NYSCATE14

It would be difficult to find an educator or parent who would argue against students developing skills such as collaboration, problem solving, creativity, inquiry, drafting and revising, and logical thinking.  And while these skills are all developed through students experiencing the act of programming a machine through coding, we don't always find coding as part of our K-12 curriculum.  Today, coding is experiencing a renaissance in education and is more accessible to more students than ever before.  Whether we look to analog and concrete tools to develop coding skills in very young children such as Robot Turtles and BeeBots, block-based programming platforms such as Scratch for intermediate students, or engaging in an online course designed to teach high level coding languages such as Python, HTML, or CSS, there is an entry point and benefit for students at virtually any age or ability level to develop the skills we seek our students to develop whether or not they ever seek out a career path in computer science.


Students, teachers and educators invite you to our NYSCATE Exploratorium.  We will feature entry points to coding from board games designed to develop concrete code-like thinking for very young students, simple, but surprisingly powerful coding applications for elementary and intermediate students, and examples of coding applications for older students.  Also featured, will be examples of coding that extends beyond a computer screen to control objects such as programmable Lego bricks.  The possibilities of coding are virtually limitless and we invite you to come explore the possibilities with us.