Author Archives: anukahri

EU CODE WEEK @ Jalavapuisto school, Espoo

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I decided to build most of this years EU Code Week events in our school around the Cody Color -game that the Italians introduced to me in the EU Code Week summer school where 25 leading teachers got together to network and learn new things. Thank you Italy!

I started by cutting sheets of paper about 30 cm x 30 cm and introducing the rules to the game to my own class. The instructions you can find here: Color challenge. It’s never too late to try! The kids really loved it.

We spread around the hallways to play. We practiced on a 4 x 4 grid although we later tried on a much bigger one. This grid was excellent for 2 kids but even 4-5 could fit, as long as they knew their steps.

After my class learned the game well we sent invitations to teachers in our school to book us on Code week to come and teach it to their classes. We got many invitations and spent many hours on week 41 teaching other children in our school. On one particular lesson we had 10 spots in the gym for anyone to come and try. For first time users a good hint is to draw a small red dot on the back of your right hand and a yellow one on the left hand. Makes turning the right way a lot easier.

At the end of that class my class tried out the massive 12 x 13 grid with 24 children at the same time! It was super fun but the grid being so big you could only figure out your path so far and some of the success was pure luck.

We also tried the Battle Royale on the website to prepare us for the night school and beating all the parents. After playing on the floor the kids got a hang of the website game really quickly.

On Thursday the 10th of October we had a coding night school. The kids came back to school at 5 o’clock with a lot of parents who had accepted our code challenge. We started with about 50-60 people on the Battle Royale. Everything worked really smoothly. The parents got super excited too! But as hard as they tried they couldn’t beat the kids -some came close 🙂

On the same evening we also tested the code.org website and their Hour of code activities. We got quite a few diplomas printed for completing it!

And we also had time for doing the pixel art posted to EU Code Week teachers group in Facebook by Catherine Swain. Thank you for the fun idea!

But no night school would be fun without pizzas, playing tag on the dark hallways of the school and sleeping altogether on the gym floor. We’ll do all this again next year!

And this excellent 4K class has well deserved their certificates of recognition for contributing to the success of EU Code Week 2019. Good job!

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EU Code Week Ambassadors and Edu Coordinators meeting 4.-5.9.2019

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I had the privilege of attending EU Code Week Ambassadors and Edu Coordinators meeting in Brussels on September 4.-5. on behalf of Finland’s Ambassadors and Edu Coordinators. The two days were full of networking, key speakers and planning. I also introduced Innokas network as one of Finland’s best practices on the field of coding and innovations.

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On the first day we heard from Nadia Aime and her personal story on how it has lead her to work toward bringing equality in coding for all. We also heard about the Code Week pilot Summer school. You can read more about the summer school in my blog here.

Then it was time for best practises. I introduced the Innokas network, it’s story and all the things we do. You can read more about the Innokas network here. Other best practises came from Poland, Italy, Luxembourg, Romania and Austria. They covered topics like computational thinking, tips and tricks for engaging code week and connecting the national digital education with the code week website. Day one was finished with a networking dinner.

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On Thursday we got to see a sneak peek at the new redesigned EU code Week website. It should be out any day now, so keep a look out for the orange! We also got to hear three interesting presentations.

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Claire Sears from the British Council told us about their work on training all the teachers in the Western Balkans. She also introduced the online courses they have for all teachers. 

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Loubna Azghoud from the Women in Tech Festival presented us with their Code festival for 2019. The subject this year is Code & Fly to the moon. Read more about it on their site starting September 9th. 

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Deidre Hodson from DG Education, Youth, Sport and Culture introduced the SELFIE. It’s a free, easy to use tool to help schools find out where the students and teachers are in regards of digital learning and digital competences.

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The Innovative school model by Innokas and the holistic approach on embedding technology in teaching and learning introduced by SELFIE and european Commission have a lot in common in my opinion.

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We also worked on brainstorming for the Code Week vision of the future and mind mapped for the actions of Code Week 2019. The countdown is on! 26 days and counting!

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Anu Kahri,
EU Code Week Leading teacher in Finland
Classroom teacher, Jalavapuisto school, Espoo, Finland
Innokas-trainer

EU CODE WEEK summer school 2019

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I had a great opportunity this summer to participate in Brussels in the first ever EU Code Week Pilot Summer school! 25 EU Code week Leading teachers from 16 different countries were welcomed on Tuesday the 9th of July by Commissioner Maryia Gabriel. Her goal is to get 50% of all schools in the EU area to participate in EU Code Week by 2020. That leads us straight to the Leading teachers’ goal of building a stronger network and spreading the idea that Code Week is for everybody. 

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On the second day of EU Code Week Pilot Summer school we worked on parallel workshops. It was hard to choose, because you only had time to participate in 2 of the 4. There was workshops on tinkering and making, robotics and makeblocks, micro:bit, visual programming and, game design. During the workshops we talked about developing technologic and information literacy and, competences like problem solving, creativity and collaboration. 

My favorite workshop was working with Pocket Code. With Pocket Code you can create, play and share games and animations that you develop with your phone or tablet. It was super easy and fun! 

