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Elevate Your Computer Science Skills With FREE Oracle Academy Courses & Workshops

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There is a growing need for computer science education in K-12 schools. Statistics indicate that computer science based professions make up 2/3 of projected new jobs in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). In addition, nine in ten parents want their child to study computer science, but only one in four schools teach computer programming. Not only is there a need for computer science teachers to have a strong foundation to teach these courses, but coding and programming principles are trickling across content areas at all K-12 levels. Are you prepared to meet the demand? Curriki has two FREE options from Oracle Academy to help meet your needs!

Oracle Academy Workshops 

Are you completely new to computer science?  Oracle Academy Workshops are designed to make first experiences with computing fun and engaging (as young as late primary school levels), while still leveraging best academic curriculum practices like project-based learning and offering educators methods for assessment. You can use these workshops to introduce students to computer science in a fun and engaging way, integrate exposure to computer science into every content area, and to supplement extra-curricular programs with computer science experiences. 

Oracle Academy Courses 

Oracle Academy courses allow you to develop knowledge and skills needed for modern careers and provide students with foundational knowledge and skills in areas of computer science that are in high demand across computing jobs. These skills are recommended for use in secondary schools, technical  and vocational schools and colleges, and 2- and 4-year colleges and universities.

The course set up is modular, enabling educators to incorporate entire courses or individual lessons or topics into their existing classes and programs of study. Each course has educational learning objectives, is mapped and aligned to many relevant standards and exams globally, and is available in multiple languages to improve learning experiences. 

Access the Oracle Academy Courses and Workshops today and get a head start on supporting students for the future!

Oracle Academy Offers Computer Science Workshops Through Curriki

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By Kim Jones, CEO, Curriki

Curriki is offering new workshops from our partner Oracle Academy to make your students’ experiences with Computer Science fun and engaging. They will even get to design computer games and interface with robots!

Oracle Academy Workshops leverage best academic curriculum practices like project-based learning and offer educators methods for assessment. They are best used by educators in one of three ways:

  • to introduce students to computer science in a fun and engaging way
  • to incorporate exposure to computer science into the teaching of other academic disciplines
  • to offer a limited introduction to computer science to students via extracurricular programs and/or workshop experiences.

Oracle Academy

STEM education is so important in today’s global marketplace, and Oracle Academy is an invaluable partner to Curriki because its workshops make computer science fun and accessible. What could inspire more passion for STEM in students than Oracle’s interactive approach, which gives them the opportunity to create animated stories and games, learn to program finch robots, and roleplay superheroes and so much more?

Members of Curriki can engage with Oracle Academy Workshops by becoming an Oracle Academy Individual or Institutional member.

Oracle Academy Workshops, which are designed to make first experiences with computing fun and engaging, include:

  • Getting Started with Java Using Alice– designed for students with little or no programming experience and teaches basic Java programming concepts through developing 3-D Animations in Alice 3.1, a free, educational, introductory Java development environment.
  • Solve It With SQL– challenges students to play the role of a superhero and solve a series of crimes using a cloud-based database development environment to learn the basics of SQL.
  • Programming the Finch Robot in Java– engages to program an interface to a small robot designed to inspire and delight.
  • Creating Java Programs with Greenfoot– This workshop engages students who understand basic programming concepts to create 2D Games in Java.
  • Programming the Finch Robot in Greenfoot– engages students who have completed Creating Java Programs with Greenfoot to program an interface to a small robot.

Oracle Academy advances computer science education globally to drive knowledge, innovation, skills development, and diversity in technology fields. Each year, Oracle Academy reaches more than 3.5 million students in 120 countries. In its most recent fiscal year, it delivered nearly US$3.75 billion in resources to help prepare students for life and work in the technology-driven global economy.

Oracle Academy leverages Oracle’s global technology leadership to offer a complete portfolio of computer science education resources to secondary schools; technical, vocational, and two-year colleges; and 4-year colleges and universities, with the goal of helping students become college and career ready. Learn more at academy.oracle.com.

Kim Jones is the Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Curriki. Kim is active in driving policy initiatives and is regularly featured as an honorary speaker on the impact of technology in education at influential meetings around the world. Learn more at Curriki.org.

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AP Computer Science Principles Course Teaches Web and Computer Basics

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By Kim Jones, CEO, Curriki

Looking for top-quality OER to help you teach the challenging subject of AP Computer Science? Curriki introduces new AP Computer Science Principles, sponsored by Oracle.

