Tag: Digital Skills

Code Your Holiday Cheers: Create Your Own Digital Greeting Card

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At a school we currently partner with in the UK, Dr. Taylor and his Code Club students shared their holiday cheers with their school community and the BSD Education team by including student coded digital holiday cards in their recent school newsletter!

This is such a thoughtfully refreshing and environmentally friendly way to spread some holiday joy. Try out this sandbox as a cool digital “arts and crafts” activity!

We have prepared a fun activity (approximate duration: ~ 60 minutes) with resources and video tutorials so that you can do the same with your students just in time for the holiday season. We recommend this activity for ages 8 and above.

For younger students, you can do this as a class activity. For older students, you can print out or display the instructions from step 7 to challenge them to figure out and tinker with the code.

Below is the sample output that we have created at BSD:

Follow the 8 simple steps below and check out the video tutorial on how you can introduce this activity into your classroom.
Step 1:

Login to BSD Online

If you and your students already have a BSD account, simply login. If you are new to BSD Online, click on “Sign-up” to create a new account. It is advisable to login as this will allow you to save your work.

Step 2:

Introduce HTML and CSS

Spend 5 to 10 minutes to introduce or recap about the use and syntax of HTML and CSS with your students. Use these resources to help you.

Step 3:

Open sandbox mode

Direct students to sandbox mode as shown below:

Step 4:

Copying code into HTML and CSS file in sandbox

To help introduce the code to your class, we have put together the coding snippets from below. Direct students to copy and paste each of the relevant code into the correct files.

Paste this into the HTML file:

<div>
     <h1>Happy Holidays!</h1>
     <h2>Wishing you all the joy in the world!</h2>
     <img src=”https://image.flaticon.com/icons/svg/1066/1066181.svg” />
     <h3>From, BSD</h3>
</div>

Step 5:

Paste this into the CSS file:

@import url(‘https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Lobster|Raleway’);
body {
    background-color: #3e4e88;
}

h1 {
    color: #e0fcff;
    font-size: 75px;
    font-family: ‘Lobster’, cursive;
}

h2 {
    font-size: 36px;
}

h3 {
    font-size: 30px;
}

div {
    width: 500px;
    height: 750px;
    background-color: #1a2c5b;
    text-align: center;
    border-radius: 5px;
    border: 6px solid #b8dff0;
    margin: 30px auto;
    padding: 20px;
    box-shadow: 10px 20px 20px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.7);
    font-family: ‘Raleway’, sans-serif;
    color: white;
}

img {
    width: 300px;
}

Step 6:

Save your work!

Click the “Save” icon under your profile picture to save your work! This is very important so that you won’t lose any work. Remind students to keep saving regularly.

Step 7:

Time to customize!

Follow this video tutorial to learn how to customize the different parts of this digital holiday card!

  1. Customize the content in HTML file:
    1. Find <h1>, <h2> and <h3> to update the text
    2. Find <img src= “ URL”/> to update the image. Use Flat Icon to find a suitable royalty free icon.
  2. Customize the styling in the CSS file:
    1. Find the “body” selector to modify the background color.
    2. Find the selector <h1>, <h2> and <h3> to style the font by using:
      1. color to change the font color. Simply type in a color and sandbox will make some color suggestions
      2. font-family to change the font style. Below is a video to show you how to use Google Fonts.
      3. font-size to control the size. The “px” stands for pixels.
    3. Find the “div” selector to modify the following:
      1. width to adjust the width of the card
      2. height to adjust the height of the card
      3. background-color to adjust the color of the card
      4. border-radius to adjust the rounded corners of the card
      5. border to adjust the thickness and color of the border
      6. font-family to apply a different font style (remember you must have included this font when you import from Google Font)
      7. color to change the font color

Step 8:

Share with your community.

Once students have completed their digital cards, ask them to click on the link icon and click the toggle for “share with others” on the top right corner of their sandboxes. Alternatively, you may want to share the cards using the QR code. Simply take a screenshot of the QR code and share via a communication application of your choice.  

This project is so versatile that you can easily repurpose it after the holiday season as an event poster, invite or any other context for students to try out.

If you have any questions about this activity, reach out to us via our Intercom system located on the bottom left corner of the screen. Happy Holidays!

Bring Digital Skills into Your Classrooms All Year Round

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The Hour of Code is a great way to introduce coding and digital skills to your students. As they learn what they can create and build, they will likely want to do more. With this in mind, providing opportunities to acquire digital skills throughout the school year will help them.

