“I really enjoyed this training and I left feeling excited to implement it in the classroom. Thank you!”
Bridget
Te Ao Mārama
The ByteEd team is available to run face-to-face and/or online professional development sessions for teachers.
Workshops can explore how to teach computational thinking by using each of the Dinosaur series kits. PLD can be catered to suit the needs of your team and can aid the initial set up and use of the kits in the classroom, as well as ongoing support in later years as new staff are introduced and as more Play Code Learn kits are produced.
Example of content coverage for PLD Workshop 1 Dinosaur Steps:
Introduction to ByteEd & digital technologies/computing.
Computational Thinking: What is this? Why teach computational thinking? What are the key ideas?
Key ideas of Computational Thinking: Suggestions for teaching computational thinking with Dinosaur Steps based on algorithms, programs, pattern recognition, abstraction, decomposition, and logical thinking.
Augmented Reality: What is this? Where is AR used today? How is it beneficial as a learning tool?
Educational pedagogies linked to Play Code Learn development and how we can integrate many curriculum subjects with the teaching of Dinosaur Steps.
Two further workshops can be run based on the progression of the next two Play Code Learn kits in digital technologies & computational thinking.
Suggestion of content coverage for the next two workshops:
Dinosaur Loops Overview:
Recap of the computational thinking utilised in Dinosaur Steps.
Unplugged activities teaching the next steps, in particular with a focus on commands, functions and iteration (repeats and loops). Use Dinosaur Loops and explore teaching activities for all areas of computational thinking. Share examples of a potential teaching program and challenges.
From unplugged to digital, using iteration in programming.
Ideas for the integration of Dinosaur Loops with other curriculum subjects.
Dinosaur Commands Overview:
Recap of the computational thinking utilised in Dinosaur Steps and Loops.
Introduction to the use of gamification/gamified learning as a teaching tool.
Unplugged activities teaching the next steps, introducing the next computational thinking concepts of variables, conditionals, comparative operators, logic gates.
Use Dinosaur Commands and explore teaching activities for all areas of computational thinking. Share examples of a potential teaching program and challenges.
From unplugged to digital: Moving from using to creating with augmented reality, exploring digital challenges bringing together all computational thinking concepts developed so far.
Ideas for the integration of Dinosaur Commands with other curriculum subjects.
