by İsa Badem, YAŞAR DOĞU PRIMARY SCHOOL ENGLISH TEACHER, @bademmisa http://isabadem.wix.com/eucodeweek
Hello I am İsa BADEM, an ELT teacher who’ve been teaching English, Turkish, Drama, Mental (Puzzle) Games and coding in primary level. I use and like not only technology but also integration of it to education. I used to hate computers because I couldn’t figure out how the mouse cursor on desktop screen moves easily in twisted and curled directions drawing casual lines in my first computer science lesson in high school. The only thing I knew was that I could go only in 4 directions since there were four arrow keys on keyboard. A lot of water has flowed beneath the bridge. Today we have professions that did not used to exist before 5 or 10 years. So I believe my primary aged students will be working in non-exist professions in the future. CS professions will be one of the bestsalary and fastest-growing sectors over the next century. Creativity, problem solving, computational and critical thinking which are the most needed professional future skills can be easily acquired by coding. I integrate, at least try to implement coding to my all lessons as far as I can do for 2 years. Last year I participated in an international eTwinning project “I MAKE MY FIRST APP” even without having smart board, tablet, projector, laptop or desktop in my classroom. I carried out the project through 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th grades. I mostly prefer making unplugged activities. I sometimes collaborate with private colleges and universities for EU CODEWEEK events. Pupils really like coding when they realize how inventive stuff they can create with it. Integrating coding activities to other subjects is really essential as well as teaching coding itself. These are some of my students’ reflections on coding, who joined various unplugged activities in different subject lessons.
Talha (8th Grade)
Coding integrated to English Subject
I love technology. I used to only play games with my tablets and desktop till I met coding when I was 7th grade. It was English lesson and the topic was -If Clause-. Teacher had drawn a line, a stickman at the beginning of the line, several barriers and coins in front of the stickman” We were asked to make very simple sentences using -If Clause like
– Stickman moves forward, if there is no barrier
– Stickman jumps, if there is a barrier
-Stickman collects if there is coin
At the end of the lesson we were assigned to complete the tasks of code.org Course 2, the stage 13 Bee Conditionals. After finishing the stage I realized that we in fact wrote a PLAYLAB for the “I MAKE MY FIRST APP” project. Nowadays I try to create my own game using Unity. It is quite out of the ordinary”
Links of Animation Created by Students https://studio.code.org/c/101546394 https://studio.code.org/c/105266641 https://studio.code.org/c/105266544 https://studio.code.org/c/105266236 https://studio.code.org/c/105265975 https://studio.code.org/c/105266485
Sude (5th Grade)
Coding integrated to Physical Education Subject
I learned coding last year in 4th grade. We were jogging for a sprint 
competition in PE lesson. Our English teacher Isa BADEM joined us and asked to make a different run race “The Relay Programming Run Race”. We divided into 4 groups. We were supposed: to dash over to the image one by one, review it, and write down the symbols in the program to reproduce the image across us to debug the program if needed to finish first to win The most favorite and challenging part was debugging. We played this several times, with images of increasing difficulty.
Relay Programming Reflections
Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozv9gDSP3QY
Eylül (5th Grade)
Coding Integrated To Mental (Puzzle) Subject
We have 2 hours Mental (Puzzle) Subject lessons every week and each week we learn new puzzles, problems and different kinds of board games. I took part in a very unusual 2015 December EU Codeweek workshop organized by Robert College which invited Mr Badem with his curious coders including me. Maze puzzle is one of my favorites. We met a new toy called Sphero which is navigated remotely. We wrote programs with drag & drop blocks using Sphero app to get out of the maze. It was amazing. We debugged by sometimes by removing sometimes by adding blocks to move the Sphero ball through the maze corridors.
Elif & Duygu (5th Grade)
Coding Integrated To Free Time Activity Lesson
Last year in 4th grade we did coding activities in free time activity lessons. Some of them were Graph Paper Programming, Real- Life Algorithm, If Else Sentences and Binary System. The most we loved was making Binary Jewelry. We wrote our names in binary system using beads and we did a mini Binary Jewelry Creation Show. We posed for cameras as a model wearing our binary jewelry. We had so much fun.
BINARY WORKSHOP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zisIpHscJRE&feature=youtu.be
It is clear that coding practice develop pupil’s critical problem solving skills. They enthusiastically insist on looking for the solutions to debug whereas they easily give up while solving a math problem.
TROUGH DEBUGGING
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ4iZucHcpw
Let’s code our new year as splendid as we can Wish you a wonderful year full of coding events!
