Changes

Teaching Kids to Code is a program that introduces kids to coding through a series of activities that make use of Turtle in Python. It will act as an introduction to object-oriented programming for late elementary school-aged kids. Computer science is sadly under-taught in the vast majority of public schools, something that will need to change as the subject is recognized for its importance relative to the core subjects (math, science, English, history). Kids need an easily accessible, fun way to learn how to code, starting with an introduction that gives them an understanding of the fundamentals of coding and the opportunities computer science allows, without overwhelming them with all the details.  

Teaching Kids to Code is a program that introduces kids to coding through a series of activities that make use of Turtle in Python. It will act as an introduction to object-oriented programming for late elementary school-aged kids. Computer science is sadly under-taught in the vast majority of public schools, something that will need to change as the subject is recognized for its importance relative to the core subjects (math, science, English, history). Kids need an easily accessible, fun way to learn how to code, starting with an introduction that gives them an understanding of the fundamentals of coding and the opportunities computer science allows, without overwhelming them with all the details.  

The basis of the project is that students start with a simple tutorial and are challenged to apply their cumulative knowledge to increasingly difficult games and activities. To make the whole of the program more game-like, the activities will be written in a story-like manner where the turtle is the main character, which can be named by the user. The tutorial will focus on controlling the turtle object’s basic movements with a fill-in-the-blank approach. Once students complete the tutorial, they will be able to apply the learned movements to at least two activities: one in which they move their turtle object to “collect” objects on the screen in a treasure hunt of sorts; the other in which they navigate their turtle through a maze. These activities lead up to drawing-centered games that utilize the skills previously learned in addition to teaching new structures, like for loops, again starting out in a fill-in-the-blank-style tutorial. In one activity, students will be challenged to redraw shapes that are shown on the screen, and they will be scored for how accurately drawn and concisely coded the shape is, and given suggestions for improved code. Students will not be expected to code from scratch, rather there will be a set of constructs to choose from for each line. Finally, using this same pseudo-coding from scratch approach, students are asked to draw one of three prompts of varying difficulty, given according to the score achieved in the shape drawing activity. This is a great opportunity for teachers to set up a final project that will showcase the learned skills of the students, or simply for students to bring together all of their newfound skills in a satisfying way.  

The basis of the project is that students start with a simple tutorial and are challenged to apply their cumulative knowledge to increasingly difficult games and activities. To make the whole of the program more game-like, the activities will be written in a story-like manner where the turtle is the main character, which can be named by the user. The tutorial will focus on controlling the turtle object’s basic movements with a fill-in-the-blank approach. Once students complete the tutorial, they will be able to apply the learned movements to at least two activities: one in which they move their turtle object to “collect” objects on the screen in a treasure hunt of sorts; the other in which they navigate their turtle through a maze. These activities lead up to drawing-centered games that utilize the skills previously learned in addition to teaching new structures, like for loops, again starting out in a fill-in-the-blank-style tutorial. In one activity, students will be challenged to redraw shapes that are shown on the screen, and they will be scored for how accurately drawn and concisely coded the shape is, and given suggestions for improved code. Students will not be expected to code from scratch, rather there will be a set of constructs to choose from for each line (similar to the Turtle Blocks activity). Finally, using this same pseudo-coding from scratch approach, students are asked to draw one of three prompts of varying difficulty, given according to the score achieved in the shape drawing activity. This is a great opportunity for teachers to set up a final project that will showcase the learned skills of the students, or simply for students to bring together all of their newfound skills in a satisfying way.  

Some concerns that I have are:

Some concerns that I have are:

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It's normal to need assistance with this, so please visit our IRC channel, #sugar on irc.freenode.net, and ask for help.

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* Is there anything else we should have asked you or anything else that we should know that might make us like you or your project more?

[[Category:2016 GSoC applications]]

[[Category:2016 GSoC applications]]