloaded onto each iPad.

Administration Teacher Account As a teacher, you can login and perform the following actions:

• Create new virtual classrooms • Import Students from CSV files to create student accounts • Manage students – change passwords, add and delete students • Assign lessons to a classroom • View projects that students have built • Publish a class showcase • Communicate with parents • Track the students’ progress via dashboards



Logging In as an instructor

SAMPLE CREDENTIALS Web site: www.tynker.com User name: [email protected] Password: XXXXXXX

Teachers can sign up free at http://tynker.com/schools Go to tynker.com and click “ Sign in”

Sign in with your credentials as a teacher



Teacher Dashboard The very first time you will be prompted to create a classroom and choose a lesson plan. After that you will see a list of classrooms. You can add as many classrooms as you need. In this account, there are 3 classrooms. Each classroom contains many students, and you can manage them as a group. Watch the videos in the Help section to learn more about Tynker and using the platform.

Classroom Tabs You’ll notice that each classroom view has several tabs. We will go over each of the tabs and their purpose below.

You can import student accounts for each location using CSV files. As a teacher, you can also add or change individual student accounts from the Student Management tab.



Creating Student accounts There are 3 ways of creating student accounts:

• Sign in via Google logins – if your school uses Google Education login accounts for students

• Create a Tynker Account • Import via spreadsheet

Distributing Student Login Information In the Student Management Tab of any classroom, you should see a list of all the students enrolled in the class. Click on “Generate Student Cards” to create a printable version of student login cards and distribute them to the students.

If any student cannot log in, you can reset their password and provide a new one.

Checking Lesson Progress You can view all your students’ projects here. You can browse through all projects or look at a particular student’s lesson. As a teacher, you can also open any project and see the code, and help the children fix their issues.



Lesson Plan Use this tab to assign lessons to your classroom. If the lesson plan is not there, you can import the lesson plan using the “Add Lesson Plan” Link.

Assigning Lessons To Assign a lesson, Click on the lesson to expand it, and use the Assign button for that lesson.

Tracking Student Progress The Gradebook tab is a convenient dashboard that tracks progress metrics for individual students and the class as a whole. Use this to track your students’ progress through lessons in the curriculum.



Class Lesson Summary - The lesson progress tab, pictured above, enables teachers to spot students who are behind in their work. The red and orange dots identify students’ incomplete lessons. Columns of red spots indicate lessons that may be tough for a group of students. Student Progress for each lesson - You can review details of a student’s lesson by clicking on either the gray or the orange dots. For each completed project, you can check out the number of blocks that the student used to finish it. If the submitted project has only 8 code blocks, for example, you can get a quick idea about how much effort the student put in.

Concept Map Use the dashboards to get a bird's eye view of the entire classroom or look at each student's progress in detail. The concept map dashboard tracks students' progress as they learn and master concepts. Each programming assignment is automatically scanned. If students use a concept several times in their own projects, they “master” the concept.



Class Showcase Publish the student’s best creations on to your class showcase and share it with parents via email, Google+, Twitter or Facebook. As a teacher you have full control of all sharing aspects. Students will not be able to share by themselves –only the teacher accounts have the sharing controls.

Once you add a project to the showcase, a snapshot is created so that if students modify their projects further, the showcase remains the same.

Sample Showcases Here are a few showcases created by teachers Computer Creativity Museum San Francisco http://www.tynker.com/showcase/Kb3DvSmN Addison School Showcase http://www.tynker.com/showcase/036C0tKW

Student Accounts Online Account

• Each student must have an online Tynker Account. • If they do not have their own email, create a Tynker Account for each

student.

Student Accounts on Tynker Student accounts are visible from the classroom management tab in each classroom.

Lost Passwords If a student loses a password, simply go to the classroom management tab of the classroom and reset it.



First Time Login for Students Students who have never logged in and coming via Google sign-in for the first time will be asked to enter a class code. The class code is specific to a teacher’s classroom and needs to be provided by the teacher. Once the student enters the class code, he is associated with the teacher’s specific class and should see that class on his dashboard. For students logging in using their Tynker account, since the teacher has already associated their account in a classroom, they should see the class that they are enrolled in on their dashboard.