So, how can you incorporate digital skills and coding into the classroom more regularly?

Here are three ideas that can be used in your classroom immediately:  

1. Encourage your students to “go digital” to complete their schoolwork and projects. They might create a website or a video presentation using Flipgrid instead of a poster. With digital tools, students can develop skills while also preparing for future jobs.

2. Encourage students to consider how technology relates to many subjects. Students must understand how technology is used to solve real-world problems. Prompt their thinking with questions. Doing biology? Ask about medical technologies. Art classes? Explore digital artists. That said, students should begin applying digital abilities to real-world situations as soon as possible.

3. Set up specific time for digital activities in your classroom. This could be weekly or monthly but make the time!

a.) You could use the slot for a combination of mini on-screen and unplugged activities throughout the semester.

b.) You could set your students a challenge that they can work on across the semester as a passion project.

Whatever format you choose, give students the opportunity to be creative and explore the many ways technology can be used by introducing them to a range of different resources.

At BSD we advocate for the use of real world technology projects in every classroom throughout the school year. We believe that regular exposure to technology in a range of different contexts is the best way to prepare students for using technology in their futures and to understand how to apply it in connection with their interests.

To see what BSD can do for you, contact us here.

What You Need To Know About the “Hour of Code”

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All Your Questions on the “Hour of Code” Answered

What is the Hour of Code?

The Hour of Code is designed to show that anybody can learn the basics of code and to broaden participation in the field of computer science and technology.

When is the Hour of Code?

The Hour of Code takes place each year during Computer Science Education Week. This year Computer Science Education Week will be from 3rd to 9th December. But you can host an Hour of Code all year-round by registering on the Hour of Code website.

Why is the Hour of Code important?

Learning to cï»żćšè€Œé‹Œ
ode helps develop problem-solving skills, logic and creativity. Coding requires attention to detail, patience, and develops computational thinking skills and creativity.

There must be more to the “Hour of Code” than picking up skills?!

The skills are really not what we think is important about the Hour of Code, and you have likely already heard and read all the information extolling the virtues of the mindsets and methodologies of technology development before.

The important part about the “Hour of Code” is about giving as many young people the opportunity to try creating technology for themselves.

Why is it important to try creating with technology?

It’s true that most students won’t become programmers, and the reality is that only a small minority of jobs are even full-time programming jobs.

The important point is that all students will not only be using technology in their jobs in the future, but that it will be a fundamental requirement to become employed in a majority of cases.

Trying to create with technology is critical for everyone to have equal access to opportunity in the future.

How can understanding technology start a student’s pathway to opportunity?

Understanding the building blocks of technology, learning to code as we say, is a huge help in being able to understand the world around us and how technology is used and applied. Through this, it’s easier for young learners to think about what their greatest interests are for the careers that they will pursue in the future, as well as the technology that will evermore surround and be ubiquitous to every aspect of their lives. Identifying interests is an important first step to developing the passion to pursue them.

Why is technology so crucial to equal opportunity in the future?

For many years, the aspirations and dreams of young people have often been predicated on their grades, having a degree and even sadly the name or brand of the institution where they studied.

Fortunately, a world that is being driven by technology can be a world of innovation and creativity. You might have heard of the “Innovation Economy”. This will be driven by technology. Through technology, opportunity will be driven not by where it was learned or what grade was achieved, but by what has been delivered and whether it is something people like or choose to use. Opportunity in our future technology reality is not even about being present, people will be able to deliver from anywhere.

What unifies careers and access to opportunity for as many people as possible and particularly those that struggle to realise their dreams because they are in underserved communities, is technology. The ability to create it, apply it and solve problems for others with it.

Without experience of technology at a young age, without the ability to try to create, write a little code even, the door to these opportunities might never seem open and the reality of success might seem unattainable and distant.

The “Hour of Code” being experienced by everyone is not about groundbreaking new discoveries during an hour next week, it’s about levelling the playing field, making a future with tech seem less frightening and more attainable, and laying the groundwork for everyone to have the opportunity to all work towards groundbreaking and exceptional futures together. For the simple chance of realising this, an “Hour of Code” is an excellent investment.

What do I need to know to join the Hour of Code?

21st Century Tools for the Classroom: Quizzes & Videos

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Formative assessment is an essential part of the learning process, allowing teachers to assess students’ understanding of concepts. Here are a few of our favorite tools to help make assessments fun for students and easy for teachers:

Quizizz:

Quizizz is simple to use, with customizable options and an intuitive interface. One of its unique features is how it includes memes and player points/leaderboards in between questions. These options add a layer of fun to the experience. As a result, Quizizz is simple and easy to use, perfect for creating fast, fun, engaging formative assessments. Students take quizzes individually, but teachers can monitor student progress in real-time and download performance reports afterward.

