The following five sessions have been proposed and will be timetabled to match demand. Participants should anticipate bringing a laptop or tablet.
1. MicroBlocks and Micro:bit
Facilitated by John Hegarty, Clongowes
Find out about MicroBlocks and how to use it with Micro:bit to:
• use built in sensors
• log data and copy to spreadsheet to play with.
• link to external components - LEDs, small motors, etc
The aim would be to give folk a chance to play with stuff they might not have access to and discuss with others how they might use with their students.
2. App Inventor workshop
Facilitated by Natasha Kiely, Limerick Institute of Technology
This hands-on workshop provides an introduction to App Inventor. It is designed to address the learning needs of teachers who wish to introduce mobile app development in their classroom. The workshop will also be an opportunity for teachers to build a community of practice in the App Inventor area. If possible, please bring an Android phone/tablet for testing.
3. Threshold concepts in electronics, computing and programming
Facilitated by Mags Amond and Tony Riley, as themselves!
Mags and Tony will introduce practical and concrete ways to learn about threshold concepts of electronic circuits, binary representation, communications technology and computational thinking for participants to contribute their ideas, develop their own confidence and consider ways of teaching such concepts.
https://www.dkit.ie/system/files/Threshold_Concepts__and_Troublesome_Knowledge_by_Professor_Ray_Land_0.pdf4. Establishing your own Code Club
Facilitated by Darren Bayliss, Raspberry Pi Foundation
Darren will showcase Code Club, the resources, training etc offered to all educators across Ireland through the RaspberryPi Foundation and invite participants to role play the organisation of a code club in the workshop.
5. Teaching programming
Facilitated by Richard Millwood, Trinity College Dublin
English expert Jane Waite proposes there is a continuum of ways to teach programming from copying code, targeted tasks, shared programming, guided exploration, projects to tinkering. This session will explore each of these by trying them out in practice on each other and then discussing the place of each in a strategy to develop programming competence in learners. For preparation, read:
https://blogs.kcl.ac.uk/cser/2018/01/05/a-continuum-of-scaffolding/6. Turtlestitch - programming through embroidery
Facilitated by Richard Millwood, Trinity College Dublin
This session will offer substantial time to use Turtlestitch to make embroideries and then design a card to give learners to follow step-by-step in order to get started to create their own embroidery. For preparation read:
http://blog.richardmillwood.net/2017/10/20/turtlestitching-programming-embroidery/