Why we created this resource
Welcome to our Equitable Creative Coding Resource (ECCR) website! As part of the 2022-2024 cohort of the Scratch Education Collaborative (SEC), we developed our ECCR in the context of a 2-year pilot project with a group of autistic students aged 12-15 years old located in Luxembourg. This pilot project has been part of our umbrella project called Creative Coding for ALL. Our goal was to address the significant gap in accessible and inclusive coding education for Special Educational Needs (SEN) students, particularly those on the autism spectrum. We wanted to promote digital inclusion and ensure that every child, regardless of their abilities, has the opportunity to learn and engage with creative coding.
- Adaptability for Various Learners: While the resource was designed with autistic learners in mind, it is flexible and can be adapted for use by other neurodiverse and neurotypical students. The level of difficulty and the amount of autonomous work can be adjusted to fit the needs of different learners. In the case of our autistic students, all lessons were live-coded during class.
- Curated and Adapted Content: The ECCR is a mix of activities created by our team and a curated collection of projects from various organizations, creative individuals, and websites that inspired us. Our focus was not on creating entirely new content but on selecting, adapting, and structuring a subset of existing ideas and projects into a cohesive curriculum that educators can follow. The following ECCR is a selection of lessons that were most enjoyed by our students.
- Comprehensive Curriculum: The ECCR covers 16 lessons, encompassing most basic coding concepts. This curriculum can be spread over 4 months, with one lesson per week, providing a thorough overview of various topics. It helps teachers gauge their students' interests and engagement with different coding concepts.
- Structured Learning Path: The curriculum structure and the sequence of introducing coding concepts are based on the recommendations of the Sheffield E-learning Center. The order of topics is: Sequence, Input, Repetition, Selection, Variables, Physical Systems and Physical Computing. Many of our activities are also inspired by their Scratch Progression resource.
*Our first small pilot group from spring 2022. 3 of them have been with us until now and have*
*shown remarkable improvement.*
Who can use it
The ECCR is designed for:
- SEN Educators and Facilitators: Those who work with autistic learners or students with mild to medium intellectual disabilities.
- Parents and Guardians: Families looking to support their children's learning journey at home.
- Educational Institutions: Schools and learning centers aiming to incorporate inclusive creative coding into their curriculum.
- Community Organizations: Groups focused on digital literacy and inclusion for diverse learner communities.
- General Educators: Teachers working with neurotypical students who seek to integrate creative coding into their curriculum.
While our primary focus was on autistic learners, the resource is flexible and can be adapted for use with neurotypical students as well, serving as a valuable tool for educators and facilitators worldwide.
How to use our ECCR