Kahoot is less streamlined than Quizizz but offers a wider variety of content. Including game types like Jumble, where students order items instead of selecting a multiple choice answer. In addition, Kahoot has “blind kahoots,” or quizzes designed to teach a concept rather than just test knowledge. Finally, Kahoot allows you to save performance data for each examination, just like Quizizz.

The main differentiating feature is that quizzes are taken as a whole class, with students engaging with one question at a time as a group. Its comprehensive variety of content and focus on group engagement makes Kahoot perfect for stimulating class discussion and encouraging students to engage with each other to answer questions.

Recommended for extensive reviews or when other game modes are better suited to the subject matter. While using Quizizz to reinforces learning in small chunks that allow students to move individually at their own pace.

Both programs easily save performance data and provide opportunities for things like keeping a class-wide term scoreboard, tracking individual improvement, or highlighting areas that need work.

Video Lessons:

Edpuzzle is a platform that allows teachers to take videos and turn them into fully realized lessons. The biggest thing we love about EDpuzzle is it’s intuitive and easy to use.

Teachers can search popular platforms like YouTube or browse collections of videos by subject and grade level. Then, teachers can cut the video, add voice-overs or insert in-video quiz questions.

Students can use these lessons to break up lectures, review, or teach complex concepts in the classroom. It also allows teachers to take full advantage of the visual power of videos in their lessons. Ideal for formative assessments, the questions can be added throughout the class.

Personalized Learning and Coding in the Classroom

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Personalized learning is a topic of ever-increasing importance in today’s educational environment, and code fits perfectly within its ideals.

Personalized learning is about tailoring the experience to the needs of students, allowing them to focus on things that interest them and use styles that best suit their needs. Code offers a unique opportunity to allow for structured and yet personalized learning. Ultimately, the way you learn to code is by completing projects.

Project based lessons

Students can practice application-related project scenarios as many times as they choose. Moreover, in programming, there is rarely only one way to solve a problem. With no definitive answers, students can use their imaginations via personalized learning to figure out how to get the desired result.

Even if a class of students is working on the same topic, each student can focus on tackling the difficulties in a learning method that best meets their interests. More advanced students can try more complicated solutions, while other students can focus on building the basics. Both are developing a better understanding of how fundamental elements work and interact.

Using coding in class

In an HTML and CSS lesson using personalized learning, students would design a poster with a solid backdrop, text blocks, and a photo. More advanced students might instead add changing background colors, embed videos, or make poster elements interactive. A personal touch can be added by having each participant create a poster on something they enjoy learning about. A lot of projects allow for a lot of customization.

Enabling students to pursue interests while working towards a common objective is at the heart of individualized learning. Personalized learning allows students to develop their creative thinking skills while creating tangible items they can be proud of. It’s a win-win for everyone.

For more on this subject, check out our other articles below:

Understanding Personalized Education in Schools
Launch Into Your New School Year With a Real-World Tech Project

Do Video Games Benefit Student Learning?

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While the argument over modern games and their impact on society continues, it is clear that video games have the ability to teach a wide range of abilities, especially in education.

Much of this potential is tied to the immense versatility of video games themselves. Video games are one of the most flexible types of entertainment around, more so than movies, books, or music. To fit an ever-widening range of circumstances, they require users to acquire ever-widening skills and capabilities.

In a classroom, games allow students to learn at their own pace, without much social pressure. In a typical classroom, students are frequently pushed past essential concepts that the rest of the class immediately truly understands. An enthusiastic student may lose interest or cause problems for others by having to wait for others to catch up. Games can allow for each player to progress at their own pace, doing much to alleviate this issue. Students can also acquire ideas without the social pressure of performing in front of the class; instead, they can focus on understanding the concepts presented without being judged by their peers.

A video game’s whole design revolves around producing an engaging experience for the user. Game-based learning allows students to quickly apply or understand new concepts rather than just listening or reading.

For instance, The Republia Times is a free web game in which players are tasked with writing headlines for a newspaper; the catch is that, through the titles, they have to toe the line between sentiment and bias. The game requires students to write creatively, balance numerous agendas and allows for discussions on media and free speech. There’s also Cell Command, a web-based game where students control various organelles inside an animal cell. Through the game, students learn about cell functions and how each part interacts while actively participating in the learning process.

