192: Celebrate CS Education Week and the Hour of Code

In this episode of the Ditch That Textbook podcast hosts Matt Miller and Karly Moura share news about Magic School's new SEL lesson generator and a contest for sharing Ditch Summit. They discuss CS Ed Week resources including 20 ways to celebrate the Hour of Code and explore creativity with AI and NASA's Space Jam. They also provide tech tips on creating fill-in-the-blank image generator prompts and using virtual versions of robots. Matt and Karly share quick teaching strategies like writing a message in binary for students to decode and asking an AI assistant for common misconceptions about content. They also share a template of the week and ideas for using it.

News and updates:

• Magic School has a new SEL lesson generator!  Other new-ish tools from MagicSchool.ai include their Real World Connections Tool and the Standards Unpacker Tool.

• Win prizes for sharing Ditch Summit?!?!? 

Here’s how you can participate …

1. Go to DitchSummit.com and sign up.
2. In your Ditch Summit welcome email, you’ll get your unique referral link. (If you got an earlier welcome email, it might not have a link. Just sign up again.)
3. Go share your link far and wide! Every time someone clicks your link and signs up for the summit, you’ll get a referral.

Learn more in this issue of the DTT email newsletter.

The Big idea: 

• Computer Science Education Week Resources

• 20 Ways to celebrate the Hour Of Code

• Unplugged CS resources include Hello Ruby, Kodable Unplugged and the “Program the Teacher” activity from CSinSF.

• Explore Boards Creativity with AI & NASA’s Space Jam

• Flip and NASA Live Event

Tech tips:

• Create fill-in-the-blank image generator prompts with Microsoft designer. Check out this Tweet from Becky Keene for a link to an example prompt.