Curriki’s AP Computer Science Principles course introduces students to the creative aspects of programming, abstractions, algorithms and large data sets.

Computer ScienceThe course should ignite students’ passion for technology. Not only will they learn how the Internet really works, but they will have the opportunity to delve into cybersecurity and examine how computing affects society.

The AP Computer Science Principles course seeks to engage students, no matter what their background or familiarity with computers, as it focuses on basic concepts that have influenced the evolution of computer science and its effect on our world. The course teaches computational thinking skills and prepares students for the AP Exam.

Project-Based and Collaborative Learning Approach

Using engaging projects and materials, students will develop computational thinking skills through:

• Collaborative problem solving
• Creative design of unique solutions
• Data representation through modeling and simulations
• Algorithmic reasoning

Course Description

The course is divided into two semesters of curriculum: an introduction to programming, and how computers and the Internet work. You can use them in any order.

Introduction to Programming
The introductory programming curriculum uses the Python language in a development environment called Processing, although instructors can substitute any programming curriculum they are comfortable with. The culmination of the programming unit is a 12-hour “Create Performance Task,” where students create and document a program in the language of their choosing.

Students will explore computer architecture and data storage, design their own PC, take a computer apart and put it back together, play the “binary game” to learn about computer numbers, and more.

How Computers and the Internet Work
The other half of the course is comprised of two units: “How computers work” and “How the Internet works.” The course winds up with “Explore Performance Task,” a research project where students dedicate eight hours of class time to documenting an important computing innovation with four paragraphs of writing, citations and a “computational artifact.”

One of the most exciting aspects of this course is the introduction of the Internet, exploration of how it has changed the way we connect to one another. Exciting, hands-on lab activities – such as hacking their own password and examining the 2013 “Toaster Wars” hacking competition – lead students through the crucial concepts of networks and security.

This curriculum also shows students how to create an infographic for the computational artifact using Canva.com, but there are many other possibilities students can also explore.

Kim Jones

Kim Jones is the Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Curriki. Kim is active in driving policy initiatives and is regularly featured as an honorary speaker on the impact of technology in education at influential meetings around the world. Learn more at Curriki.org.

Sign up for Curriki’s enewsletter!

Computer Science Education Week: Computational Thinking

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By Molly Ward, Owner, Mountain Goat Instructional Design

Com • pu • ta • tion • al

Of, relating to, or using computers.[i]

Think • ing

The process of thought.[ii]

Have you ever heard the term “Computational Thinking”? If not, get ready—this newly named and defined, but widely and historically practiced problem-solving process is showing up everywhere in the world of education today—including on Curriki! Read on to learn more about what Computational Thinking is, and how it is being used in our fast-paced, high-tech world.

Although we may not think about it, we use computers to solve problems and generally improve our lives on a daily basis.

Think about the apps you use regularly on your phone or tablet—you can find the closest, least expensive gas station, or look at traffic conditions in real time. Or maybe you looked up information about a topic, such as hippopotamus, through a search engine online today.

 

Screenshot 2015-12-03 21.01.26

 

Behind each of these digital tools are Computer Scientists and Programmers who work on the problem from its initial conception to proper functionality for the end user (the solution). They play the role of problem solvers—how do we get a computer to help us find a nearby gas station? How can a computer show us traffic jams as they happen? How do we get a computer to search for information about hippopotamus?

 

By The Car Spy (2001 Audi RS4 B5 Avant) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons


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If you aren’t a computer scientist, you may not have taken time to think much about how common and relied upon digital tools such as the apps on your digital phone or Google Maps came to be. The process of Computational Thinking has played a great role in solving every day or seemingly impossible problems by utilizing the power of computers.

However, Computational Thinking isn’t just for Computer Scientists and programmers. Anyone can incorporate Computational Thinking skills and steps when working on solving a problem. Blending Computational Thinking into your current problem solving methods helps you to address the problem in a logical way and also sets you up to be able to utilize the power of computing towards solving your problem and bigger problems in the future.

Although “Computational Thinking” might sound like a process that involves an advanced degree and the ability to write code, it’s actually a very straightforward process in which anyone from any field or background can participate. In fact, the process of using Computational Thinking to solve problems has been around since well before computers even existed. The process includes:

Decomposition Breaking down a problem into smaller parts.
Pattern Recognition Finding and identifying patterns in the problem data and between parts of the problem.
Abstraction Generalizing the main idea of the problem and how to solve it.[i]
Algorithmic Design Step-by-step instructions for solving the problem.

