1. In this week…
“Constructionism” is connected to agent-based modeling, computational thinking, and education. The video for this week will introduce you to how constructionism is crucial to games and learning and present a programming activity to try out. The activity will engage you with a model in Toolblox to simulate the spread of a contagious disease and allow you to program your own extension to the model.
Constructionism Video [ ZIP, 66 MB, 540 p ]
Constructionism Video Slides [ PDF ]
Constructionism Video Transcript [ PDF ]
Constructionism article by Kafai [ PDF ]
Epidemic Model Programming Tutorial [ PDF ]
2. Constructionism
Wendy Huang and Daniel Wendel present constructionism in education. It includes a demonstration of how to use Toolblox to program an epidemic model.
Transcript [ PDF ]
3. Assignment
Read
Read the article “Constructionism “ by Kafai.
- How would you convince a teacher that constructionism is important for teaching and learning?
- What examples would you give?
Create
Program an Epidemic model in Toolblox by following the directions on the epidemic programming tutorial . Then choose or invent one extension to program.
- Write a reflection about the programming activity.