Hi!
I know not many of you know me. I'm a fairly new player. Those who do know me even a bit know I tend to like to think ahead. So, brief background: I recently just started my first teaching job ever (Yay, very exciting and very nervewracking) I teach history, primarily, but I'm doing this interesting class co-taught with the science teacher that connects students across the globe and teaches them basic, modern tech skills. This quarter, we're working with students in India to build a website about climate change and renewable energy- so the students are learning CSS and HTML, as well as a bit of Javascript. I, myself, know very little about computer languages, so I'm learning along with them. We're using DASH and Weebly, but we're also seeing if we can't get them into CodeCombat and possible CodeAcademy.
I know that next quarter, or the quarter after, we'll be changing international partners, and the new project will be game design. It's not specified what type of game they need to make, but I feel that teaching my students what it's like to input syntax and get results, especially in an already made game such as Aetolia (But obviously not Aetolia, since they're in 6th grade) will be a good way for them to then turn around and understand how they may want to structure their games.
I'm primarily responsible for the humanities part of this class, but I like to take initiative every now and again. So, brief(ish) background over, my core question to our tech-y community here is:
What are some good MU*s that are appropriate content-wise for 6th grade? What are some good MU*s that you would deem 'educational' or that would be helpful for learning syntax and basic coding? What are some other programs (A la codecombat, Dash, etc) any of you might suggest we use to help these students learn computer language writing in a more fun and engaging way?
Thanks in advance! I know this is a lot to ask.
- Rhoynn
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