Google CS First - free program to teach students programming

Google CS First is a free program with curriculum and resources to from computer science clubs for kids ages 9-14. It can also be used in school. It has a lot of resources and themes, including Music & Sound (create a music video and build an interactive music display), Fashion & Design (build fashion-themed apps), Storytelling (create interactive stories), Game Design (code a game), and so on.

Materials include videos, lesson plans, tips and programming in Scratch and are easy to find and use. This is a great way to get students interested in programming and computer science, and also a great way to get them thinking critically and creatively.

Themes

Lesson plan pages:

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Scratch - free, easy to use "programming" system from MIT

Google Blockly - easy to use visual programming language

Free computer science resources for teachers and students

Google Code University - free computer science classes

Learning HTML Code - some resources to get started

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Tynker - free web app for learning how to program

This week is Computer Science Education Week. Tynker is a free web app that teaches how to program. It is similar in appearance to Scratch and includes lesson plans and curriculum, classroom management tools, and examples of student work.

It is self paced and allows students to work on their own. Students can use Tynker to create web apps, games, model science projects, do graphics and much more.

In addition to being a web app, there are also tablet apps for iOS and Android.

Check Tynker out here: http://www.tynker.com/

Related:

Scratch - free, easy to use "programming" system from MIT

Google Blockly - easy to use visual programming language

Free computer science resources for teachers and students

Google Code University - free computer science classes

Learning HTML Code - some resources to get started

Computer Science Education Week is next week - here are some resources

Computer Science Education Week begins on Monday December 8th. This is a great time to show the importance of coding and STEM education in American schools. 

The site has information, resources, links, lesson plans, information on the Hour of Code, curriculum  and much more. 

Computer Science classes teach logic, creativity and problem solving and are an essential skill for our students. 

Here are some more resources:

Ohio University's illustrious Russ College of Engineering and Technology has produced two unique infographics revolving around advancements in the computer science industry that will excite any young learner.

“On The Pulse: Electrical Engineering innovations that Connect People and Communities”

“Remarkable Advances in Electrical and Computer Engineering.”

Scratch - free, easy to use "programming" system from MIT

Google Blockly - easy to use visual programming language


Free computer science resources for teachers and students


Google Code University - free computer science classes

Learning HTML Code - some resources to get started

Scratch - free, easy to use "programming" system from MIT

Scratch is a free, easy to use, web app from MIT that allows students to create basic programs using a visual interface. Students can program animations, games and videos by dragging blocks together. Each block represents a function and snap together to create the program.

It is a great tool for teaching students basic programming logic and processes.

There is a huge community of users and plenty of shared examples to learn from, as well as an Educator Resource page.

Here is a video explaining it more: http://vimeo.com/65583694

Here is an example showing the programming blocks:

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Google Blockly - easy to use visual programming language

Free computer science resources for teachers and students

Google Code University - free computer science classes

Learning HTML Code - some resources to get started

Google Blockly - easy to use visual programming language

  

Google Blockly is a visual, web based, programming language that works by having users drag blocks of commands and programming together to build their application. It is a great way to learn about programming because the blocks will only fit where the commands would work, like a puzzle. There is no need to memorize terms or worrying about brackets and formatting. You can also export your blockly code as real code to use.

It is still in preview, with demo's available for practice and to give feedback to Google on how it works.




I'm hoping this goes live soon as I think it is a great learning resource for learning how to program. I'd love to use it to learn and refresh my programming skills, seeing as how I only know some HTML. I have taken courses and used BASIC, Visual BASIC, Pascal and Fortran. I'd love to learn how to make apps though and think that teaching students how to make apps is a great idea for education.



Related:

Free computer science resources for teachers and students
Google Code University - free computer science classes

Learning HTML Code - some resources to get started

Free computer science resources for teachers and students

My school has an award-winning computer science program and the teacher, who is also the school's webmaster, has a great list of resources for computer science students and teachers.

The site has links to lessons he uses plus external links on everything from HTML to Java to CSS.

If you teach computer science or are a student of it, this is a great resource for you.


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Learning HTML Code - some resources to get started

Google Code University - free computer science classes

Mind the Gap - Google encourages women to enter Computer Science

It's a well known fact that engineering is dominated by men. A group of women at Google in Israel is trying to change that through a program they started in 2008 called "Mind the Gap!". This program encourages girls to pursue math, science and technology education and careers. Girls visit Google's office and tech conferences to talk to female engineers and get more interested in engineering. Data shows participants are more likely to go into STEM fields than those who didn't participate.

You can read more at the projects homepage: http://cse.proj.ac.il/index_units.htm 

This is a great program and I hope more companies will look at doing this to help encourage STEM education and careers.


Source:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/02/mind-gap-encouraging-women-to-study.html

Learning HTML Code - some resources to get started

I've been teaching myself HTML over the last few months to do more with my blog and class sites than the templates allow. I had taken BASIC in high school and advanced BASCI, PASCAL, and Fortran in College. I also learned G-Code, which is the programming language for CNC machines when I was working for a small company as an engineer. This is making it easier to learn HTML code.

Here are some resources I've found to help learn HTML:

w3schools - html tutorial - easy to use and read

Learn basic HTML Tags

HTML Beginner Tutorial - mini lessons and explanations on HTML code

Useful HTML Codes and Tags




Do you have any good HTML programming resources?


UPDATED:

From my Google+ circles - Code Academy -free, interactive way to learn how to code

Discovery Education Dawn Junior Wildlife Champions-free lesson plans about oil spills and wildlife

Dawn Junior Wildlife Champions is another great resource for Discovery Education, in partnership with Dawn.

The site has three lessons, recommended for grades 3-5, available for download. The lessons contain investigative research, hands-on experiments, and even at-home activities. There are also teacher resources and tools. The lessons are about the issues relating to oil spills and the environment and wildlife.

These lessons can be adapted for use with other grade levels also.

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Google Code University - free computer science classes

Google Code University is a collection of free courses on computer science.

There is no registration and all materials are free to use. There are courses on programming languages, web programming, systems and more. There are basic tutorials and advanced classes. Some of the materials are from actual college computer science courses.

This is a great resource for computer science classes and can be used in class or as extra reinforcement.