Welcome to ECT!

[jln]

Welcome to the Exploring Computational Thinking forums! We’re very
interested in knowing who else is exploring computational thinking
(CT), so we have set this area aside for quick introductions. Are you
a K-12 teacher, administrator, parent, student, or simply someone
interested in learning more about CT? How did you find out about our
site, and what do you hope to learn from and/or contribute to it?

If you are a professional using CT in your field, please share your
experiences to help us understand the diversity of people that engage
in this type of thinking and approach on a regular basis. If you are
a
parent or student, let us know what aspects of CT interest you most
and how you’d like to build upon and improve your own CT skills.
Educators, please share any suggestions or concerns regarding the
incorporation of CT into the core curriculum!

To start, let me first introduce myself. My name is Jennifer and I am
a middle school math teacher, currently working at Google to develop
CT models and materials that illustrate how it can be incorporated
into the K-12 curriculum. I am interested in meeting other educators
who want to apply CT in their own curriculum and parents who want to
support their children as they improve their computational thinking
skills, as well as students themselves!

Please let me know how you are using our site and we'll do what we
can
to make the most of these forums!

[G Salgado]

I am interested in the program as a parent.  I was an IT Specialist and also an Instructor of Statistics at college level.  I have a kid (a grandson) with ADHD that is in fifth grade.  He ended the fourth grade behind his classmates in math, and failed the district math test.  In summer I reviewed with him the four basic arithmetic operations, stressing the procedures as if I were developing a computer program, and it worked!  Now he is at level with his class and capable of combining and applying the basic arithmetic operations in more advanced math problems.  I wonder if the resources developed for teachers can be used by parents (and grandparents) too, not only for math courses but with other subjects. 

[Maria Litvin]

Great initiative, thanks. My name is Maria Litvin and I teach math and computer science at Phillips Academy in Andover, MA. I've been teaching a course that blends discrete mathematics and Python programming for three years now.  I believe that the two go together very nicely, and the course has been a success.  Several other high schools are teaching it, using my (with Gary Litvin) textbook, "Mathematics for the Digital Age and Programming in Python" (Skylight Publishing, 2008, 2010).  I've also taught this material at the Google CAPE program in Boston last summer to rising 9th graders, and in a workshop for public middle and high school teachers organized by TechBoston.  The workshop was well received, which suggests that there is interest in CT among K12 teachers.  I think for CT's success in K12 it will be necessary not only to incorporate elements of computer programming into the current math core curricula but also to reshape the curricula a little, adding elements of discrete mathematics.

[Pacita Pena]

Hello....I am an educator and at the moment in chargo of the Educational Programa for the One LapTop per Child Program in Paraguay. Currently working with kids from 1st to 7th grade. I do not come from the Tech field but I have always been a teacher pushing towards thinking and reasoning, aspects that are usually emphazised with programming language. We are strongly pushing the use of Activities from Sugar Lab that use basic computational language and Phyton will be one to be used pretty soon. At the moment we are writing instrumento to measure logic and mathematical skills. If anyone knows of school tests designed to tests these skills....thank you for sharing with us. I will be in contact with ECT from now on! Pacita Peña

[Karim Logue]

My name is Karim, and I'm the founder of Mathalicious, which provides teachers with real-world math content.  Lessons are aligned to Common Core standards, and explore everything from technology to sports to health & wellness to personal finance.  As I noted in the math-specific forum, I try to include as many computational thinking opportunities for students as possible.  However, as a content writer, I cannot be sure that a teacher will have access to the required technologies, and thus have to offer these resources as ancillary.

(Also, please forgive my lack of any good profile.  My ka...@mathalicious.com email address is though Google Apps.  However, for some reason there's some mysterious second ka...@mathalicious.com account, which precludes my creating a profile.  Maybe someone can help merge those (e.g. "A+B-->A"?)

