Workshop Prep

Background and Recommended Classroom Approach

✻ NOTE: For those participating in multiple programming workshops, this video is used in all programming workshop sequences. So, if it looks familiar, you may have already seen this.

Background on Computing by Design Framework

This workshop is focused squarely on the programming component of a CxD Project. For a little bit of background, you will find that the Computing by Design framework is project-centric in the approach.

Each project has three phases, where programming is a very important component of all three. Our Innovation Workshop covers the breadth of the Computing by Design framework. We have found that the programming in any project presents a fine line between a wonderfully empowering experience (when students struggle and get things working) and a sometimes frustrating experience that becomes a missed opportunity. Therefore we are offering these programming workshops to provide a solid foundation on building the applications.

Learning to Program: A Two-Pronged Approach

We encourage you to offer students a two-pronged approach to learning to program. Computing by Design projects provide an "application first" approach to programming where students are provided direct guidance on creating a specific type of application through templates and tutorials -- like with trivia , a chatbot, IoT etc. This approach complements the many great tutorials available online that provide a "concept first" approach by stepping through concepts in programming. Facilitating both approaches for students provides a varied experience -- strengthening knowledge and offering more opportunities to ignite interests.

Identify an online tutorial site that you can use in your classroom to supplement any project work. Over the course of the workshop try out a few basic online programming tutorials from popular sites to facilitate this "concept first" approach, and consider how you might manage a self-paced assignment based on milestones. How might you use these self-guided tutorials as "filler time" or dedicate scheduled time to their completion?

Getting Started with Slack

Slack will be our primary communication platform for the workshop. The video above provides a brief introduction on the features of Slack, but more help and tutorials can be found at https://slack.com/help.

Getting Started with Replit

Replit is the recommended programming environment for many of our projects. The video above provides a brief introduction on the features of Replit, but more help and tutorials can be found at https://docs.replit.com/.

Getting Started with Particle Build Editor

Particle offers a web-based editor (https://build.particle.io/build/) that makes programming a device pretty easy. To prepare for the workshop you will want to create a Particle account and know how to access the programming environment. We will get to actually programming a little bit later.