 

Easier said than done, you say? Practice is the key. Curriki will soon be releasing a course titled, Problem Solving through Computational Thinking for Educators:

Online Professional Development Training for Middle and High School Teachers which provide additional background in Computational Thinking, but more importantly incorporates high-quality existing activities for teachers (and students) to practice each part of the Computational Thinking process, as well as the process of Computational Thinking as a whole.

Students_in_a_computer_lab

 

Students in a lab. By University of Salford Press Office [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Molly Ward, M.S. Science Education is the owner and Top Goat at Mountain Goat Instructional Design, LLC. She is a Science Education Consultant and Instructional Designer with over 15 years working in Informal Science Education and EdTech.

[i]http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/guides/zttrcdm/revision

[i] http://www.thefreedictionary.com/computational

[ii] http://www.thefreedictionary.com/thinking

Oracle Academy Collaborates with German Robotics Initiative

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Reblogged from https://academy.oracle.com/en/newsletters/july_2015-full.html#skillsdev

0715-story2The new “EV3 Programming with Java” textbook introduces Roberta teachers to Java programming techniques. The book has been published as part of the Fraunhofer Institutes’ “Roberta – Learning with Robots” initiative and is a joint development project run by the Institute for Intelligent Analysis and Information Systems (IAIS) and Oracle Academy.

In addition to working through simple programming tasks, readers learn about a large-scale Roberta experiment, which highlights the advantages of textual and object-oriented programming demonstrated with practical examples.

“By collaborating with the Roberta initiative and supporting the latest Roberta volume, Programming with Java (Programmieren mit Java), we continue our commitment to supporting computer science education,” says Alison Derbenwick Miller, vice president of Oracle Academy. “We hope that through the creation of educational materials and programs that make a challenging discipline like computer science engaging for everyone, we will increase participation, especially by girls and other underrepresented populations in the field, creating a richer and better future for everyone, everywhere.”

The initiative introduces children and young people to the joys of science and uses robots to teach gender and age-appropriate courses, showing how much fun technology and the natural sciences can be. The textbook explains not only the simple transition to text-based programming, but also introduces teachers and their pupils to a new programming language.

Watch the video, “Roberta Solves the Cube”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jZSBK6oB1Q

cuberubiks

For more information visit http://roberta-home.de/

(available in German and English)

“With Roberta-Academy, in an open learning environment, we reach hundreds of children aged 8-13 years who build in just two hours a robot that responds to stimuli of his environment.” – Dr. Andrea Niehaus, Head of Deutsches Museum Bonn

 

Coding

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janetpintoBy Janet Pinto, Chief Academic Officer

 

 

Programming, or coding, or writing code, is an important and well-paid skill today. There is a shortage of good programmers. But most students approach computers or mobile devices as consumers. They use computers or devices to play games, or as social media platforms. And they also use computers to search for information, as part of the learning process, which is all to the good. In some cases they are users of interactive games that promote learning.

But all of these use cases are students being consumers of code, and not creators of, producers of, code. Producing is harder than consuming – coding is more difficult than using an app. Yet our modern economy is increasingly reliant on coding and computer science technology more generally.

This blog on the topic at the New York Times is actually entitled “When Kids Would Rather Play Computer Games Than Code Them”. Here’s another article from the New York Times on the topic of learning to code.

 

These articles note that coding instruction is trending. In the U.S. there are over 20,000 teachers involved in teaching how to code, according to code.org. The organization states: “Every student in every school should have the opportunity to learn computer science.”  And they believe all kids can learn to code. Code.org helps train high school teachers to instruct coding. Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook) have contributed $10 million to Code.org in support of their mission.

Public school systems in Chicago and New York City are building the capability to offer more coding instruction to their student populations. Chicago is looking to make the ability to code a graduation requirement within the next 5 years.

The challenge is getting students over the initial learning hump and frustration around creating code that doesn’t work the first time it’s used. Coding requires persistence, and the ability to think logically. One must eliminate every mistake found in the first version of the code, through testing, modification and iteration. Persistence and logical thinking are great skills and attitudes for students to learn and are important life skills more broadly than just around coding.

Scratch is a simple programming language freely available from M.I.T. The site provides small code blocks that can be tied together to help create stories, games and animation. It is designed for children from age 8 and up, and is used in more than 150 different countries.

And here’s a unit on Curriki for game design in a science classroom, using the Scratch language. Check it out!

 

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