Category: Learn to Code Classes

NOW we’re talking! Let’s get down to games!

The number one question I get in my coding classes is from wide-eyed students, who come up to me and say, “Hang on… with this stuff, can I write games?”

And the answer is, “Def. Initely.”

And you can, too, at 9:45, Irish/UK time!

Unplugged

We start with a good, old-fashioned game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Steve will play a quick game with you all (so get your hands ready!) and we’ll visit with a school in Sweden, as well.

Be sure to send in which object you pick (rock, paper, or scissors) in the live chat so there’s no cheating! 😉

Coding

After all the excitement of playing games live and figuring out how the game play works, we’re going to move to the Rock, Paper, Scissors playground and actually code our own!

Because there’s been a chunk of code written for us we’ll have a great time taking apart their code, adding to it, changing it, like good, real developers.

In our final version of the game we’ll even add a theme to it, maybe to get it to fit into our classroom reading a bit better.

Context

To get more context and other ideas for extending your coding knowledge from today’s lesson, visit the day’s page at https://www.thecodehub.ie/eu-code-week-2020/day9.html.

We’ve had so, so much fun this first week, and we’re going to do it all again next week!

So whether you want to watch it live with us at 9:45, Irish/UK time or catch it later, we think it’s a great way to get a taster of coding on your iPads in the classroom (or at home).

And if you’re coming tomorrow, we’ll be live at 9:45am, Irish/UK time!

Big day for us today, I hope you’ll join us live at 9:45am, Irish/UK time!

You can give your poor, tired legs a break today, as we’ll be thinking about our dances of the last few days more than doing them.

Unplugged

Steve is going to get you thinking about your dance in terms of variables today.

This is a big part of computational thinking: we break down things into smaller pieces to try and understand how we interact with them, where we might store information, what steps we follow.

So put your dancing shoes away for the day!

Learn to Code 2

The huge step we’re going to be taking today isn’t on the dance floor; it’s in Swift Playgrounds. We’ll start with a page or two from the Learn to Code 2 playground where we explore variables.

I love loops for the power they give us: write code and have Swift run it over and over again. Variables are a great tool for storing our information that we want to use in our app. We can collect that information from the person using our app, from a website, from some other piece of code.

I’ll teach you how to use variables today to count the number of gems we get Byte to collect.

You can check out the mini-site to see what we’re going to do, in depth, for Thursday. You’ll even see ideas to take variables further in the “Extend” section.

#EveryoneCanCode

We’ve got a special guest school today who show off their coding skills and computational thinking from just down the road: Loreto Abbey Dalkey!

See you on the broadcast!

Well, today’s the day we’ve all been waiting for, the start of EU Code Week (well, for us)!

Join us LIVE, today at 9:45am, Irish/UK time!

Day One: Meet Byte

Like I’ve mentioned elsewhere, we’ll meet Byte today on Swift Playgrounds and learn a little bit about commands, the building block in our programming toolbox.

We’ve got origami paper dancers, we’ve got all kinds of stuff for you!

So bring your crayons, your problem-solving skills, a couple pieces of paper, and your coding fingers, because you’re going to need all of that and more tomorrow.

Logging On

At 9:45am we’ll kick things off on the YouTube channel, just follow the link at https://www.thecodehub.ie/live/ and it’ll take care of the rest. If you have questions, make sure you or someone you can bother to ask questions has a YouTube account.

We’ll spend the first 10 minutes on unplugged activities. Then we’ll move to the iPad and get some coding done.

But we will definitely and without a doubt, get to questions at the end.

I’ve discussed the material we’ll be covering ad nauseam, but you can get the PDF we’re working from at http://apple.co/quickstartcode_UK. The mini-site also has a breakdown of all the things we’ll be doing today.

I’m very excited that you’ll be joining us for EU Code Week in some shape or form, and we’ll see you on the live feed!

Are you ready for some coding?

Monday morning we’ll be kicking off our Follow-Along Coding sessions with Swift and iPads!

We’ve got a really fun session lined up.

The Theme

The theme today is all about commands and introducing you to Swift Playgrounds.

We’ll meet Byte, our coding buddy throughout Learn to Code 1 and 2.

But before we jump straight into coding, we’ll do something away from the screen for a second.

Unplugged

Steve has an amazing unplugged activity in store for you: origami paper dancer.

We use these ‘unplugged’ activities as ways of introducing computational thinking and computational concepts without even using screens or devices. So if you don’t have iPads for everyone, or maybe the kids need a break, these activities get you up out of your chair and interacting with your classmates.

Coding

You’ll need Swift Playgrounds and the Learn to Code 1 playground on your iPad to follow along with the code. You can see how to download all of these things in our video, “How to prepare for Quick Start to Code for EU Code Week.”

We’ll walk through these early pages with you on Monday morning.

I can’t wait to get started coding with you and I hope you’re excited, too.

You can find out all the gory details on our mini-site for day one, and we’ll see you online!

We’ll be live on Monday morning from https://www.thecodehub.ie/live/.

EU Code Week is nearly upon us and I’m sure, for many of you, your head has been all over the place this school year!

This surely has been an unprecedented return to school, and our sessions being online this year are a testament to that.

Running these Sessions in Class

With all the craziness, we understand that you may not get to log in exactly at 9:45am (Irish/UK time) and spend 45 glorious minutes learning about unplugged activities and coding in Swift Playgrounds.

It’s been a hectic autumn and I have no doubt many of you are working on coping, never mind coding!

These sessions are designed to put your mind at ease and introduce your students to coding in an easy and engaging manner. But we’re not just focused on the coding piece.

In terms of running these sessions in your classroom, if you’re wrestling with WiFi availability, having to wear masks or not wear masks, struggling with keeping the rooms clean and together, you don’t have to run them live with us.

Sure, it’s an added bonus if you can, because you could ask questions if they arise in near real-time. But if you want to introduce coding to your students outside of the hours we’re running the sessions, we’ll post the recording from that day’s session to the relevant page on the mini-site.

EU Code Week Video Playlist

As I mentioned yesterday, I’ve posted a playlist page, which will also have all of the sessions we record for you to play back at your leisure, either in class, or to have your students with their own iPads to try at home.

Whatever way you join us, I can’t wait to show you some of the cool stuff you can do with your students (or for yourself!) with Swift Playgrounds.