Faculty from UBC’s Okanagan campus in Kelowna are working with local elementary and high school teachers to bring new technological topics to young people in the valley by next school year.
UBCO’s Faculty of Education recently hosted an event with School District 23 to help them bring more innovation and computer coding into Kindergarten to Grade 5 classrooms.
Code code more code! #Codecreate #Kelowna @UBCedO @UBCOILC pic.twitter.com/8EO1aSsvMg
— Codecreate (@CodecreateBC) January 24, 2016
This month, tech sector entrepreneurs, UBC faculty and school district educators have discussed ways to bring more applied design, skills and technologies (ADST) into classrooms starting this September.
“In order to innovate, we need to collaborate,” said Susan Crichton, director of UBCO’s Faculty of Education.
Crichton said they’ve had a big part in developing the ADST curriculum, and have taken various aspects of education into consideration.
ICYMI: About 100 #sd23 students spent Saturday at #UBC Okanagan learning how to code: https://t.co/peuRGXuXfD pic.twitter.com/XdVMh4whhP
— Barber School (@IKBSAS) January 25, 2016
On June 10, they hosted a think tank event.
“Teachers and administrators from the Central Okanagan School District are excited to engage with members of the Faculty of Education at UBC Okanagan and local high-tech industry leaders to co-create a teaching and learning model that will support classroom teachers to develop real-world coding, design thinking and learning opportunities for students,” said Jon Rever, Director of Instruction at School District 23, who explained that the concepts of coding and design are new to elementary classrooms.
More coding @ #Codecreate #Kelowna @UBCedO @UBCOILC! pic.twitter.com/W6w6meSck8
— Codecreate (@CodecreateBC) January 24, 2016
Coding workshops for kids are becoming increasingly popular in the province.
In January, UBC Okanagan hosted Codecreate, with more than 100 students from the Okanagan Valley on board to learn to code.
A study recently released by Accelerate Okanagan showed the valley’s technology sector contributed $1 billion to the regional economy in 2013.
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