When they enter the classroom, they will see the lessons appear in order and they can click on a lesson to start working on the lesson.

Each lesson focuses on a few programming concepts and guides them in a game like environment. Students must complete the lessons in order, and they will not be able to skip around. Each lesson typically has a concept review or a video, a tutorial that explains how to code a particular section, an exercise or a puzzle, a project and a quiz to verify that the student has understood the concept covered in the lesson.



Types of Lesson Modules Each lesson has a list of lesson modules that can be of the following types:

• Instruction/Review - An instruction module is useful to set context. The module plays in full screen and the students just run through this interactive module. Students can interact with this module but there is no programming involved.

• Gameplay – An interactive module where they preview and play the game that they are building.

• Tutorial - This module takes a student through the programming activity in a step-by-step fashion. This works well for teaching small projects or illustrating specific concepts. There are several configurable options supported by the tutorial builder in Tynker.

• Exercise - This is a challenge project that the student builds based on the goals you setup. Exercises can have instructions and answer keys associated with them

• Puzzle – Students are presented with a coding challenge. When students complete the puzzle (like putting together a jigsaw puzzle) Tynker automatically validates the puzzle based on predefined success and failure criteria.

• Quiz - A quiz module runs a set of quiz questions. Typically the questions are based on on the concepts covered in the chapter.

The students step through the lessons sequentially to complete them. In addition to these modules, you can also assign any programming project that you develop in the Teacher account to the student for reference. You can also assign any of the projects that you see on the gallery under “Explore” in the main toolbar. As the students work through the lessons the projects, you can view their work in the Lesson Progress tab of the class dashboard.



Tynker Workshop

Tynker workshop is where you design and build your projects. Here are some basics on the Workshop:

• The Stage is where all the visual parts of your program come together and you will see your program run here.

• At any point you can see all the Actors that you’ve added to the program in the Actors window below the Stage. The Stage is also in the Actors window because the Stage is just a special kind of Actor.

• You can add more actors using the buttons in the Actor window. • You can give another “look” to an Actor by adding a Costume to it.

Adding multiple Costumes to an Actor is a good way to create a stop motion animation.

• The Sounds tab lets you associate sounds that your Actors can use to make noises.

• The Coding area is where you drag and drop code blocks to create a Script that make your Actors do stuff.

• Use the categories or the search box to find code blocks. • The Media Library has a large collection of backgrounds, people,

animals, props, animations, sounds and music for use in your programs. • Use the built-in Art Studio to draw your own Actors.



Character Animation Studio Add Actor->Character Builder (Premium Feature) Build characters for your games and projects. These characters come with several animation sequences such as walk, run, attack, defend, dance, talk that you can readily use in your games. You can either use the presets such as pirate or fairy princess, or create your own character by mixing and matching body parts.

Art Studio Add Actor-> Draw your own Draw your own props and characters using a powerful vector based drawing tool.



Media Library Choose from Hundreds of predefined characters, animations, sounds, background scenes, props and music for your projects.

Physics Engine Use the blocks under the physics category to add physics to your projects. This reduces the code required to model gravity, linear and angular velocity, torque, impulse, friction and other physics properties. You can start the physics engine by using the “Start Physics” block.



Some more tips to help you: • There are a number of samples and starter documents that will help you

get started. • Use the block reference help to understand the function of each block. • All your projects are saved on the cloud in your account on tynker.com

and are private unless you share them. • Access to tynker.com will be available to you anytime from home and

school. • There is an auto-save option that saves your work every minute. It is off

by default. • There are a number of keyboard shortcuts to help you:

Command PC Mac

Save your project Control-S Command-S

Open Control-O Command-O

New Control-N Command-N

Cut Control-X Command-X

Copy Control-C Command-C

Paste Control-V Command-V

Undo Control-Z Command-Z

Redo Control-Y Command-Y

• Drag your scripts and Actors to the Backpack on the Toolbar and use them in any other of your projects.

