Schools : Code Week EU, new challenges : Let's go again !

Europe Code Week 2017

http://dlearn.eu/code-week-2017/

Europe Code Week is taking place this year between 7 and 22 October, although "every week is Code Week". It's an open source initiative, aiming to connect initiatives that encourage young and adult European citizens to learn more about the art and science of computer programming.

Millions of children, adults, parents, teachers, entrepreneurs, and policymakers will again come together at events, in classrooms and libraries across Europe and beyond to learn to create with code.

Europe Code Week 2017

http://codeweek.eu/

EU Code Week is a grass-roots movement that celebrates creating with code. The idea is to make programming more visible, to show young, adults and elderly how you bring ideas to life with code, to demystify these skills and bring motivated people together to learn. The initiative was launched in 2013 by the Young Advisors for the Digital Agenda Europe.

5th Birthday Code Week

http://blog.codeweek.eu/

Europe Code Week was born in 2013 by some young people who advised the European Commission on digital policies. They wanted more people "to learn how to create with code as well as get different networks together to make it easier for interested people to find a place where they could learn programming, work with hardware and find out how computers work." 

Those grass-roots movement turns five years in 2017 and it has grown exponentially.

EU Code Week is run by volunteers. One, or several, Code Week Ambassadors coordinate the initiative in their countries, but everyone can organise their own code event and add it to the codeweek.eu map.

Europe Code Week 2017

http://blog.codeweek.eu/

In 2016, nearly a million people in more than 50 countries around the world took part in EU Code Week. If your country is involved, and has organised events, put it on the map or volunteer as a Code Week ambassador.

http://dlearn.eu/code-week-2017/

Education:

Learning to code helps students to make sense of how things work, explore ideas and make things, for both work and play. 

What’s more it helps students to unleash their creativity and work collaboratively with wonderful young people both near them and all over the world.

From playing about with animations to designing computer apps and games, teaching coding in schools lends itself to plenty of fun learning activities.

The inclusion of coding into the new computing curriculum has been one of the main changes that the Department of Education in different European countries claimed would "ensure every child leaves school prepared for life in modern society."

Students at the school have apparently responded positively to the new curriculum in those countries and are already seeing the practical use of learning these new skills.

The European Astro Pi Chalenge:

Announcing the 2017-18 European Astro Pi challenge in partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA).

It's open to students from all 22 ESA member countries, including associate members Canada and Slovenia.

Astro Pi is an annual science and coding competition where code written by young people is run on the International Space Station!

Mission Zero

https://astro-pi.org/missions/zero/

In Mission Zero, students aged up to 14 write a simple Python program that will display a message on the International Space Station for 30 seconds.

Students will contribute to the daily routine of the International Space Station by displaying their own personal message and the ambient air temperature on the Astro Pi. 

No special hardware is needed to take part in Mission Zero, and your code is guaranteed to run in space for 30 seconds!

An Astro Pi flight unit runs student code in space from Raspberry Pi Foundation on Vimeo.

Some information:

In Mission Space Lab, teams aged up to 19 have to demonstrate their motivation to compete by planning an experiment to run in space.

Registration:

Teams have until 29 October 2017 to register and submit their idea on the Astro Pi website.

The selected teams will be notified that they have been accepted by 7 November 2017 and will receive an ESA-branded Astro Pi kit at their school, and the chance for their experiment to run on the International Space Station.

https://projects.raspberrypi.org/

Teachers: this classroom activity can be completed in an afternoon. 

Organise your students into teams of up to four, and let us guide them through writing a short Python program to show a personal message and the air temperature on the Astro Pi. 

No extra hardware is needed. Everything is done in a web browser. 

Teachers register online with the Trinket Sense HAT emulator and receive a classroom code to give to their teams. This saves time by greatly reducing the need for data entry. 

There’s no limit to the number of teams a school or club can enter. It’s entirely dependent on the teacher’s capacity to support teams.

Read the official guidelines document for Mission Zero.


Resources:

• A special film: Hidden Figures

Three women -  Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan & Mary Jackson - pioneers on computer science helped plan the mission that saw an American astronaut orbit the Earth for the first time, has been honored on Hidden Figures, a film based on true story by Theodore Melfi (2016), nominated for 3 Oscars.

