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Resources for Teaching Coding & Computational Thinking

While the emphasis in this class has been to build up your own skills and ability to code and to think computational, several people have asked about potential resources for teaching coding.  To that end, here are some resources that we personally use.  There are literally hundreds of possible resources, so this only scratches the surface, but I find that these resources are great for getting any teacher started on teaching elementary coding.

 

  1. Code.org: https://code.org Links to an external site. : There are dozens of different courses and curriculum for teaching coding at elementary, middle, and high school levels.  Largely the Code.org curriculum consists of introducing coding through solving puzzles.
  2. Bootup: https://bootuppd.org/curriculum Links to an external site. : Bootup is a non-profit organization that trains elementary teachers to teach coding using open-ended, interest-based projects.  Their lesson plans and other teaching materials are all free to the public.
  3. Barefoot Computing: https://www.barefootcomputing.org/ Links to an external site. : This is from an English group that supports elementary (Key stage 1 and KS2) teachers in their endeavors to teaching computing.  It's a great community with lots of potential resources.
  4. Codingiselementary.org/catalog:  My IP&T 372 TAs have helped me put together a list of tools/products that were created for kids to learn to code.  Note that these are NOT curricula, but the tools themselves.  The list has over 350 unique tools.  We'll soon be converting it to an official website but for the time being, here is our working Google Sheet with all the tools: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QOQuWKJVN6RnrzoG9AgQFcqKzIpdGjkOLu8gI2zf5a0/edit?usp=sharing Links to an external site. 
  5. Twitter:  There are some amazing teachers who teach coding and regularly post about it.  In fact, there are so many that I can't really share them all.  But here are the handles of a dozen people/organizations I follow that regularly give me great ideas on how to teach elementary coding.
    1. @scratchedteam, @scratch, @CeMoCreates, @tinkeringstudio, @janewaite, @cas_london_crc, @caschat_uk, @microbit_edu, @sue_sentance, @yallsop, @BrendaBass63, @CodingMcKay