[Sue Downing]

Hi Jennifer,

I am a substitute teacher K-8, hoping for a full-time position. I discovered ECT through a blog. I went through the Introduction to Python TE and have a question about exercise 8. It says that x=3, yet the page shows that for "x is less than 12 and x is greater than 2" the result is false. I believe it is true. Sue 

[Jennifer Newell]

Thank you, I made the correction to exercise 8b of Introduction to Python so that it is now in fact false. Your feedback is appreciated!

Jennifer

[Sue Downing]

What a quick response and a good fix. I am impressed!

[Phil Wagner]

Hello everyone,

 My name is Phil Wagner and I am Google's Curriculum Fellow for Computational Thinking in Science. I wanted to take this opportunity to invite you to explore the site and leave your thoughts, resources and experiences on the forum.

This forum exists to support, inspire, and encourage you to try out the principles of CT with your students. I like to think of it as the 21st century version of the scientific method where we use the power of computing/algorithms/data to make incredible discoveries.

My background, I have taught math, science, and robotics in California/Colorado for grades 8-12th. A few years ago, I started using computational thinking in my classroom to help students better understand concepts. Additionally, there were some topics (for example in Biology/Genetics) that required computational thinking to both do and understand. I have to say, it made a powerful difference in what we were able to do and learn in the classroom.

If you have any questions or ideas please contribute them to the forum and I or other members of the community can collaborate with you on it.

[uves.m...@googlemail.com]

Hi,

i intented to use the introduction to python in a class a few months before. Now since I am ready to got, the Teachers worksheet  is still there, but the Student version has changed. Is there anyway I could obtain a copy of the old material?

Also, are you aware of any translations of the material and if not am I able to translate it my self? I like to teach python to german 7th graders, who don't speak/read English that fluent (yet).

[Phil Wagner]

Hi,
I'm glad to hear that you are planning on using Intro to Python
lesson, I'd love to hear how it goes!

Recently we updated all of the lessons for Python 2.7 and to
incorporate educator's feedback: The student and teacher lesson plans
were combined into one and Introduction to Python was updated with
more examples and student instructions.

The updated Introduction to Python lesson is on the ECT lessons site
and can be found here:
https://docs.google.com/a/google.com/document/d/1Ogba6tWvp1SMyRChpP_YVBFeCTfdA0IDJwQJTOiqNiw/edit.

If you would like to translate any of our lessons, Google's Translate
tool is available inside the document. From the menu, select tools -->
Translate a document. If you decide to further translate the documents
please post them on the ECT forum as they would surely be an asset to
others.

Thank you for your question and I hope this was helpful to you.

Phil

On Jan 4, 12:18 am, uves.muel...@googlemail.com wrote:
> Hi,
>
> i intented to use the introduction to python in a class a few months

> before. Now since I am ready to got, the Teachers worksheet<https://docs.google.com/document/edit?id=1w8YKSDfS9TDoO00FXBDERX9vQo7...>

[samy...@gmail.com]

Hi everyone! I'm Mohamed Samy, a software developer from Egypt with a current inclination towards education. The interests of myself and my team are helping spread computational thinking in Egypt (and possibly the Arab world) by a mix of 'better tools & content' and 'advocacy'.

The first product created from this endeavor is Kalimat, an Arabic-based programming language for children that looks like a mix between QBasic and Python, it was made because we want our work to be inclusive and remove any possible barriers to entry.

We've also set up the "Computational thinking in Egypt" blog to help promote our vision.

My interest from the site is to exchange teaching experiences, experiments, and content; since both of the goals presented would benefit from such: a good experiment or syllabus would help all of us move into the right direction education-wise and help us convince schools, governments, and society in general that computational thinking is the way to go :)

[for...@ozonline.com.au]

Hi
I have just finished Phil's Math Future Eluminate presentation. Very interesting. My introduction to ECT was through game programming. You can see my CT materials at http://www.rupert.id.au/schoolgamemaker/samples3/
Tony

[places...@gmail.com]

Hi Jennifer

Is this program still active in Google?  I work with Google on another project, and I'm alos involved with a college that is serious about integrating Computational Thinking across the curriculum.  If you're still here and active I would like to have a conversation with you.

