The Key(note) to Coding

I am a huge fan of Keynote, both on iOS and OS X devices. I love the versatility in this tool. I enjoy using Keynote to demonstrate how this application goes way beyond a tool for presentations. When a tool constantly amazes you and allows you to learn over and over again, it becomes one of those that you cannot live without! Keynote is that tool for me and I love uncovering new ways to bring learning to life with the use of a technology tool such as Keynote!

I am really excited to share with you all that my iTunes U course called The Key(note) to Coding is now live in the iTunes U store! You can access the course by clicking here. Here is the introduction from the course:

There is a misconception when it comes to thinking about coding; some think it’s only for computer programmers and others think it’s too difficult. While we all weren’t created to be professional coders, we can encourage kids to understand the basic premise of coding. To put it simply, coding is giving a set of instructions to the computer to create an action. In this course, you will learn how to create a project with your students by using Keynote to create tangram shapes and learn the variety of ways to format shapes while taking note of the shape’s placement, size, and rotation. Once the tangram is complete, students will write all of the “code” so that another student can replicate their tangram. It would be very difficult to teach someone how to recreate a particular shape with precise measurements, but when given the exact “code” students are able to follow it and replicate the tangram with ease. In addition to coding skills, this project helps students develop positive feelings about geometry as they classify and short shapes. In addition, students learn vocabulary for working and manipulating shapes, such as arrange, flip, size, position, and rotation. It’s perfect as a stand alone project targeting STEM or within your geometry unit. This course is designed for the Mac because of the advanced tools in Keynote, however, students can use this course as a guide for building and creating tangrams on an iOS device as well. This course is geared for grades second and beyond, but can most certainly be modified for even younger students. Have fun as you learn the Key(note) to coding!

Hope you’ll download it and give me your feedback! I’d love it if people tried creating codes and shared them with others to try!

iTunes U Course: Array City in Keynote

I am excited to share my new iTunes U course called Array City in Keynote!

Keynote is my favorite tool for both iPad and Mac. I just love figuring out new ways to use it and I get inspired by seeing something on paper and thinking about how I can bring it to life with Keynote. So, I decided to create a course with one of those ideas and I hope you will think it’s as fun as I do. I saw a lesson on Pinterest that had students making arrays with buildings, but they were using construction paper and glue. I thought it would be cool to take that idea and use the shape tool in Keynote, thus, Array City for Keynote was born!

Using Keynote (iOS), students have the ability to connect the real world to math by constructing large city buildings with the shape tool in Keynote. This is a fun and engaging way to demonstrate knowledge of multiplication & arrays and allows students to be creative while using technology. So much more than just math standards are addressed with this lesson! I hope you’ll subscribe to my course and check it out! The course is for teachers to replicate this idea or lesson with their students. All you need is an iPad with iTunes U, then click on this link to download the course! Thanks in advance for giving it some love! 🙂

https://itunes.apple.com/us/course/array-city-in-keynote/id1024001059

iTunes U Course: Array City