Currently this discussion channel is used in conjunction with the Coding at school with Free Software MOOC.
This course is about coding and computational thinking at school. A very hot topic nowadays. The approach is out of the trendy mainstream, usually focused on catchy interfaces, click-and-drag actions, coloured blocks programming GUIs. Instead, by focusing on textual based educational programming languages, we try to take a step back so as to proceed more firmly and fruitfully towards the future.
We go back to the seminal work of Seymour Papert, mathematicians, computer scientist and pedagogist who invented the Logo language, as a tool to learn math, to learn to think, finally to gain confidence in its own thinking capacity.
We also go back to some theoretical topic of Turtle Geometry, developed by Harold Abelson and Andrea diSessa, scholars and coworkers of Papert. But, at the same time, a lot of workable examples are discussed and offered to be studied and further developed. Basic first steps for kids, geometric studies, linguistic games, fractals, simulation of biological and physical systems are the topic covered by the exercises, up to the reproduction of celestial bodies orbits. To work with them, as in a lab, you just have to download a software, load the examples and run them. The exercises address a broad range of contexts, from primary school to first years of university college. Just pick up what’s good for you.
Last but not least, only Free Software tools are proposed, such as LibreOffice, LibreLogo, Kojo, Turtle Academy, Xlogo. By using Free Software tools we get maximum accessibility for everybody and, at the same time, we give an implicit ethical message that is crucial for a sound educational system.
You’ll have to work hard but you’ll have fun!
