Computer Science Week 2016.

Computer Science week came along fast again this year and students were looking forward to it again. In 2015 we mainly relied on The Hour of Code website. This year, however, there was a chance to re-plan the week to include the introduction of Swift Playgrounds and so we mostly relied on this. I ran a few different classes, one for my students, one for teachers who wanted to teach code and one for students from a local K12 school. Below are details of how the whole process was scheduled. All in all the activities went well and everyone took to Swift really fast.

Group 1. Tomar Trust.                                                                                                                                         This group were from a local secondary school and came in for a few hours to do some coding and tech workshops.                                                                                                                                                     To start of the workshops, the students all complete the Swift Hour of Code activity. After that we had rotating groups of different coding and STEM activities. In these groups, students were introduced to Coding through Sphero and Osmo. They were also introduced to Virtual Reality through Theta 360 and Augmented Reality through Quiver app.

Group 2. Class group.                                                                                                                                                  When completing the computer science week activities with my own class we dedicated 2 classes (8 hours) to the activities which meant that we were able to delve a little deeper into the coding activities. In addition to exploring the Hour of Code activity in Swift, students also had the chance to complete the Learn to Code 1 Activity. Students worked through this at their own pace and most managed to complete all activities.

Group 3. Apple RTC Cork Everyone Can Code.                                                                                           The third group of the week was a group of teachers who signed up to our Swift Everyone Can Code course at Apple RTC Cork. During this two-hour workshop, the teachers were introduced to Swift as well as Osmo and Sphero. Each of the teachers completed the Swift Hour of Code Activity. After this we had discussions about how they could integrate Swift and coding into their curriculums.

New Directions students who completed the Swift Hour of Code.