With Kahoot! you can create a game using a pre-made template, then play it solo or as a group. Students can also create games to test each other on content taught, which is a great method to retain information. Teachers can even assign games as homework; you can probably see how students might prefer playing a trivia game to filling out a piece of paper.

Fortnite, a popular battle-royal game, has a team mode that encourages students to work as a group, creating strategies and building their teamwork to beat other teams of players. In doing so, they’ll need to learn how to collaborate with others, communicate successfully, deal with failure, and learn from mistakes.

In general, most games ask players to use their brains to solve problems under a set of rules and limitations. Maybe that challenge is how to solve a puzzle, how to maximize the efficiency of a system, or how to out-maneuver another player; regardless, players are being asked to learn new skills and think about things in new ways.

Video games do tend to be a fairly divisive topic; some say they encourage young people to withdraw from the world and others, robbing them of important social skills. Others claim that playing video games offers a wide range of benefits, from improved hand-eye coordination to enhanced strategic thinking, and that through online games players build essential skills in cooperative problem solving and teamwork. That’s a bigger discussion, and because this is real life we’re talking about, they’re probably both right.

When used correctly though, video games offer a way to make kids excited about learning and engaged with the material, all in a way that allows for an experience tailored to suit their learning style. While you can have too much of a good thing, when used responsibly, today’s video games can be an incredible asset for building a variety of skills.  

For more ideas on how to use video games in your classroom, check out this link.

Coding Is Just Like A Language

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Why do we refer to coding languages as “languages”? While it’s easy to pass off as just a phrase, the term is remarkably fitting; understanding why can help broaden and deepen our understanding of coding and our spoken languages. Here are just 5 of the exciting ways coding is like a traditional language:

1. IT’S USED TO SHARE INFORMATION.

First, and perhaps most fundamental, coding and languages are both used to share data. We use language to convey our thoughts, feelings, and intentions in our daily interactions with other people, whether over the internet or in person. At its core, code is doing the same thing; when you write code, you’re talking to the computer and telling it what you want. Some could even argue that the computer takes those instructions much of the time and uses them to communicate with other people through web pages, video games, apps, etc.  

2. THEY HAVE RULES AND GRAMMAR (OR SYNTAX).

Rules and grammar are an essential part of coding languages. Without rules and the framework they provide, our languages would not convey meaning as effectively as they do. If you get the rules wrong while coding, the computer can’t understand what you’re trying to say.  

3. THEY ARE EXTREMELY VERSATILE.

While coding languages do have definite rules, much like traditional language, those rules also allow freedom. We can use spoken language for many purposes: we use it to share thoughts, request things, and generally communicate. We can even use language to make music or play games with it. In addition, code has flexibility. For all its strict rules and specifications, coding can solve different problems in various ways. Thus, while some methods might be best suited to specific instances or contexts, there generally isn’t one “right” answer as long as it follows the basic rules.

4. THERE ARE MANY DIFFERENT LANGUAGES

Mandarin and English are very different languages. They have additional grammar and methods of speaking or writing. While they ultimately fulfill the same purpose, some ideas might be easier to express in English, and some pictures might only be fully appreciated in Mandarin. The same is true of coding languages. While one language may be able to solve various problems, another language might be able to do it a little better. Some languages can converse fluently with data; some are right at home giving a robot instructions. In the same way that learning a new spoken language allows you to communicate with new people in new ways, learning new programming languages enables you to deal with problems differently.

5. YOU WON’T BECOME FLUENT IN A DAY

If you crunch, after a day of study, you might be able to say hello, ask for the bathroom, and maybe order from a restaurant in a foreign language. But to understand a language takes practice. While learning a new programming language is generally faster than picking up a foreign language, ultimately, the same principles apply.

After a day or two of study, you can create some cool projects and build a base understanding of the rules, but you won’t be able to build an expansive piece of software. While that can be discouraging, it’s also what makes learning so rewarding. Learning a new programming language, whether it’s your first or fifty-first, can allow you to think about old problems in new ways and accomplish things you couldn’t before.

While they may look very different on a page, coding languages and spoken languages share many similarities when it comes down to it. In comparing the two, we see both things in a slightly different light to understand new aspects of the familiar.

A slight shift in perspective may make us reconsider an oft-occurring problem or particularly vexing issue and find a better solution. Ultimately, by changing the way we think and develop new ideas, we can change a world, a country, or even a classroom.