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In the afternoon we worked with Computer Science Fundamentals and the code.org curriculum in particular. 

Day 3 of the EU Code Week Summer School focused on building a MOOC together. We started by listing advantages and finding solutions for existing challenges on the following topics: 

  •  Visual programming 
  • Robotics 
  • Tinkering 
  • Unplugged activities 
  • Coding with all subjects 

On day 3 we also got to play a royal battle on CodyColor which was introduced to us by Leading teacher Stefania Altieri. The aim on the game is to keep your robot moving on the platform as long as possible. You have a 4 X 4 grid and you can choose where your robot “walks in to the grid” but after that the moves are pre-determined by the colors in the squares. It was a super fun game that I will definately play with my kids at school. As an unplugged first, so that they learn the directions and then the actual battle.  

On Day 3 we also got to visit the House of European History museum. The museum aims to become the leading museum about transnational phenomena which have shaped our continent. The museum explores the historical memories, diverse experiences and common ground of the people of Europe and how these relate to present day. It was a very interesting and interactive guided tour via a tablet and I got to experience it in Finnish! The House of European History can be experienced in all 24 EU official languages. 

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On day 4 – our last day – we learned how to organize a hackathon but mainly focused on the future. We worked on our action plans for the coming EU Code Week. Many different ideas and many different ways on how to put these ideas into practice were shared. It is very important to share and to create a network. We recieved our diplomas for the good work we’d done during the week and said farewells to all new friends near and far, knowing that a new network is supporting us from now on.  

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Do you want to learn more? Watch the video and sign up for the MOOC!

EU Code Week – Deep Dive MOOC

 

Anu Kahri 

EU Code Week Leading teacher in Finland 

Classroom teacher, Jalavapuisto school, Espoo, Finland 

Innokas-trainer 

 

PS. Brussels is known for it’s Manneken pis but did you know that it has inspired two other statues… The Jeanneke Pis and the Het Zinneke. Make sure to find all three if you ever visit the city 🙂

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Collaborating with our friends in Canada

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I had the privilege of meeting Jonathan So this Summer in China. We both took part in the Global Educational Summit amongst other teachers from China, Canada, Australia and Canada. Jonathan works as a 6th grade teacher in Ontario Canada and I am a fourth grade teacher in Espoo Finland. We decided to bring our kids together. The theme for this years GEC is “Our school -our neighbors school” and it gives us tons of possibilities working with the kids. From past experience we decided that working together is easier after they had met first. And that’s how it started…

Because of the time difference we decided that I would have night school with my children and Jonathan would have his kids in school normally. My kids got super excited about spending the night in school and had a long wait from August to November 19th. We also had to have the fire department come in and check the premises so that they were safe for sleeping over.

My kids first had a normal day at school and then returned to school at 17.00. The level of excitement was touchable 🙂 At 18.00 we used Skype to contact Jonathan’s class. We had some technical problems in my class -of course- and ended up with 18 children around an iPad trying to see and hear. In the beginning the kids had to try to figure out where the other class was located at. Asking questions like: “Do you speak French?”, “Do you play ice hockey?”, “Is it Germany?” they quite quickly figured out where the other class was at.  Then everyone introduced themselves by telling their name and an interest of theirs. A lot of giggling and laughing and excitement and 1 hour later we were done.

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“Skype was fun although it was a bit long. But we could talk to other people almost at the other side of the world.”

“The Skype was very nice. We had a mystery class we were talking to but we found out were they live. It was my best day ever with my class.”

Jonathan’s kids went to French class and we went to computer class. I had created an Edmodo group for us before hand. Jonathan had sent us a video of their school. A video the kids had filmed earlier that day. My class watched it and commented and after posted lots of question about school life in Canada. Now we are eagerly waiting for responses.

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After Edmodo we took a head start on Hour of Code. code.org  has launched two new coding hour -exercise. One with Minecraft and the other with Star Wars. My class worked intently with which ever one they chose to do.

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The night was long and one needs food. Pizza at school was a treat that we seldom have.

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And beds than? We slept in the gym. Boys on one half and girls on the other. We made our beds ready and found the gym mattresses handy 🙂

“The pizza was excellent! Unfortunately ate mine very fast. it is very nice to get pizza at night school.”

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“You could sleep very well in the gym.”

“I didn’t sleep well but I still loved the night school!”

“Sleeping was booring.”

At 22.00 we were ready for what turned up to be the most exciting thing about night school: A game of police and robbers. The 2 police had flashlights and the robbers each had a reflector of some sort. The school was totally dark and you had permission to run down the dark corridors. Even though we extend the time twice it ended up too soon. I had 19 very sweaty kids on my hands.

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“My favorite thing was police and robbers game.”

“I loved the police and robbers game!”

Everyone quieted down quickly and even the teacher slept quite well. In the morning we had a breakfast prepared by our kitchen and got ready to go home as the others were just arriving to school.

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“The night school was super duper!”

“The whole night school was super exciting and fun!”

Collaboration with Jonathan and his class has now officially started. Stay tuned to what we do next.