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"Marlon Frausto is in pursuit of the new American dream. Just a few weeks ago he left his job, in Hispanic marketing for the legal industry, and moved to San Francisco. Every day he wakes at 5:30 a.m., commutes 45 minutes by train, and studies until 9 or 10 at night. He's spending down his savings and says he's getting help from "my loving family." At age 26, Frausto has gone back to school. Sort of. He's enrolled in a brand-new kind of trade school: the immersive web-development program, also known as a "coder boot camp." These programs promise, for several thousand dollars, to take people like Frausto and, in a manner of weeks, turn them into job-ready web developers."

"The push to make computer science a core subject in K-12 schools is on of the hottest, most popular educational reform issues of our time. England has already done it, and other countries have plans to follow suit. Here in the U.S., everyone from politicians to parents is talking about it. In a recent poll commissioned by Google, two-thirds of parents said that computer science should be required learning in schools. And those parents are right. Here's why…"

#26 is a must see video from McGuffey School District using QR codes throughout the curriculum content areas.

"Join thousands of Canadians across the country to teach beginner-friendly coding lessons in your community. No coding experience necessary."

"Like most students at the time, I did not have access to computer science classes when I attended Wilde Lake High School in Columbia during the 1980s. I only stumbled upon the field when my high school math teacher recommended that I take a FORTRAN programming course at Howard Community College. I quickly learned that programming was like nothing I had experienced in school before. Whenever I finally solved a problem, there was a deeply satisfying "aha!" moment. As a result, I studied computer science at Harvard and received my Ph.D. in the field from the University of California, Berkeley. Nearly four decades after I took that first FORTRAN class, I'm a professor of computer science and associate dean at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. I was fortunate to have found my passion, even though computer science was not taught at my school. The unfortunate fact is that most K-12 schools still do not teach computer science, and most of today's high school and college students - particularly women - have still had little or no exposure to computational thinking, coding or computer science. There are certainly many students who would make great computer scientists, or who could leverage computing skills to achieve success in any number of other fields, who never take a single related class. Even in Maryland, one of the most technologically advanced states in the nation, only 14 percent of students take a computer science class in high school, and nearly half of the public high schools do not offer any AP computer science classes."

"This week I started introducing my 4th and 5th grade STEM students to coding with the free iPad app, Hopscotch. I was not able to find a set of "challenges" with Hopscotch to use in my lessons, so I wrote and published a short eBook that I've titled, "Hopscotch Challenges." You can download it (FREE) in ePUB format from my DropBox account. Please check it out, share feedback as comments here or on Twitter (@wfryer), and submit additional ideas for challenges to add to the eBook using the Google form I included in it."

QuickDiff is an interesting tool that analyses differences in two very similar texts. It was actually developed for examining programming code, but could be a really useful tool to use with students to get them to look more closely at the texts they write and notice the mistakes and corrections and differences in the text.

QuickDiff is an interesting tool that analyses differences in two very similar texts. It was actually developed for examining programming code, but could be a really useful tool to use with students to get them to look more closely at the texts they write and notice the mistakes and corrections and differences in the text.

"We know that students learn best when content is meaningful and has a direct connection and application to their lives. However, while some maths concepts, such as telling the time or using money, can have immediate relevance, others seem to have very little application to children's daily lives. How often will 11 year old children really need to measure the size of angles, or work with cartesian graphs? I've found that teaching children to code may be part of the answer. This year, I've been teaching students in Years 2-6 to create simple arcade games using Scratch. In order for my students to be successful, they've been required to apply some core mathematical ideas that I've struggled to find a relevant use for in the past."

"CoderDojo clubs around the world use Scratch both online and offline to enable young people to express themselves, create projects, try new things and learn along with their peers. Scratch has been a vital tool not only in developing creative learning, but in also teaching coding concepts and problem-solving skills. Yesterday the latest version of Scratch was released in Beta. Here are some of the exciting things you have to look forward to and what you need to know!"

"This is the kick-off post in a 4 part series where we will cover each stage of implementing computer science in elementary school based on thousands of conversations with educators. While the month of June brings a lull to the toil from the school year, we're working hard to set you up with the resources you'll need this summer as you prepare to do it all over again. Over the next four weeks, we'll be taking the lessons we learned from our teachers this school year and sharing their coding implementation stories from beginning to end. Over the past 3 years, computer science in elementary has come a long way. Trailblazing schools who were just getting started, have now fully integrated Computer Science into their curriculum. While the majority of schools are on their way to that point. At Kodable, we focus on talking to as many people as possible and working hard to meet their needs regardless of the stage of implementation. In these thousands of conversations, the four stages of implementing computer science in elementary school have become very clear."

