Below are some resources I have compiled around computational thinking.
EARCOS Teachers Conference 2014 Presentation
- Introduce yourself at the Today’s meet page here. https://todaysmeet.com/computationalthinking
- Activity 1 – Find the point
- Active Prompt page – share your answer to Activity 1
- Processing Sketch – Cell Phone Localization
- Geogebra: Projectile Motion Model
- Newton’s Cannonball simulation: http://apps.evanweinberg.org/newtonscannonball/
- Before leaving today, I’d appreciate some feedback on the presentation. Click here to view the feedback form.
- Resources mentioned in the workshop:
- Prof. Jeannette Wing Viewpoint – Computational Thinking
- Conrad Wolfram at TED 2010 – Teaching Kids Real Math with Computers
- CME Project Website
- Wolfram Alpha Computational Knowledge Engine
- Google: Exploring Computational Thinking
- EDU On air Google Hangout – Computational Thinking in the Physics Classroom
What is Computational Thinking?
Read my posts on computational thinking here.
Software Resources:
- Geogebra – download for yourself!
- Download Python 2.7.3 or Python 3.3.
- Interactive Python Textbook – How To Think Like A Computer Scientist – an interactive textbook for learning Python through short exercises embedded in the text. It uses Python 3.0.
- CodeAcademy – A great website with interactive exercises for learning a few different programming languages. This is a great way for students to get into programming using a web-based interface. There is a nice social component to learning here that I think is key to its potential for being a transformative learning medium.
- Processing – a Java based programming language designed to make an easy connection between programming an visualization.
A page comparing the two versions is here.
The version you use is not terribly important for most tasks, and there are only a couple things that will prevent a Python 3 program from running correctly on Python 2.7, and vice versa. If you are planning on using any modules or frameworks in Python (which most people probably won’t) then Python 3 is fine. The reason I resort to Python 2.7.3 is that it is automatically installed on Mac laptops and is accessible through Terminal. That’s just me.