Book Study - Join Schools Across the United States
Weld County School District RE-1
This Colorado School District developed a hybrid course to train, support and encourage K-5 educators to bring coding into their curriculum by embedding computational thinking skills into activities for every content area.
To help teachers easily and effectively introduce coding, this course features:
- A book study of "No Fear Coding" with 4 F2F Hands-on Playgrounds (Book provided through PD Funds)
- Classroom-tested lessons and activities designed for skills progression.
- Ready-to-implement coding exercises that can be incorporated across the curriculum.
- Opportunities to develop lessons to enhance Bridges & Daily Five with coding.
Washoe County School District
This Nevada School District used grant funds to kick-off a book study that included an author chat with Heidi Williams. Via Skype, Heidi encouraged and congratulated teachers on their CS and CT journey. You can view the author presentation and take a look at how Washoe is communicating to parents and bringing CS and CT training to teachers!
Houston Parks and Recreation
Texas is a front-runner in computer science and computational thinking! The Houston Parks and Recreation Department received grant funds to purchase computer science maker space kits from Terrapin that included Bee-Bots and a copy of No Fear Coding. Heidi Williams donated her time and aided in the Professional Development. The goal of the PD was to increase confidence levels with computer science concepts and phsycial computing devices. See the survey feedback!
AMSTI - Alabama Math Science and Technology Initative
Alabama teachers are piloting serveral different Professional Development models to integrate computer science into the curriculum. Teachers received copies of No Fear Coding and author Heidi Williams participated in a book chat facilitated by Keith George. Educational Technology Specialist.
ITEEA - STEM is Elementary Newsletter - January 2018
Humbled to be recommened in the January newsletter under "Robotics and Programming Resources" along with Cubetto by Primo, Finch Robots, Hour of Code, Dash & Dot, Lego Robotics, and Sphero!
HSTE - Hawaii Society for Technology in Education
Teachers can purchse No Fear Coding in the bookstore.
My WHY
About the Author - Heidi Williams
Heidi Williams is a retired teacher, instructional coach, principal, and director of curriculum. She is passionate about educational coding/computer science and believes the educational community will see an increase in math and reading standardized scores, as more schools integrate computational thinking/computer science into their curriculum. Click on Heidi William's curriculum vitae to see more about her webinars, articles and contributions to the computer science community.
Resources for Administrators & Coaches
As a former administrator and coach, I understand how time consuming it can be to search for information and resources. Hopefully, you will find this a useful and time-saving website. Please feel free to reach out with ideas on information you do not see here, but would like included.
Ideas and Connections for K-8 Teachers
With so many resources out there, you may not be sure where to begin. If you are ankle deep in K-8 Computer Science, you may be looking to connect with others for great ideas.