Advantages of Real-World Technology Camp for Kids: Game Development Camp

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Like a technology camp, Extracurricular activities benefit children by exposing them to skills beyond academics, applying what they learn at school in a different context or environment, and developing them as well-rounded young adults. In addition, they socialize and make new friends while exploring new areas of interest and broadening their perspectives.

Here we explore what real-world skills your child will learn if s/he enrolls for a game development technology camp.

Developing games is an intense, collaborative, and multidisciplinary activity, taking the developer through the planning, designing, coding, and testing stages. Creating a game touches upon various abilities and interests, from programming logic to artistic design and narrative writing.

Because one person rarely excels at all these things, a game development camp becomes an excellent opportunity to work on team-building. Additionally, budding gamers will spend a lot of time practicing communication and collaboration! Here is a bit more detail on some of the ways we see campers honing their abilities at technology camp:

Imagine and plan

Developing games is a creative endeavor, and your child will primarily learn to translate their ideas by creating a storyboard. Putting your imagination to paper helps to spot the gaps in the idea and, in turn, solidifies the gameplay.

Code

Coding is the tool that takes the game from a mere idea to a fully formed product—a game that can be shared and played. Students will typically learn to code using languages like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and coding libraries. However, making a game function correctly means breaking the game’s overall process into small and manageable pieces. This process is called decomposition. This refers to the set of instructions on making them work together as a piece of software. It’s also the functioning game that aligns with the creator’s tech, design, and artistic vision.

Problem-solving

While building the game at technology camp, kids will encounter many problems like the code not working, not understanding some parts of the code, complexities of developing an algorithm, etc. Then, thinking creatively to solve these problems, they’ll brainstorm to create a solution that works.

Adapting to Feedback

The experience of the users is key to the success of the game. Ensuring the game players have a fun and engaging experience, kids will have to carefully plan the game experience, its rules, structure, levels, and score system. During this, they will have to give the game to other users, observe them and take their feedback. Feedback comes with many different suggestions. Kids will need to consider everyone’s input and learn to exercise judgment on what will ultimately be in the final game. This is excellent preparation for their daily lives as adults and a fantastic exercise in empathy.

Communication and presentation

Every child needs to present their game, how it works, how they built it, and how they overcame challenges. Working as a team, they also plan their presentations and make sure that all contributions in the group are recognized. Doing this in a technology camp reinforces a lot of the lessons from school about collaboration and citizenship.

Learning to develop games is a wonderful technical, artistic, and creative endeavor. There is no denying the connection that kids have with games, the prominence of the gaming industry or its implications for their future careers. Most importantly, however, attending a game development camp is a fantastic opportunity for children to deepen their passion. Lifting the lid on how games are created, take their communication, collaboration, problem-solving, and empathy to a new level while making friends and having a great time at technology camp.

If your students have attended a game development technology camp, let us know! We would love to feature their creations on social media. You can share by using the hashtags #BuildSomethingDifferent or #BSDEducation

Check out this link to a great 2D runner game from another technology camp that Matthew built from Sha Tin College on BSD’s Online platform to get started: https://app.bsd.education/share/4W4efS37/.

For more advantages on technology camps, see our related articles below:

Advantages of Real World Technology Camps: App Development
Advantages of Real World Technology Camps: Roblox
Advantages of Real World Technology Camps: Robotics with Micro:bit

Opinion: Why Work Experience Needs to be Bite Sized

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Work experience is an important part of a student’s journey to prepare them to begin a career. However, offering work experience to high school students is often seen by businesses as a time drain with a weak value proposition. The skill set or capability of the students is not clearly understood to create relevant and meaningful work for them to undertake, and the moment of potential recruitment is not seen as sufficiently impending to compel action by the business to provide the work experience opportunity.

Work experience has traditionally been offered as a one-week placement, meaning 5 days working at an office in a company for 40 hours. Often students are already assigned to a department in a work experience company, but in order to set students up for success, the planning and organization of productive tasks for the student will need to reflect more than 40 hours of work. Without really comprehending the skills and competencies of the student, this becomes extremely time consuming and challenging for the supervisor.

In practice, having offered work experience to school aged students now for 9 years in four different businesses, I have found that in reality a successful 40 hour placement for a student really needs to have 80 or more hours of options for work available and prepared. This takes time and resources, with the resulting activities often becoming either menial or contrived. Where the foreseeable outcomes or benefits of the work experience to the company are in doubt, it creates a situation within the company where employees are being asked to take on extra work for an unclear purpose.

