Our free CSER F-6 Digital Technologies MOOC, which was launched in partnership with Google's support has been a huge success, as well as a learning curve for us here at CSER in terms of developing and delivering online teacher professional development in this field. We have been learning from teachers and taking in their feedback so that we can learn about how we can better support teachers in this new learning area as well as improve future professional development courses.
We have had over 1300 people register to access the course and have over 460 individuals who have joined the associated Google+ community to share their module tasks as well as additional resources. This has been a wonderfully rewarding initiative and we have been blown away by the enthusiasm and commitment of the education community.
While computer science has formally been taught in high schools or post-secondary contexts, the introduction of computing curriculum into primary schools is exciting but raises some challenges, particularly in terms of supporting teachers to implement the new learning area as well as the need for appropriate content, lesson ideas and resources at the primary school level. The Google+ Community page has been an asset to our course as it has facilitated educators all over Australia to connect with others, who share an interest in computer science education and who are exploring curriculum implementation. Further, the community has provided a space where participants have been able to share resources and build a series of content, resources and lesson plans within this community, which has been a powerful component and 'product' of this course. By participating in the course tasks, teachers have actively co-constructed a rich set of community resources, content and lesson plans that can be freely accessed and used, long after the course formally ends. Some of these resources are also being pinned to the CSER Pinterest site, which you will find on the "CS Ed Resources" Tab of this site. Once the course is formally over, we will also more broadly advertise this community so other educators can join and continue to contribute.
We would like to thank Google Australia for the enthusiasm and support we received to make this course freely available for educators, leadership and individuals all over Australia (and some overseas participants!). We would like to sincerely thank those educators and organisations who gave their time to provide us with early feedback (or resources) during the development of the course as well as promote the MOOC in their networks. This course was developed from a community effort and we drew on many fantastic existing ideas such as CS Unplugged resources, Code.org, Scratch Community, CSTA, CAS, among others.
We hope that our teachers are able to take what they've learned and share back to their local communities and wider networks and spread the enthusiasm and value of digital technologies education. We look forward to continuing to work in this space and improve professional development and support in computer science education through our research. We will continue to share our research and what we have learned from this course, so stay in touch!
We have had over 1300 people register to access the course and have over 460 individuals who have joined the associated Google+ community to share their module tasks as well as additional resources. This has been a wonderfully rewarding initiative and we have been blown away by the enthusiasm and commitment of the education community.
While computer science has formally been taught in high schools or post-secondary contexts, the introduction of computing curriculum into primary schools is exciting but raises some challenges, particularly in terms of supporting teachers to implement the new learning area as well as the need for appropriate content, lesson ideas and resources at the primary school level. The Google+ Community page has been an asset to our course as it has facilitated educators all over Australia to connect with others, who share an interest in computer science education and who are exploring curriculum implementation. Further, the community has provided a space where participants have been able to share resources and build a series of content, resources and lesson plans within this community, which has been a powerful component and 'product' of this course. By participating in the course tasks, teachers have actively co-constructed a rich set of community resources, content and lesson plans that can be freely accessed and used, long after the course formally ends. Some of these resources are also being pinned to the CSER Pinterest site, which you will find on the "CS Ed Resources" Tab of this site. Once the course is formally over, we will also more broadly advertise this community so other educators can join and continue to contribute.
We would like to thank Google Australia for the enthusiasm and support we received to make this course freely available for educators, leadership and individuals all over Australia (and some overseas participants!). We would like to sincerely thank those educators and organisations who gave their time to provide us with early feedback (or resources) during the development of the course as well as promote the MOOC in their networks. This course was developed from a community effort and we drew on many fantastic existing ideas such as CS Unplugged resources, Code.org, Scratch Community, CSTA, CAS, among others.
We hope that our teachers are able to take what they've learned and share back to their local communities and wider networks and spread the enthusiasm and value of digital technologies education. We look forward to continuing to work in this space and improve professional development and support in computer science education through our research. We will continue to share our research and what we have learned from this course, so stay in touch!