The true story of a team of female African-American mathematicians who served a vital role in NASA during the early years of the U.S. space program. Segregated from their white counterparts, these colored computers’ used pencil and paper to write the equations that would launch rockets, and astronauts, into space.

Hidden Figures

Theodore Melfi, 2016

http://www.imdb.com/

The maths involved in the orbital mission was highly complex, and the computers of the day were prone to technical hiccups.

So as astronaut John Glenn was going through the preflight checklist – upon which his life depended – he insisted that Ms Johnson double check the calculations.

Hidden Figures

Theodore Melfi, 2016

http://www.imdb.com/

“If she says they’re good,” Ms Johnson remembered Mr Glenn saying, “then I’m ready to go.”

Hidden Figures

Theodore Melfi, 2016

http://www.imdb.com/

Aim:

Motivation to girls nd young women to code and continue their studies on STEM. Teachers must encourage girls to pursue studies on STEM.

Teachers can display the film in the classroom to motivate young girls to code. Boys will understand the role of young girls in STEM. Later they will support them at secondary education and college.

There is a gender lack studying high technologies and STEM.

Don't misse the opportunity to include Hidden Figures into school curriculum.

Other Activities: 

Teachers will find by reading my post Code Week EU, let's go again ! #codeEU

 @EP_Technology 

Other Resources:

Anyone – schools, teachers, libraries, code clubs, businesses, public authorities – can organise a #CodeEU event and add it to the codeweek.eu map. 

To make organising and running coding events easier, the CodeWeek website has prepared different toolkits and selected some of the best lesson plans, guides and other resources. Look here

Media:

Code Week EU is on Twitter as @CodeWeekEU, on Facebook. Use the #codeEU hashtag.

Invite your students to have fun building things by coding. Are they ready to share their passion? Young students are so creative. Let's them explore all the funny coding games with their imagination.

G-Souto

06.10.2017
Copyright © 2017G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®

Schools : Code Week EU, new challenges : Let's go again ! by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. 

World Teachers’ Day : Teaching in Freedom, Empowering Teachers

http://en.unesco.org/

"Teachers are a critical foundation of every society’s long-term strength - providing children, young people and adults with the knowledge and skills they need to fulfill their potential."

UNESCO, ILO, UNICEF, message 2017

Today is annual World Teachers’ Day, a UNESCO initiative devoted to appreciating, assessing and improving the educators of the world.

Held annually on 5 October since 1994, World Teachers’ Day commemorates the anniversary of the signing of the 1966 UNESCO/ILO Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers, which celebrated its 50th anniversary during last year’s edition. 

However, local events may be on some other date close to October 5, so that they do not fall during fall (northern hemisphere) or spring (southern hemisphere) school vacations. 

@UNESCO

World Teachers’ Day 2017 will be celebrated under the theme:

“Teaching in Freedom, Empowering Teachers”

It echoes the 2015 theme that followed the adoption of the new Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs) in September 2015, when teacher empowerment was reaffirmed as a top priority in all education and development strategies.

"Being an empowered teacher means having access to high-quality training, fair wages, and continuous opportunities for professional development. It also means having the freedom to support the development of national curricula - and the professional autonomy to choose the most appropriate methods and approaches that enable more effective, inclusive and equitable education. Furthermore, it means being able to teach in safety and security during times of political change, instability, and conflict."

@UNESCO

It has become the occasion to mark achievements and reflect on ways to counter the remaining challenges for the promotion of the teaching profession, like the acute shortage of teachers. Indeed, according to the UNESCO Institute of Statistics, the world needs 69 Million teachers if we are to achieve universal primary and secondary education by 2030.

Education is the 4th goal after growth and employment, sustainable consumption and production, and climate change. 

Sustainable Development Goal 4 has 10 targets encompassing many different aspects of education. There are seven targets which are expected outcomes and three targets which are means of achieving these targets.

@UNESCO

This year, World Teachers’ Day commemorates the 20th anniversary of the 1997 UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of Higher-Education Teaching Personnel. Teaching personnel at institutions of higher education are often overlooked in discussions concerning the status of teachers. 

