Group items tagged

"I'm one of four teacher facilitators for our Junior Coding Club. We meet once a week during second nutrition break to code. The group's made up of many beginner coders, but also a couple of advanced coders. At lunch today, one of the advanced coders came rushing into the classroom, so excited to share his news. He decided to put a hold on Code Academy, and start using Scratch. During the week, he used the computer version of Scratch to create a flight simulator. This simulator was truly incredible! This Grade 4 student was so thrilled about what he did, that it was hard not to also feel thrilled. While it was wonderful to see this student so passionate about learning, it was also amazing to hear all of the thinking behind his choices. I was honestly in awe! He thought of everything. He even researched to find out the details about planes at take-off, and used this information in his simulator. He could explain all of his choices and the thinking behind these choices. In this short video clip below you can hear just a tiny snippet of this explanation."

"What can you write in 10 minutes or less? Let's find out! For a quick creative writing exercise, try one of the 21 writing prompts below, excerpted from Chronicle Books' 642 Tiny Things to Write About. Each prompt was created by a writing teacher at the San Francisco Writers Grotto to be done in 10 minutes or less. For a bigger creative challenge, do one writing prompt a day for 21 days."

"Lego is phenomenal super-toy, which helps stimulate kids' creativity, imagination, as well as logical thinking. Yet, school teacher Alycia Zimmerman do not only use it as a toy, but also as a great aid to develop basic math skills among her young minds. Lego blocks, she finds, are good tool to explain fractions, squares and other mathematical concepts. "In the classroom, the tiny bricks are now my favorite possibility-packed math manipulative," she writes in an article for Scholastic that goes more into depth about these bricks' potential uses."

"The tiny and ridiculously inexpensive Raspberry Pi Zero has already proven to be a huge hit, selling out everywhere (including on the front cover of 10,000 magazines). But if you're one of the lucky 20,000 or so who managed to get hold of one of the £4 computers, you might be asking a deceptively simple question -- what next? The Zero is a surprisingly powerful machine, with 512MB of RAM and a CPU faster than the original Pi, but what do you need to get started and what projects can you tackle from day one? The following intro guide will help you go beyond simply staring at the miniature, refined brilliance of the Zero hardware, and actually start using it to make things, play games and experiment."

"Be impressed with what physics based puzzle apps can do to help your kids excel when it comes to understanding physics. Puzzle apps make learning physics fun. Let your kids' creativity soar when they become tiny physicists to solve their physics apps and puzzle apps. Physics apps are the answer to making an otherwise boring subject exciting. Pique their interest by reinforcing the information they learn in school in a fun way. Kids love puzzle apps, so getting them to learn required material will be easier than ever. Try the best physics based puzzle apps on the market and watch kids learn with ease."

"I've been exploring the new PuppetMaster app and I am enchanted. I see serious potential for this free, intuitive, open-ended tool to encourage creativity across a wide range of ages, from pre-school to adult! PuppetMaster allows children to animate anything and to record their action and sound to create movies. It encourages the creation of visual art in any medium and it encourages active storytelling and sharing. And the learning curve is tiny!"

"In early 2012, the Raspberry Pi Foundation released a $35 computer and the internet went wild (ok, a very small, mostly tech bloggy part). This was the Raspberry Pi 1, Model B. Originally only for the educational market in the U.K., it quickly became a must-have, DIY device around the world. Was it the first, tiny single board computer? Far from it. Could you use it out of the box? Nope. For any of its shortcomings, the Raspberry Pi has thrived not only due to its affordability but also because of a global community of passionate teachers, tinkerers and professionals who've taken the time to support and share their knowledge-and love-for this little board. In this article, I'll discuss the Raspberry Pi basics so you can start your own DIY computing journey. What is the Raspberry Pi? An electronic tool that you can play with, so let's get to playing."

"A matchbox-sized, programmable device launches in the US and Canada today, aimed at offering children a gentle introduction to the world of computers. Already used in schools across the UK, the BBC micro:bit is designed to make it easy for kids to write simple programs to control the board's hardware, with creations to date including basic games and animations. The device packs a 25 LED matrix display, a motion sensor, accelerometer and two buttons onto a tiny 4cmx5cm board. It can be programmed using easy-to-grasp tools, such as the drag-and-drop programming environment Scratch, or if the user is more confident, by coding in a variety of languages, including JavaScript or MicroPython."

"In this instructable, we're going to design a roller coaster for marbles using Tinkercad! (Or whatever tiny round objects you have around at home :D)"

"Think 4 year olds are too young for augmented reality? If you said, "Yes!" you're wrong!! Take a look at this video (parental permission) of 4 and 5 year old PreK students at their first look at augmented reality (AR)."

"Once you get your iPhone upgraded to iOS 9, you might be overwhelmed. While iOS 9 doesn't pack a lot of grand new visual features, the update does include tons of little tricks that make using your iPhone and iPad even more ridiculously easy to use. Here are all the secret iOS 9 tricks every users should know:"

Very neat collection of online art creation tools.