Archive for the ‘other electives’ category

Computer Programming Teaching Tool!

June 4th, 2022

It’s Saturday, June 4, 2022, and time for Other Electives at ClickSchooling!

Computer Science – Free Alice Computer Programming Software

(www.alice.org/)

This website offers “Alice” – free educational software from Carnegie Mellon University that teaches students computer programming in a visual, 3-D environment. It makes it easy to create animation for interactive games and videos and much more.

The description from the website best explains it:

“Alice is a freely available teaching tool designed to be a student’s first exposure to object-oriented programming. It allows students to learn fundamental programming concepts in the context of creating animated movies and simple video games. In Alice, 3-D objects (e.g., people, animals, and vehicles) populate a virtual world and students create a program to animate the objects.

In Alice’s interactive interface, students drag and drop graphic tiles to create a program, where the instructions correspond to standard statements in a production-oriented programming language, such as Java, C++, and C#. Alice allows students to immediately see how their animation programs run, enabling them to easily understand the relationship between the programming statements and the behavior of objects in their animation. By manipulating the objects in their virtual world, students gain experience with all the programming constructs typically taught in an introductory programming course.”

When you get to the site you can read the latest news and media coverage about Alice software and then click on the menu items that include:

  • Downloads – Get Free downloads of the software designed specifically for middle school students and/or high school and college students that will allow you to get started learning computer programming in a fun and engaging way.
  • All About Alice – Click on this item and a new page opens that explains how Alice works – and provides promotional videos you can watch to better understand how to get started.
  • Teaching Materials – Alice provides instructional materials to support teachers and students in classrooms. Resources include textbooks, lessons, tests, and more that you can download and print out.

NOTE: Some of you may have heard about “Alice” in the context of media coverage about one of the developers, Randy Pausch. Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon University professor, died of pancreatic cancer on July 25th, 2008 at the age of 47, leaving behind his wife and three young children. He gained worldwide attention through an inspirational “Last Lecture: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” in which he recounted how he achieved his childhood dreams of becoming a football player, experiencing zero gravity, and developing Disneyland attractions. There are lessons in his last lecture for all of us. You can view it here: ClickSchooling

Learn How To Type!

May 7th, 2022

It’s Saturday, May 7, 2022, and time for Other Electives at ClickSchooling!

Teaching.com – Typing.com

(www.typing.com/)

Grades 4 & up, with parental supervision

This ad-supported website offers a complete typing course (for beginners to advanced students) absolutely free! (Registration is recommended to save your progress.)

The program supports all major international keyboard formats, and displays key position and proper finger placement to help keep beginners from looking at their hands. In addition to practice exercises, there are several typing games that reinforce skills while they entertain.

Helpful tips are constantly provided to reinforce proper typing techniques. Typing tests are provided and students can track their progress (if registered) with detailed graphs and statistics. As a student progresses, the program “learns” which keys cause the most difficulty and creates custom lessons focusing on the student’s top 5 most troublesome letters. When a student completes a lesson, they earn a virtual trophy.

As we mentioned, this program is ad-supported which is why it’s free. If you don’t want the ads displayed, there is a reasonable fee option to remove the ads.

Learn 3D Programming

April 9th, 2022

It’s Saturday, April 9, 2022, and time for Other Electives at ClickSchooling!

Computer Science – Free Alice Computer Programming Software

(www.alice.org/)

Grade 6-12, with parental supervision

This website offers “Alice” – free educational software from Carnegie Mellon University that teaches students computer programming in a visual, 3-D environment. It makes it easy to create animation for interactive games and videos and much more.

The description from the website best explains it:

“Alice is a freely available teaching tool designed to be a student’s first exposure to object-oriented programming. It allows students to learn fundamental programming concepts in the context of creating animated movies and simple video games. In Alice, 3-D objects (e.g., people, animals, and vehicles) populate a virtual world and students create a program to animate the objects.

In Alice’s interactive interface, students drag and drop graphic tiles to create a program, where the instructions correspond to standard statements in a production oriented programming language, such as Java, C++, and C#. Alice allows students to immediately see how their animation programs run, enabling them to easily understand the relationship between the programming statements and the behavior of objects in their animation. By manipulating the objects in their virtual world, students gain experience with all the programming constructs typically taught in an introductory programming course.”

When you get to the site you can read the latest news and media coverage about Alice software and then click on the menu items that include:

  • Downloads – Get Free downloads of the software designed specifically for middle school students and/or high school and college students that will allow you to get started learning computer programming in a fun and engaging way.
  • All About Alice – Click on this item and a new page opens that explains how Alice works – and provides promotional videos you can watch to better understand how to get started.
  • Teaching Materials – Alice provides instructional materials to support teachers and students in classrooms. Resources include textbooks, lessons, tests, and more that you can download and print out.

NOTE: Some of you may have heard about “Alice” in the context of media coverage about one of the developers, Randy Pausch. Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon University professor, died of pancreatic cancer on July 25th, 2008 at the age of 47, leaving behind his wife and three young children. He gained world-wide attention through an inspirational “Last Lecture: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” in which he recounted how he achieved his childhood dreams of becoming a football player, experiencing zero gravity, and developing Disneyland attractions. There are lessons in his last lecture for all of us. You can view it here: ClickSchooling

Boost Mental & Physical Skills with Speed Stacking!

March 12th, 2022

Speed Stacks

(www.speedstacks.com/learn/?lang=en)

Grades 1-12, with parental supervision

Cup Stacking (also known as Sport Stacking and Speed Stacking) is an amazing sport of fitness, agility, concentration and quickness.

Essentially, cup stackers take matching cups of any shape or size, and stack them in pyramids and then unstack them at an unusually high rate of speed.

At this website, you can explore this craze and watch cup stacking tutorial videos. Learn how to speed stack — a fun sporting idea that can be done indoors or outdoors to satisfy that P.E. requirement.

When you get to the site you’ll see the introduction video and 7 other “How To” training or rules videos you can watch for free.

This is a commercial site that sells stacking cups, mats, and various other paraphernalia — but you don’t have to buy a thing to watch the tutorials.

If your kids think this looks like fun, a set of stacking cups may make great stocking stuffers!

Do You Know the Story of Lego?

January 15th, 2022

LEGO – History of LEGOs Animated Video!

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdDU_BBJW9Y)

All grades, with parental supervision

ClickScholar Priya suggested this charming video of “The LEGO Story.”

When you get to the website you can watch an inspiring, animated story of the history of the LEGO company that is laced with “pearls of wisdom” for life and business success. This little 17-minute video will entertain the whole family.

Note: This video is on YouTube. It has received over 2.5 million views, and the viewers have posted comments – not all of which are not meant for general audiences. Parents, as always, should preview the video and supervise Internet use.

Learn to Play Chess!

September 27th, 2021

ChessKid

(www.chesskid.com/)

Grades 2-12, with parental supervision

This website was designed to help young children learn how to play chess. The game of chess provides intellectual stimulation while improving concentration, logical thought, and critical thinking.

When you get to the site, sign up for the free lessons. Learn about the board and the pieces. Then take some simple quizzes to get a certificate. After this, you can select a virtual opponent and level of challenge for some real practice playing chess.

Parents and teachers who wish to help guide their students through this site can select the sections designed just for them to see the syllabus, direct links to specific lessons, information about privacy, and so on. (But kids can learn a lot here independently as well!)

Chess provides opportunities for friendships, an outlet for competition, and relief from boredom. Chess is a lot of fun!

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