Coding from home 2
Publication date: March 25, 2020
Focus on practical tips for online teaching, Coding bingo and a Coding treasure hunt
By Annika Östergren Pofantis, EU Code Week team
Be realistic. Be patient. Be kind to yourself. Adapt. Four tips from Ana Stamatescu, Romanian Code Week ambassador and education coordinator at TechSoup to teachers around the world who are starting to teach their classes online. Ana shared her experience on remote teaching together with Madhumalti Sharma, Code Week Ambassador Luxembourg and EU robotics national coordinator, Pauline Maas, Leading Teacher the Netherlands and Stefania Altieri Leading teacher from Italy at the second EU Code Week “Coding from Home” webinar Tuesday 24 March.
Ana encouraged teachers to start by picking two to three tools and testing them with your students. “Change if they are not suitable for you”, she said. Ana’s favourites are Zoom for online classes, Kahoot for interactive quizzes as well as the more traditional WhatsApp, Facebook and YouTube. She also encouraged teachers to talk seek support from their local teaching communities. “If you need help, don’t be afraid to ask for it”. Ana’s presentation is available here.
Take a cookie break!
Madhumalti shared some practical tips for people who are moving their coding workshops online:
- Use conference tools such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, GoToMeetings. Some are available for free for education and teachers.
- If bandwidth allows, keep all participants’ cameras on so children feel connected.
- Invite participants to share their screen to show their projects.
- Use mute/unmute, raise hand features.
- Take a break – like in real class allow for a short break with fruits and snacks.
- Record the session and share references.
She underlined that parents are welcome to join but mostly. children can manage on their own. The youngest may need help to set up the conference tools, but quickly get independent. Madhumalti’s presentation is available here.
Coding bingo and coding treasure hunt
Pauline shared her online activity Coding bingo, which includes activities ranging from baking muffins and talking about input and output, to pixel art to the Sandwich robot man where you program your parent/teacher!
Stefania shared her coding treasure hunt, which is inspired by Trivial Pursuit, where all questions are linked to coding. Read more in this blog post.
See the recording of the webinar here.
Join Coding from Home on 27 March at 11.30 CET
A third Coding from home webinar will take place on Friday 27 March 11.30 CET. Speakers include
Lidija Kralj. Assistant Minister at Ministry of Science and Education, Croatia; Imen Taktak, Code Week ambassador Tunisia on robotics; Maura Sandri, Leading Teacher Italy on a 21-day coding challenge and Paulo Torcato, Portuguese Leading teacher on Scratch and basic school robotics.