• Save your project often – there is an indicator of unsaved changes on the toolbar.



Tynker Tips from Teachers Before the first day of class… Before the first day of class make sure that you have your classroom created with the Lesson Plan that you’ll be using for your class. If your school uses Google Apps for Education (GAFE), then make sure that you have the Class Code noted. Students will need the class code the very first time logging in using their GAFE accounts. If your school will not be using GAFE logins, then make sure you have created Tynker logins for students and used the “Generate Student Cards” to print out username/password login cards for students. Only assign one lesson per class period… I recommend only assigning one lesson at a time to your class. The Lesson Assignment feature allows teachers to control the timing and pace of their class. By only assigning a single lesson at a time, students will be working through the same lessons and problems at the same time. This creates a more collaborative class environment. Try to use all the lesson resources that Tynker includes in the Lesson Plan… Before the start of every class, I assign the lesson of the day then use the ‘Student View’ feature to project the student view on a smart board or projector. I like to read the Lesson Objective that is included in each course to students and briefly go over the code blocks and concepts that students are about to cover before having them work through the lesson at their own pace. Instructor Notes and Review Questions reinforce learning… Each Lesson Plan contains lots of useful information for teachers regarding each individual lesson. I like to review the Instructor Notes at the start of each class and use the pointers they provide to help engage students. The included Review Questions are great for reinforcing the concepts covered in each lesson. Ask three before me… I like to promote a collaborative and team environment in the classroom. I tell my students to “ask three before me.” I encourage them to ask each neighbor to either side and the Tynker Troll, to see if they can find the answers on their own.



The Tynker Help section has lots of “How do I…” questions and solutions that have been submitted by students and solved by experts. Tynker creates self-learners, students who understand that coding is a bunch of “problems” that have a solution that they can solve using the resources at their disposal. Remind students to use all the help resources found in Tynker… Always keep in mind that students can work through lessons multiple times. If a student still has questions or doesn’t understand a topic, have them search the Tynker Help section or run through a lesson another time. Lots of our students run through our lessons several times on their own because it is so enjoyable. Encourage students to demonstrate their understanding of other subjects using code… The best way to reinforce skills is to have students use them. Tynker is a fantastic way for students to demonstrate their learning and understanding in other subject areas. Use the STEM Lesson Library for some suggested starting points or come up with your own! Sharing is caring… I like to have student volunteers come up to the front of the class to share their game or project with the rest of the class. Not only is it a fun and easy way to inspire other kids to create something new, but it provides a great opportunity to practice public speaking and presentation skills. Use the Class Showcase to share student creations with parents as well. Inspire other teachers to Tynker… Remind them that they don’t need to know programming in order to teach kids to code with Tynker. Tynker has engaging and grade-specific curriculum that is all set and ready to use in any classroom and can be used in dedicated computer classes or as a supplement to your current curriculum.



Frequently Asked Questions What is a Project? A project is the repository of all the code, media and other resources needed to build and run your product. Some projects have built-in tutorials that guide you through the project. What is a Lesson? A lesson is the basic unit of instruction in Tynker. A lesson is comprised of one or more projects. Some of these projects are for review that students can “watch and learn” from. Others are puzzles they need to solve or complete unfinished projects to master specific skills. What is a Lesson Plan? A lesson plan is a series of lessons that you may group together to plan your curriculum for a classroom. You may have a different lesson plan for each classroom or share a single lesson plan across several classrooms. How do I create a Project and save it? You’ll see a button to create a new project on Tynker’s main page after you log into your account. Save it under “File>Save Project” or by pressing ctrl+S. What is a Tutorial? A tutorial is guided mode, where you can recreate the whole project in steps from the beginning all the way to completion. The in built tutor will guide you through the process. Projects that have a tutorial mode will display a “Learn” option in addition to “Open”. How do I create Lessons? If you have access to the Tynker Course Designer, you can create lessons, lesson plans and courses using the tools. The course designer is a premium project. What are the sharing and publishing options for a project? As a teacher, you can publish projects to the Class Showcase. What happens if I assign a project? When you assign a project to a classroom or any individual, it is added to their lesson plan and the students see it in their Classroom view.