"The concept of literacy is notoriously elusive and hard to define. Aside from the shallow and intellectually-impaired  definition that sums up  literacy in  reading and writing printed text, any serious and profound investigation of literacy does, by implication, entail an analysis of the new ways of learning and meaning-making afforded by digitality. New digital media have provided learners with novel and revolutionary ways of producing, discussing, sharing and interacting with text. These ways, to say the least about them, are multimodally complex and call for an integrated set of skills that go beyond the mere ability to code and decode meaning. In this sense, to be literate in such a multimodal environment requires understanding and using a wide range of interconnected literacies. We are no longer talking about a single literacy as was the case since the invention of writing some 6000 year ago, we are, instead,  in front of multiple new emerging  and interdependent literacies. Today's students are asked to have a working knowledge of these literacies in order to be able to thrive in a globalized knowledge economy. Katchy Schrock has this wonderful resource where she features some awesome mini-posters defining the key literacies making up today's Literacy (with capital letter) landscape.  These visuals are ideal for classroom inclusion. I invite you to check them out and share with your colleagues."

"In this half-hour presentation at Education Week's Leaders To Learn From event in Washington, Aileen Owens, director of technology and innovation for Pennsylvania's South Fayette school district, describes her efforts around cultivating students' "computational thinking." At the event, Owens was recognized as an exceptional school district leader for her leadership in innovation in curriculum. Since being hired at South Fayette in 2010, Owens' passion has been on cultivating students' "computational thinking." That includes coding. But the real emphasis is on helping students learn to problem-solve; to think algorithmically, in step-by-step sequences; to debug and revise; and to work with abstract concepts."

"There have been complaints leveraged against out of the box robots like Dash and Dot, Ozobot, Hummingbird, Sphero. The complaints usually revolve around the canned and prescriptive nature of their uses and programs, that they lack creative engagement by the younger users. I personally love the excitement my learners have using these robots. As with all tools and technologies and with creative framing, though, they can be used in creative and imaginative ways. Mention robots to many English teachers and they'll immediately point down the hall to the science classroom or to the makerspace, if they have one. At many schools, if there's a robot at all, it's located in a science or math classroom or is being built by an after-school robotics club. It's not usually a fixture in English classrooms. But as teachers continue to work at finding new entry points to old material for their students, robots are proving to be a great interdisciplinary tool that builds collaboration and literacy skills. (How Robots in English Class Can Spark Empathy and Improve Writing) This past term, I had my 2nd through 4th grade students work on their robot-enhanced creative writing and stories. In small groups, students were asked to create a fictional storyline and use StoryboardThat.com to create both the physical scenes and the accompanying narrative. As part of their directions, they were told that they were going to create a 3D setting out of cardboard boxes, foam board, LED lights, and other craft materials; and that they would use Wonder's Dot with the Blocky App and Ozobot as the characters in their stories. Preparation time was divided between storyboarding, creating the scene, and learning how to use/code the robots. Because of all of the preparation and practice, the recording actually went quite quick and smoothly. Here is a break down of the learning events that learners were asked to complete:"

"We are living in an age of Gen Z-ers who, as digital natives, are in tune with technological advances in communication such as social media, gaming, and conducting research almost exclusively using the internet. Their avenues for engagement are changing and teachers who are increasing STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) instruction in their classrooms are exploring ways to incorporate more hands-on, immersive learning experiences that combine innovative technology with real-world connections. The motivation for doing so? To see their students' active participation in experiments and projects, as well as strengthening the four Cs to 21st-century skills: Critical Thinking, Collaboration, Communication, and Creativity.  Teachers have a variety of ways to help them expand what they already do with STEM. More teachers are including the study of robotics in their STEM curriculum because it introduces students to coding and programming. As students work through these key tech skills for building their robots and directing their movements, they're also growing their "4 Cs" skills. Let's look at how. "

"Chances are you know someone who likes to code, build things, hack things, or make, break, and fix things. Chances are also good that you have no idea what to get them for a gift. But don't worry: Co.Labs has you covered. Whether they're into hardware or software, stuff you wear or stuff you fly, still in elementary school or retired from IBM, we have just the thing for the hacker in your life."

""This is cool." With those three words from my 11-year-old son, I knew Apple had a hit on its hands with Swift Playgrounds, its iPad app for learning the company's Swift programming language. We didn't exactly have to pry him away, but he had reached that just-one-more-level-before-dinner type of self-motivation that warms an educator's heart. The app is free. So when Apple releases Swift Playgrounds on Tuesday in the App Store, I recommend giving it a try. It's geared for middle school kids, but adults can learn too -- it sucked me in. You'll need Apple's new iOS 10 software, also arriving Tuesday. And just so you know, some older iPads like the first-generation iPad Mini can't run it."