Coding gets creative: Use Touch Develop to create apps and games

Bonolo Sedupane recently featured in a Microsoft Virtual Academy entitled  ‘Creative coding through games and apps’. In the webinar, Bonolo gives some ideas for secondary school teachers who want to introduce programming to a broad range of learners, including those who may never have considered programming before.

Bonolo makes the point that even if learners are not taking Information Technology as a school subject, doing some simple programming as part of computer literacy lessons or at an after school computer club can:

  • Teach
    the fundamentals of programming and computational thinking
  • Instil
    confidence in working with technology
  • Foster
    creativity, curiosity, and collaboration and
  • Teach
    how to program computing devices to make things of real-world interest and
    use

For example, a simple activity such as coding a turtle to move around the screen can introduce learners to basic computer terminology whilst developing perseverance, and their ability to learn as they go along and to break something down in to simple steps.

If you would like to try out this activity for yourself, go to touchdevelop.com  and chose to do the “First Steps with turtle” tutorial. Once you have mastered moving your turtle, see what creative coding activities you may like to try using simple code. Then – commit yourself to setting up an activity for your learners to try out Touch Develop too.

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