OLLI101535 - How Your Grandchildren are Learning to Code (IN PERSON AT TUCC)
Course Description
HOW YOUR GRANDCHILDREN ARE
LEARNING TO CODE
Instructor: Stephen Garland
Day of Week: Tuesday
Dates: Jan 30 – Mar 26 (8 sessions)
No Class: Mar 5
Time: 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM
Location: In-person at Center City (TUCC)
This course surveys how elementary school students are learning to code, starting in grades K-5 with ScratchJr and Scratch—easy-to-learn block-based visual programming languages for creating animations and video games. These languages help introduce general concepts in computer science before students (and you) move on to coding in more powerful text-based languages such as Python and HTM/CSS/ JavaScript for creating interactive websites.
This course is a hands-on workshop: bring your laptop!
Maximum In-Person: 15
Instructor Bio:
Stephen Garland earned a PhD in mathematical logic at the University of California at Berkeley. In the first half of his career, he was a Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at Dartmouth College, where he co-led the development of the Dartmouth Timesharing System and the Basic programming language. He also chaired the committee that developed the initial Advanced Placement Course in Computer Science. In the second half of his career, he was a Principal Research Scientist in MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, where he developed tools for automated reasoning about formal specifications for computer software. In retirement, he teaches pro-bono K-8 workshops on computing and mathematics
Notes
Why when I’m registering do I join the Wait List?
Several of our courses are in high demand. In order to accommodate our members who are not tech-savvy and have trouble registering online, we created a registration system in which there is no advantage to registering early, no disadvantage to registering later.
When registering, you join the Wait List for each course. Don’t be alarmed. This does not mean the course is full. After the registration period is over, we run a lottery on the courses, and it randomly determines who is admitted to each course and who is not. You typically will receive notification regarding which courses you are admitted to, about two weeks before the start of the semester. If a course accepts 150 or more students, you are very likely to get into it.