Course Summary

Are you a teacher of young learners? Are you involved in young people’s extra-curricular activities? Then this course could be for you. Whatever subjects you normally teach, you and your learners are surrounded by modern digital technology. Much of the technological change has been driven by young people, and their creativity has never been more influential. Facebook, Google, and Youtube were started by people in their teens and twenties. Many jobs of the future will be in information technology, underpinning so many other sectors such as agriculture, tourism, telecommunications, and financial services.

This course will help you to encourage today’s young digital consumers to become tomorrow’s digital creators. It is based around Scratch, a popular system adopted by millions of young learners worldwide as it fosters youthful curiosity, promotes creativity, and provides a basis for lifelong programming learning.

You’ll be truly amazed at how fast your learners get up to speed with coding skills! And if you’ve never written a line of code in your life, don’t worry. This course will get you started one step at a time!

This course is part of the Africa Code Week initiative, which aims at empowering African youth with the coding skills they need to thrive in the 21st century workforce and become key actors of Africa’s economic development. This online course is offered in addition to the hundreds of classroom events being held in parallel. Whether you are based in Africa or not, and whether you can attend one of these events or not, you can still take your first steps towards mastering a simple and fun programming language!

Course Characteristics

• Starting from: June 2, 2015, 09:00 UTC. (What does this mean?)
• Duration: 4 weeks
• Effort: 4-6 hours in total
• Final assignment: you can take this at any time
• Course language: English
• How is an openSAP course structured?

Course Content

• Unit 1: Introducing Scratch and the Art of Coding
  
• Unit 2: Creating an Interactive Digital Environment
  
• Unit 3: Coding Geometric Shapes and Freehand
  
• Unit 4: Planning and Designing Games
  

Target Audience

• Teachers of 8-11 year olds
• Parents of 8-11 year olds
• Anyone interested in bringing new skills to young people

Course Requirements

• There are no formal requirement for this course.
  
• You do not need any previous programming experience!
  
• You only need access to the internet. You can download the course content and the system.
  
• All content and system access is completely free-of-charge.
  

About the Instructor

Brendan Smith

Brendan Smith is an Education and Outreach Officer at National University of Ireland, Galway and at the Galway Education Centre. His mission is to empower people with the potential of technology and science.

He has won many awards for his contributions to education and social engagement in Ireland. He has a passion for travel, culture, justice, and the environment.