It is worth noting that curriculum vitaes or resumes themselves do not give an accurate gauge of an individual’s capabilities. To help potential employers better understand a student’s ability, a well presented portfolio of projects, even school projects, that showcase a student’s ability to use a particular tool, to design, write or analyse would be much more effective and can save a lot of time.

However, I question whether the model of ‘40 hours in a week’ is even the right approach at all. For younger, high-school aged students, it is far easier for a team in a company to find a single task that re-occurs each week, has an easily comprehensible and measurable value and will potentially free-up full time employees for other work.

Let’s take the example of a marketing team. Marketing exists in every company of every size and needs reports each week about the different campaigns that are running. The data can rarely be accessed and automatically compiled through a single system. Therefore, a report needs to be put together showing clearly defined results in one place. With a simple initial briefing, this task can be taken on by a student and then repeated weekly with a work experience visit that continues over a period of time. The task itself gives a clearly identifiable value to the team and allows  tracking of quality and improvement. A bite-sized approach of shorter tasks, significantly reduces the time taken to prepare students to properly undertake their responsibility compared to a week-long work experience programme.

When we think about the purpose of work experience, the focus is really for students to develop their employability skill set. This is where students apply their hard skills while developing their soft skills in a professional environment. To employers, the importance of soft skills of both high school and university graduates is very clear and the afore-linked article does a nice job of defining some of the soft skills I am referring to. Skills such as professionalism, time management and communication, are not developed quickly or in the space of a week. They take time and repeated practice supported by coaching and correction.

Young adults, where their primary work experience will consist of a single week will inevitably have less opportunity to develop their soft skills and overall employability than they would in a weekly experience over a long period of time. Where a week of work experience coincides with a period of instability in life – this is something many young adults experience for reasons out of their own control, particularly in underserved communities – we might also view that there is a higher risk of  disruption, which will mean that there will be no perceivable benefit to the student or the employer in a one week work experience engagement. A shortcoming on an individual week in a weekly work experience will have the opportunity to be redeemed during the following week. A long-term work experience builds sustainable skills, lasting relationships and stability, it allows room for personal growth.

Finally, with the development of employability skills in a work experience placement, there is the issue for high school students that the moment of recruitment is not impending. With a one week experience it rarely, if ever, could be impending unless it took place during the final month of a school career. It might also be unlikely that an employer would immediately meet a high school experienced student and instantly see a place for them in their business purely based on their skill set. Recruitment results from people seeing not just technical merit, but also the ability for that person to fit in their working environment on a daily basis and both sides wanting to work with each other.

One of the best possible ways for a young person to fit into a working environment, which is new and often alien to them, is not to seek an immediate result, but to allow relationships to develop over time. Weekly work experience over a period of time will allow credibility and trust to build between the student and the company as weekly tasks are consistently accomplished, communication is learned and the individual is simply proven reliable and convivial. The issue of impending recruitment from a long term engagement materialises more easily where the relationship can grow and would naturally run to the conclusion of the student’s time at school to connect with their progression to the workforce.

To conclude, business functions through the realisation of return on investment. Frequent bite-sized long-term work experience has a clearly definable value to the company with a lower potential for failure than an isolated experience in a single week. From a business perspective it provides a clear positive return versus investment of time and therefore offers a strong reason for a business to engage in providing work experience for high school aged students.

For students, weekly work experience allows the development of skills and business relationships in an environment where they join with a clear value proposition, and are able to operate with a forgiving margin for error.

Weekly work experience is the optimal model to deliver the best possible experience of the professional working world for students and companies alike.

Inspire Students: Bring the Real World into your Classroom

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A key aim for us at BSD is to help teachers bring real world applicable technology projects into their classrooms. Not only does this help prepare students for future life, but, importantly, it helps them understand the relevance of what they are learning. By building something real that can be shared with the outside world, students learn new skills and see the impact those skills can have. This increases engagement, inspires creativity and develops student ownership.

The ‘real world’ can be brought into the classroom in a number of different ways, but one highly effective option is to make connections with ‘real world clients’. Through this approach, students are given a brief and go through the design thinking process to fulfil the clients’ requirements. A great example of this can be seen at Riverside School, Ahmedabad, India where the students complete client projects across all grades.

This video shows one of these projects in action and highlights the impact this style of learning can have on both subject knowledge and ‘softer’ skills, such as collaboration, problem solving and giving and receiving feedback.

If you have brought real world clients into your classroom, we’d love to hear from you! Please share your stories with us
.

BSD Education (Build Something Different) partners with educators to bring technology education into classrooms through our programs of learning, online learning platform and professional development training.

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