Why teach coding through Art?
Art engages all students. When students are able to use code to create their own art, they can use their creativity, get excited about projects that are only possible in code , and fall in love with coding. Creating art in any medium involves following steps - an algorithm, and when students create art with code, they are breaking down the project into steps and writing code for the algorithm to make art.
6 Lessons -
The perfect introduction to coding in Scratch
These are lessons that I have used for many years in all sorts of situations - from my early art class, digital design programs, professional development workshops, computer science classes and more. These lessons can be done for any age level.
The focus is to learn to use code as a creative medium while learning powerful concepts in programming through Scratch.
The 6 lessons include
Design patterns using code (lesson 1)
How can we use code to create symmetrical patterns using programming. How does programming make this task easier?Math/Art concepts: Angles , 360 degrees to complete pattern ,idea of Symmetry
Coding concepts: Scratch Interface, Decomposing a project into smaller steps, Looping
Create mathematical art (lessons 2, 3)
How can we use code to create geometric shapes like square, hexagon by a series of moves and turns.
Math/Art concepts: Angles , Geometry- Shapes
Coding concepts: Events, Looping, Nested loops
Create abstract art (lesson 4)
How can we use code to create abstract art based on random mouse clicks
Math/Art concepts: Use of random , Geometry- Shapes , Co-ordinates
Coding concepts: Events, computer random
Create an animated card. (lesson 5)
How to read and modify code from an existing project to create a story/animation.
Math/Art concepts - vector graphics, co-ordinates, %sizes
Coding concepts: Events, Reset code, multiple backgrounds, adding music
Create a simple game. (lesson 6)
How to create a simple game
Math/art concepts - creating original art work, co-ordinates, variables
Coding concepts - conditionals, events, variables
How do I get these lessons?
To give you access to all the details of these lessons including links to shared slides etc, please send me email
sheena (at) computersforcreativity (dot) com