Hour of Code Competitions

Here are three competitions in which you may be interested. I have not added any of my own comments or editorial, in the interests of posting this information as quickly as possible. 

There are some exciting opportunities here: don’t miss them!

2Simple competition

Pupils should create the best program possible. It could be anything anything you want like a game, an ecard, a maths machine or a story.

There will be prizes for the best entry in each category.

  • Free Code Scenes
  • Free Code Chimp
  • Free Code Gibbon
  • Free Code Gorilla

Each is designed for a different age or level of coding skill. All entries will also receive some fun 2Code stickers and a Certificate of Achievement.

http://www.2simple.com/news?dm_i=R2J,280YS,E94V5K,81OZM,1#8640

Espresso competition

This looks pretty exciting, and has several age categories.

Disclosure: I am one of the judges for this competition.

Here are the details:

Get your pupils to create their own apps to rival those topping the charts on the app store and enter them into our Hour of Code competition. The competition is open during the Hour of Code week from 3rd March and closes on 9th March.

What could your pupils win?

  • Best app for 7 and under 
    Judged by Terry Freedman, Independent Education Consultant – www.ictineducation.net
    • Winner's Prize: App published to the iTunes or Google App stores (subject to approval)
    • Runner up prizes
  • Best app for 8-11 years olds
    Judged by Merlin John, Independent Education Consultant – www.agent4change.net
    • Winner's Prize: App published to the iTunes or Google App stores (subject to approval)
    • Runner up prizes
  • Best use of tablet functionalities for 7 and under
    Judged by Max Wainewright, creator of Espresso Coding
    • Winner's Prize: App published to the iTunes or Google App stores (subject to approval)
    • Runner up prizes
  • Best use of tablet functionalities for 8-11 year olds
    Judged by Max Wainewright, creator of Espresso Coding
    • Winner's Prize: App published to the iTunes or Google App stores (subject to approval)
    • Runner up prizes

http://www.espressocoding.co.uk/espresso/coding/hourofcode.html 

Help to make the MOOC!

Cambridge partnership launches ‘Hour of Code’ Competition

The competition, which was inspired by the national Hour of Code Week, gives UK schools and students the opportunity to share their innovative coding projects by creating their own videos to introduce others to the pleasures of coding.

The awards are split into three categories: creating a video introduction to coding, creating a video for Variables and Constants or Arrays, and creating a self-marking test.

The winning entry in each category will win a class set of Raspberry Pi microcomputers and £500 computing vouchers for their school. In addition, the best entries will be included on the Cambridge GCSE  Computing (MOOC) itself.

The Cambridge GCSE Computing Online MOOC is a free resource designed to help teachers and GCSE computing students learn the basics of computer programming and demystify the world of algorithms, logic gates and RAM.

The closing date for the competition is 17 March 2014 and the finalists will be announced at the Technopop ‘Celebrating Innovation week’ in April 2014. The competition is open to all schools in the UK with student’s aged 11–16. 

For more information, please visit the competition website:  http://www.cambridgegcsecomputing.org/hoc-competition-2014

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There’s more information about the Hour of Code in the article about upcoming conferences.

That information was first published in Digital Education. Have you subscribed yet? (It’s free!) Details here: http://www.ictineducation.org/newsletter/