3 Ways to Teach Computer Science through Game Design
There is more to computer science than programming, I know. So just for fun, let’s see the ways game design meets ALL the CS strands as defined in the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) K-12 Computer Science Standards. Each time I see a standard being met, I’ll shout out in parenthesis one of the below strands. I’m […]
Learning to Program in Minecraft with turtles
The TL:DR version to start programming with turtles as of October 2016. If you like visual steps, watch this video or this video. Buy/Download plain ol’ Minecraft on minecraft.net Download the free Computercraftedu.com mod (click “I’m a teacher”) Download Minecraft Forge 1.89 or higher (requires a Java runtime environment, which you may already have, but here’s […]
Using Minecraft to Teach Programming to 6th graders
“Learning to program is more fun when you can’t wait to see it run.” -Unintentional rhyme by student Using the free mod ComputerCraftEDU, my 6th grade students gave instructions to their “turtle”, asking it to build them a house. My gameplan: Minimum house dimensions of (in blocks) 5 wide X 5 deep X 5 high. […]