Beginning General Purpose Coding for Secondary Years

Secondary students are expected to begin using General Purpose Programming languages as they transition away from visual drag-and-drop coding environments such as Scratch and Blockly.

Two of the most popular typed languages in schools are Python and JavaScript.

Participants at this event will be given a hands-on introduction to using these languages in the classroom, with an emphasis on transitioning smoothly from drag-and-drop coding to general purpose programming. (Python and JavaScript will both be presented.)

Fundamental concepts such as branching (if-else statements), iteration (loops) and variables will be introduced and applied to solve computational thinking problems. 

In addition, participants will briefly explore how these two languages can be used to code for some popular electronics or robotics tools, such as the BBC micro:bit.

The workshop is targeted at teachers of Years 7-10. 

Outcomes:

By the end of the workshop, participants should be able to:

• Describe and illustrate key concepts like data types, variables, loops and if statements,
• Apply loops and if statements to create programs that draw shapes as well as programs that do mathematical computations (times tables and factorisation),
• Use string functions to manipulate text and perform capitalisation, concatenation and various other string formatting operations,
• Use functions to generate random numbers for dice games and guessing games.

About the presenter 

Nathan Alison taught Digital Technologies, VCE Computing and Software Development in Victoria for 11 years before beginning work for DLTV. 

He brings a background in Computer Systems Engineering and years of hobby coding, as well as a keen desire to help teachers with more complex Computer Science concepts through clear explanations and relevant activities.