Cultivating computational thinking and computational creativity in the classroom
July 22-24, 2010
A summer workshop for middle-school and high-school teachers
Organized by the MIT Media Lab, in collaboration with Google's CS4HS initiative

Overview

Are you interested in helping your students:

  • imagine new possibilities of what they can do with computers?
  • learn to express themselves creatively with new technologies?
  • explore computational ideas through personally-meaningful projects?

At the Creative Computing workshop, we'll explore new educational technologies and instructional strategies to engage students in creative design activities -- and, in the process, help students develop as computational thinkers and computational creators.

The workshop will feature technologies developed at the MIT Media Lab, with presentations and demonstrations by Media Lab researchers. Hands-on sessions will focus on Scratch, an easy-to-use programming environment that enables students to create interactive stories, games, animations, and simulations. As students create and share Scratch projects, they learn to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively -- while also learning important mathematical and computational ideas.

The workshop, which will take place at the MIT Media Lab, will include full-day sessions on July 22-23 and a part-day session on July 24. All housing, parking, meals and workshop materials will be provided. Participants are asked to bring their own laptops.

The three-day workshop is open to all media specialists, technology coordinators, computer-science teachers, and others who focus on the integration of new technologies into middle-school and high-school classrooms.

Schedule

In the workshop, we will explore computational ideas through a series of hands-on workshops and speakers. The activities will span four different genres of creating with Scratch: art/music, stories, sensing, and games.


  Thursday Friday Saturday
8:30-9:00 Breakfast Breakfast Breakfast
9:00-12:30 Introduction Workshop 2: Stories Workshop 4: Games
12:30-1:30 Lunch Lunch Lunch, Reflections
(until 2:30)
1:30-5:00 Workshop 1: Art/Music Workshop 3: Sensing
5:00-8:00 Group Dinner and Activity

Apply

We are no longer accepting applications -- the applications were due by June 1, 2010. We received 150 applications for 27 positions. We will notify all applicants by June 8.

Contact

For more information, please email us at cs4hs@media.mit.edu.