MediaLib - Computational Thinking & Programming Education
The 2nd MediaLib Workshop was be held on the 30th - 31st May 2023 at the Center for Learning Computational Thinking (CLCT) at SDU Kolding.
The workshop was run in a hybrid way with activities both onsite and online.
Workshop Itinerary
- 30th May 12:00 noon
- First Talk: Ane Bjerre Odgaard
- Title: Identifying computational thinking in preschool settings: A holistic approach.
- Abstract: The introduction of computational thinking (CT) in 3-5-year-old children’s educational settings informs a growing research field (Bers, Strawhacker, & Sullivan, 2022). Despite explicit valorizations of children’s agency and play within this field (Bers, 2018), activities most often comprise structured CT tasks (McCormick & Hall, 2022), and empirical studies point to tensions between such tasks and children’s emergent play practices (Odgaard, 2022). The presentation reports on a socioculturally informed and design-based study with the ambition of examining whether, and how, CT can be meaningfully implemented in sound alignment with local practices in two Danish preschools. This approach makes it possible to identify aspects of CT across institutionally situated social situations: In child- and educator-initiated play- and learning activities, as well as in institutional routine activities. This talk identifies CT across social situations and points the relevance and limitations of CT as a structuring resource for children and professionals in preschools.
- 30th May 1pm - 5pm
- Second Talk: Jingyun Wang from Durham University, who has been teaching programming courses for non-technical students for many years, previously in Japan and now at Durham in England.
- Title: MediaLib - Training Wheels for Python Learning
- Abstract: Jingyun will present the Medialib library for scaling down programming in Python, discussing motivation, design, and some examples from class for beginner programmers, in addition to results from using the MediaLib in teaching and what was learnt from students' feedback in the past three years. In the final part of the presentation, her PhD student Adam Wynn will discuss an analysis on students' use of Medialib based on log data from the Medialib website.
- Demonstration of MediaLib
- Game Jam rules explanation and Q&A session
- 31st May 10:30am - 5pm
- Game Jam
Note: All times are UTC+1 (Copenhagen).
Game Jam Information
To register for the event, individuals or groups of up to three people can complete the registration form located at the top of the page. Please note that only school pupils (high school or younger), first-year computer science university students or non-computer science university students are eligible to register.
The registration deadline is May 29th 20:00 UK time (21:00 Denmark time). We will release the task on the website at May 30th 13:00 UK time (14:00 Denmark time). You and your group will then have 1 and a half days to work on the submission. The submission deadline is May 31th 20:00 UK time (21:00 Denmark time).
A ZIP file containing the game templates will become available on the day that the game jam starts, and not beforehand. Participants will have one and a half days to work on their game by modifying the provided templates and changing assets such as images.
Participants will then need to ZIP the game folder along with its assets and submit their game before a specific deadline. A submission point will appear on this page once the game jam begins.
By submitting their game, participants agree to the following terms:
- their game will be evaluated by the game jam committee.
- if a team is selected as a winner the ZIP file containing their game will be made public on the MediaLib website so other learners can benefit from these games.
There will be two categories of award for this game jam, including the award for best technical game and the award for the most innovative game (either graphically or in terms of gameplay). Within 1 month after the Game Jam, two teams from each category will be declared winners.
The winners will be announced on this page and an email will be sent with a certificate and an online shopping gift card.
Venue Information
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.