Like teachers at pre-primary, primary, and secondary levels, teaching in higher education is a profession requiring expert knowledge, specialized skills, and pedagogical competence.

@UNESCO

Despite global recognition of the importance of teachers in changing children’s lives and building sustainable and prosperous societies, teachers are all too often undervalued and under-empowered.

Worldwide there is a growing shortage of quality teachers and inadequate professional training. The UNESCO Institute for Statistics estimates that to achieve universal primary education by 2030 the world needs 69 Million teachers if we are to achieve universal primary and secondary education by 2030.

All these factors result in equity gaps in access and learning which mostly affect the poorest regions and schools and the earliest grades. This is particularly damaging, as there is clear evidence that the earliest years of a child’s development are the most critical.

 UNESCO Institute for Statistics

http://uis.unesco.org/en/news/

Some Data:

6 Out of 10 Children and Adolescents Are Not Learning a Minimum in Reading and Math

New data from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics show that 617 million children and adolescents worldwide are not achieving minimum proficiency levels in reading and mathematics. The figure signals “a learning crisis” according to the UIS, which could threaten progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Two-thirds of the children who are not learning are in school. Of the 387 million primary school-age children unable to read proficiently, 262 million are in school. There are also about 137 million adolescents of lower secondary school age who are in classrooms but unable to meet minimum proficiency levels in reading.  

“The figures are staggering but they show the way forward,” says Ms Montoya. “We know where these children live and go to school. They are not hidden or isolated from their governments and communities – they are sitting in classrooms with their own aspirations and potential. We can reach these kids but not by simply hoping that they stay in school and grasp the basics.” 

My thoughts:

Teachers are too often undervalued and under-empowered. Often they don't have access to high-quality training and continuous opportunities for professional development. 

When they want to have the autonomy to choose the most appropriate methods and approaches that enable more effective the learning of their students, and practice inclusive and equitable education, they are not empowered by the school director, other colleagues, and sometimes by parents who don't understand the visin of a different pedagogue who knows well the capacities of their students. A class has different students and some of them learn in different levels.

Sometimes, they don't have the freedom to support the development of national curricula and the professional autonomy to choose the most appropriate methods and approaches that enable more effective, inclusive and equitable education.

To engage their students, teachers create, collaborate, communicate and think critically. Teachers who love to teach they know which are the best methods and approaches that enable every student in a class.

If we love to be a teacher, the most important are our students. And every student must be empower to learn and be a better learner even on a different rythm to enable each one with its own aspirations and potential.

"Good teachers know how to bring out the best in students."

Charles Kuralt

G-Souto

05.10.2017

Copyright © 2017G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®

World Teachers' Day : Teaching in Freedom, Empowering Teachers by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Schools : World Science Day for Peace & Development 2016 : resources

World Science Day

Discover Your World

http://www.unesco.org/

Today, 10 November is World Sicence Day for Peace and Developement. First celebrated on 10 November 2002, International Science Day aims to raise awareness of the benefits of science worldwide. 

It was recommended at the World Conference on Science in Budapest in 1999 to encourage "the use of science for peace and development, and to make sure science is used to benefit societies".

World Science Day for Peace and Development, celebrated every year on 10 November, offers an opportunity to highligt how science is relevant to our daily lives and to engage the scientific community, policy makers and the students. 

Celebrated every 10 November, World Science Day for Peace and Development highlights the important role of science in society and the need to engage the wider public in debates on emerging scientific issues. It also underlines the importance and relevance of science in our daily lives.

Electric cars line up at the official start of the Zero Emissions Race outside the United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG), Switzerland 

UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferré

http://www.un.org/en/events/scienceday/

By linking science more closely with society, World Science Day for Peace and Development aims to ensure that citizens are kept informed of developments in Science. It also underscores the role scientists play in broadening our understanding of the remarkable, fragile planet we call home and in making our societies more sustainable.

       

Science museum, Japan

© Cowardlion/ Shutterstock.com

http://www.unesco.org/

The theme for 2016 World Science Day for Peace and Development is:

“Celebrating Science Centres and Science Museums”.