~Jim Hilker

[Phil Wagner]

Hi Jim,
My name is Phil and I am the current manager of the Computational
Thinking project. Feel free to contact me directly if you'd like or
share on the forum.

[roshana...@gmail.com]

I came across this thread of conversation about bringing computational thinking. I have been working on this idea to create a chemistry curriculum by engaging students in modelling practices through programming. I have created a website to help promote the idea and foster collaboration among students as they create their chemistry models and simulations. I also have written a conceptual paper about how building science models help with their understanding of the concepts as well as programming. I would be delighted to hear your thoughts and this initiative more. I am very interested in this line of work and have spent the past year at Harvard working on this idea.

Thank you so much and looking forward to hearing from you.

Best,

Roshi

[sko...@gmail.com]

Hi,

My name is Susan and I am an early childhood teacher in NYC.  I came across this forum while researching developing a digital portfolio for myself and, while I was at it, researching summer CT classes for my high school daughter.  I am a NYS certified early childhood teacher with additional certification in gifted & talented, and I am currently working on certification in special education.  I am very interested in the way that people learn and helping them to find the ways in which they learn best, and of tapping that well very early in their educational careers.  I also have a keen interest in global education and technology and am continually seeking out ways to merge all of these interests (and if I can combine that with a penchant for knitting I would be ecstatic!).  So in joining this forum I hope to find out more about computational thinking, teen classes in coding/programming/computational thinking for my teenage daughter, and how to incorporate coding language and CT in early childhood classes, in particular kindergarten, first grade, and even pre-k, if possible.

Susan Kosyka

On Monday, October 25, 2010 1:28:59 PM UTC-4, Jennifer wrote:

[Garikoitz Lerma-Usabiaga]

Hi Phil!

I would like to contact you directly with a question regarding research in computational thinking, which method should I use? 

My email is garikoitz (at) gmail.com.

Many thanks for this initiative!

Gari

[lash...@u4sd.org]

Hello,  I am an educator at a K-5 school that has undertaken a mission to to provide computational thinking and CS experiences to all of our students.  We are looking at creating/adapting a CT framework that can be incorporated into the core curriculum and are interested in collaborating with anyone else with similar interests.  Our school is fortunate enough to have the full backing of our superintendent but also a robust partnership with four University of Illinois departments (CS, Library Sciences, MSTE, and Special Education).  There seems to be little activity on this forum as of late.  If anyone else is interested, please contact me through Google+ and not email (turned off via district).  Thanks!

Todd

[Joey Sabol]

Greetings! My name is Joey and I have taught middle school math (public institution) and college algebra (private university) in Southern California for the past twenty years. Currently I am a full-time education doctoral student focusing on Learning Technologies at Pepperdine. I homeschool my two boys and am an advisor for two of their clubs: computer programming and chess. The coding club meets exclusively on Google Hangout. My boys and I are learning Scratch and Python programming languages. I hope to write my dissertation about CT and homeschooling. I am brand new to the ECT community here and hope that my participation will be mutually beneficial for everyone. Thanks for making this resource available…see you in the forums!

[Gay Krause]

Welcome!  You sound like a perfect participant for these forums.

gay krause

---

From: general-...@googlegroups.com [general-...@googlegroups.com] on behalf of Joey Sabol [jsab...@gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, June 14, 2014 5:16 PM
To: general-...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Welcome to ECT!

Greetings! My name is Joey and I have taught middle school math (public institution) and college algebra (private university) in Southern California for the past twenty years. Currently I am a full-time education doctoral student focusing on Learning Technologies at Pepperdine. I homeschool my two boys and am an advisor for two of their clubs: computer programming and chess. The coding club meets exclusively on Google Hangout. My boys and I are learning Scratch and Python programming languages. I hope to write my dissertation about CT and homeschooling. I am brand new to the ECT community here and hope that my participation will be mutually beneficial for everyone. Thanks for making this resource available…see you in the forums!

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[Phil Wagner]

Welcome Joey!

Would you mind sharing more information about your coding club over hangouts? I'm sure others would like to know how you were able to create and grow the club in an online environment.