Can I send a lesson from one classroom to another? Yes you can! Just use the Assign button on the lesson, and you should see a dropdown of all your classrooms in the “To” field. You can assign it to a different class or a specific set of students. How do I create a classroom? Use the “Add New Class” button on your Dashboard to create a class and select a lesson plan. If you have purchased one of our premium options you will be able to use the lesson plans and apply them right when you create a class. If not, you can still create a classroom and add students, and then later add lesson plans. How do I delete/rename a class? Use the Settings tab in the Classroom to manage your classroom. . On this tab, you will see a section for each classroom that you have created. You can delete a class, rename a class, or enter grade level information by clicking on the gear icon next to the class code on each classroom section How do I create student accounts? First select the classroom on the “My Classes” dashboard under the “Classroom” Tab. In the "Student Management" you'll see an orange button that says "Add Students." This allows you to add students to your classroom. There are three ways to set up student accounts: 1. If your students have Gmail accounts already, send them this

link http://www.tynker.com/schools and ask them to login with your class ID, which can be found at the top left-hand corner of the page.

2. You can also sign your students up for direct accounts with Tynker. Just enter their name and we'll assign them a username and password.

3. Alternatively, you can upload a CSV file with the students you want to import. The first row should be the labels for the subsequent rows. Use "first name" for the first name, "last name" for the last name, "username" for a desired username or email, "password" for desired password.

How do I delete students in my classroom? Hover over their name with your mouse. You'll see an “x” sign, which allows you to delete them from the classroom. Please note that when you delete a student, you won’t be able to see nor access their projects in “Class Projects” anymore. Students, however, will still be able to log into their accounts, access their projects, and Tynker normally. They just won’t have access to your classroom.



Can I create multiple classrooms? Yes! In fact, we encourage it. You can even have multiple Tynker classrooms per physical class. This helps if you have students who have different levels of experience with programming. If students are having trouble, for example, you can assign them more straightforward projects. Conversely, if they've pick up the material faster than expected, you can assign more challenging ones. How do I view student’s projects? First select the classroom on the “My Classes” dashboard under the “Classroom” Tab. Then view your students’ projects by clicking the “Class Projects” tab of the selected classroom. How can I share student projects with their parents and peers? You can use Tynker’s Showcase feature to share awesome student projects with their parents and the rest of the class. Just go to the “Class Projects” tab of the classroom. Under each student project you'll see a button that says “Add to Showcase.” You can access your class showcase by clicking the link on the left-hand side of the page. There, you can preview and publish your students’ work! At the time you add the project to the showcase, a snapshot of that project is created for your showcase. This way, if the student changes the project, the showcase still reflects the version that you approved. If you need to update a project with the student’s latest changes, simply remove the project and add it again to the showcase. My students have school-issued Google accounts. How do they join my classroom? Just send them this link http://www.tynker.com/schools and ask them to login with their school issued Google login id and then when prompted, enter the class ID, which can be found in the classroom details on your dashboard. What do the students see when they login? As a teacher, you can experience the student’s view. Click on “Student View” in any lesson to find out their Classroom experience. How do I feature all projects from my classroom into a portfolio? Go to the "Class Projects" tab in any classroom and select the projects that you want to publish to the Class Showcase. You can share the showcase with the students or parents.



How do I share my creations on a social network? The link to the Class Showcase is a public page that is accessible to anyone. This page can be tweeted or shared with anyone on a social network. The page displays the projects that you selected along with the first name of the author. Once you share the project in a showcase, anyone including parents, teachers or students can share the showcase as well as individual projects on a variety of social networks. How do I get more help? Please send a detailed email to [email protected]

Tynker User Guide for Teachers User Guide for Educators.pdf · User Guide for Educators Tynker ... Lesson Plan ... sign up for Tynker, add students and create a programming classroom

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