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A contingent of CTRL-Shift folks have headed to Philadelphia for the International Society of Technology Education 2015 Conference. This sentence links to the page with our 2015 poster session. Check it out. Last night, 6/28/15, we had a poster session where we showed the TCIPG Minecraft resources.
Teachers at ISTE 2015 checking out the TCIPG Minecraft video
We’re also learning about Hyperduino and Arudsat.
The Illinois-CS4H group , led by Lenny Pitt, has just completed another workshop. This time with 29 high school students. I dropped by yesterday and saw them at work on a range Scratch projects. You can see some of the products on the MIT Scratch site. Some of these games are hard! I enjoyed the one where you have to dodge cats and dogs falling from the clouds.
The CS4H Team has completed a draft of the Youth Guide, CS4H: Introduction to CS with Scratch. The document contains activities to guide readers through an overview of basic computer science content: Sequence, Iteration, Conditionals, Variables, and Modularization. Developed by Lenny Pitt, Judy Rocke, and Jana Sebestik, the 49-page manual is being piloted by adults and youth around Illinois. It was created with grant support from the University of Illinois Extension
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A joyous aspect of observing people learning to code is that the roles of teacher and learner move around. When an expert endures the awkwardness of being a novice in a new area, they set the example and show a way for the rest of us. One of the individuals in this picture was the United States Director for the Second International Mathematics Study. The other is illustrating the Collaborative Discussion Framework by listening, observing, and questioning rather than taking the mouse and demonstrating. I think they’re both lifelong learners. 
For the past few weeks, we have been discussing and investigating democratic models of schooling as a way to create the autonomy needed for innovation. First, we have been viewing and sharing the video, “Good Morning Mission Hill“. The video documents a teacher-run school Pilot School in Boston. Next, a group of four Kenwood teachers and I (George Reese) had a wonderful meeting with Deborah Meier on Friday 4/24/15 in Chicago. Talking with her was an inspiration for all five of us.
Now we are investigating different components of democratic schooling and performance assessment. For example, The Coalition for Essential Schools, The Boston Pilot Schools Network, and the Performance Assessment Consortium in New York.
What does all this have to do with computational thinking (CT)? Well, what are the conditions under which an already full curriculum can be altered to include an essential new component like CT in an equitable way that challenges students and maintains or even grows teacher morale in a public school setting? The answer must include democratic schooling. There is simply too much change to do it TO teachers and students. It has to be done with them and BY them. -George