"Science stands at the heart of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. These agreements embody a new vision for prosperity, peace and the planet, to allow every society to create and share knowledge, to nurture every source of innovation and creativity, to craft a more inclusive, sustainable and just path to the future.

This is why science centres and museums are so important - for capacity building, for advocacy, to send strong messages about the importance of science for sustainable development."

Irina Bokova, message 2016

© Ministry of Science, Technology and 

Productive Innovation, Argentina

https://en.unesco.org/

• The objectives of World Science Day for Peace and Development are to:

• Strengthen public awareness on the role of science for peaceful and sustainable societies;
• Promote national and international solidarity for shared science between countries;
• Renew national and international commitment for the use of science for the benefit of societies;
• Draw attention to the challenges faced by science and raising support for the scientific endeavour.
• 
  

Planetarium, Russian Federation

credits: © Mariakraynova/ Shutterstock.com

http://www.unesco.org/

Education:

"Science centers and museums should be places of continuous non-formal education, where people of all ages are drawn in to learn," 

Diego Andrés Golombek, Argentinian researcher

UNESCO invites schools, teachers and students among the different organizations to celebrate #ScienceDay with some special events or action.

We know! We can't celebrate such a great theme only in one day. We must think for a week or two to include Science Day into the different school curriculum, alerting our students to the importance of Science for the benefit of all.

After all, the day is symbolic. Of course, students must have several lessons to develop interesting activities and schools organize events.

• 
  

Photo of the Maropeng exhibition

Photo courtesy of stagetech

http://www.maropeng.co.za/

The success of the World Science Day for Peace and Development will depend on the active involvement of many partners such as intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, scientific and research institutions, professional associations, the media, Science teachers and schools.

Different activities will be undertaken to mobilize support the objectives of the World Science Day.

credits: Elyx Yak

https://pt.pinterest.com/unric/elyx

Activities:

Here a list of potential activities that can be undertaken by you and your students at school:

• Diffuse World Science Day in your school, through some interesting activities;

• Organize an 'Open Day' at your school to highlight the importance of Science for peace and development;

• Publish the messages of World Science Day written by students on the school website, blogs of students; organize an exhibition at the school library, and other activities taking place on 10 November;

• Organize classroom discussions to emphasize the many different ways science and technology touch our daily lives;

• Contact national and local media (TV, radio, print, electronic) to highlight the importance of celebrating Science Day;

• Write articles and letters about the importance of science for sustainable societies to publish on school newspaper;

• Visit local Planetarium, Science Museum, or College laboratory with your class to discuss science careers, to deliver scientific events and demonstrations to young students;

• Build classroom-to-classroom connections between schools via the Internet to talk about science projects that will interest young people;

• Organize a little conference with your class at the school library and invite other teachers and their own classes;

• Find a sister school and carry out a joint activity highlighting the importance of science;

• Invite university professor or student from your town to join your school to celebrate Science Day talking about their experiences in science;

• Arrange a visit at Science museum or Planetarium in your town or near by. Nothing better than a live lesson.

Unesco invite you to register your event on the map or to contact the organization if you would like more suggestions and information on how you and your organization can celebrate this day. 

Unesco would be grateful if you could keep it informed on the activities you will organize in order to include your events in a special section of Unesco website.

Registration:

To register your event and become a partner of the World Science Day for Peace and Development in your organisation, institution, university, school and community, please fill out this registration form and send it to Lucy Hoareau.

If you have a website and wish to link it to ours, please send your request to Ms. Diana Malpede. We will add yours to our list of related websites and you will help us reach, inform and involve as many people as possible.

Resources: Videos

"Science centres and museums plays key roles in nurturing the curiosity of women and men, as living laboratories of creativity, catalysing research and solutions to help societies meet challenges. In the digital era, when we need innovative initiatives to promote the learning of science outside the classrooms, museums and science centres are privileged places of education. They provide excellent ways to encourage children, especially girls, to pursue careers in science – to multiply our collective scientific capabilities."

Irina Bokova, message 2016

G-Souto

10.11.2016

Copyright © 2016G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®


Schools : World Science Day for Peace & Development 2016 : resources by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.