Coding in the Classroom

Course Duration: 5 one-hour sessions. There are also video tutorials available to complement the lessons.

Prerequisite: The only prerequisite for this course is an interest in learning about computer coding.

Equipment: You must have access to a computer with an internet connection to participate.

Learning Outcome: At the end of this course, the participant will have the basic coding skills and resources to enable them to teach Coding to a Junior Cycle class.

Course Outline

Week 1/2 January 11th & 18th 7p.m. 

·       Introduce basic coding concepts through Scratch coding

o   Variables, operators, loops, decisions

o   Assignment, arithmetic, comparison, Boolean combinations  - arrays, lists

o   Functions / Procedures

·       Design a simple ‘Lotto’ computer game in Scratch

Week 3 January 25th 7p.m. 

·       Algorithms and Flowcharts

·       Creating Apps with Javascript and AppLab

Week  4 February 1st 7p.m. 

·       Coding using Minecraft for Education

·       Designing a website with HTML

·       Components of a computer system – Hardware/Software  - CPU, memory, main storage, I/O Devices

·       How the internet works / protocols for communication

Week 5 February 8th 7p.m. 

·       Binary/Octal/Hexadecimal Number Systems – Bits/Bytes/Switches/Pixels

·       Machine Code / Assembly Language

·       Sequential / Parallel flow of control

·       Python Coding

·       Coding the Raspberry Pi single-board computer