For Educators

DevTech’s pedagogical approach can be found in Marina Bers’ latest book Coding as a Playground: Programming and Computational Thinking in the Early Childhood Classroom.  Visit this book guide for activity suggestions for hands-on play, prompts for reflection and discussion and opportunities to take the concepts discussed in each book chapter further with additional resources.

Professional Development

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Join the DevTech Research Group for their first professional development opportunity since joining the Lynch School of Education at Boston College! The workshop is titled Beyond Coding: Teaching human values in the classroom. This two day workshop, held from 9:30-4:00 pm on June 29th and 30th, will explore Professor Marina Bers’ metaphor of Coding as a Palette of Virtues, both in theory and practice with ScratchJr and KIBO: DevTech’s two technologies. Attendees will  receive ScratchJr and KIBO introductions, tips, and demos, as well as a signed book by Prof. Bers. During the session participants will engage in discussions and group activities focused on how to use these technologies to highlight and support human values and virtue development in education.

Attendance for both days is mandatory, by choosing to participate you are agreeing to take part in an innovative research study about how virtues and values can be incorporated into the classroom across different settings. Click here to register. Space is limited, first come, first serve. Please only register if you can guarantee attendance on both days. 

Join the DevTech Research Group at the Lynch School of Education at Boston College for a free professional development opportunity this June! The workshop is titled Coding as Another Language – ScratchJr. This half day workshop, held from 8:30-12:30 pm on June 23rd, will explore Professor Marina Bers’ Coding as Another Language pedagogy and curriculum, and how it can be implemented with ScratchJr, a free programming app for children ages 5-7. Attendees will receive ScratchJr introductions, tips, and demos, a comprehensive training on the Coding as Another Language – ScratchJr curriculum, and a signed copy of Prof. Bers’ newest book. During the session participants will engage in discussions and activities focused on ScratchJr and the CAL Curriculum.

After registering, attendance is mandatory. By choosing to participate you are agreeing to take part in an innovative research study about the best approaches to teaching computer science in early childhood. Click here to register. Space is limited, first come, first serve. Please only register if you can guarantee attendance. 

DevTech’s newest resource, known as TeachCAL, is a free, online, self-paced professional development course for educators interested in using the Coding as Another Language approach to teaching coding in the classroom.

DevTech will be hosting a series of professional development workshops this year in collaboration with the Office of Professional and Continuing Education at Boston College’s Lynch School of Education and Human Development. These workshops will target preK-2 teachers who are interested in integrating computer science, computational thinking, and robotics into their early childhood classrooms with a playful, developmentally appropriate approach created by the The DevTech group led by Professor Marina Umaschi Bers. For more information on available workshops or to host a course for your organization, contact lynchschoolpce@bc.edu.

Curriculum Resources

Computer programming is becoming an essential skill in the 21st century. Through developmentally appropriate platforms such as KIBO and ScratchJr, DevTech has created comprehensive coding curricular resources to enable teachers to help young children start learning about programming and develop computational thinking skills.

There is no prior coding experience necessary!

Our lesson plans and classroom activities are designed to support both you and your students! We’ve developed engaging educational content that uses KIBO, ScratchJr, and the Coding as Another Language (CAL) approach using both KIBO and ScratchJr. Additionally, funded by the The David Lear Sulman Computing, Science, and Engineering Fund for Jewish Day Schools, we’ve also developed a Jewish Curricula Series that integrates coding, robotics and computational thinking with Judaic Studies.