ECE6071 Chap.6 Designing Playful Coding Activities
Designing Playful Coding Activities
From why to how
The coding session moves from the case for coding to the craft of planning it, and it frames the move with a question about playful learning and children’s digital lives, introduced through the work of Mitch Resnick at the MIT Media Lab.
This chapter gathers the planning tools the session provides, because they are the tools your mini curriculum will be judged on.
The six Cs
The positive technological development framework, from Bers, names six behaviours a technology-rich programme should support: creativity, content creation, communication, collaboration, community building and choices of conduct.
The fuller version pairs each with a personal asset in the child, caring, connection, contribution, competence, confidence and character, and with classroom practices such as whole-class projects, storytelling projects, community experts, engineering journals, see-think-wonder routines and an ethical design process.
The framework describes a personal development path within a sociocultural context, which is why choices of conduct sit on the same list as content creation.
A session with six parts
Adapted from a coding curriculum for a tangible robot, the session structure runs from a warm-up game, through story time for vocabulary and ideas from literacy, a structured challenge on a coding platform, an expressive exploration on the same platform, unplugged making time, to a closing technology circle for sharing and reflection.
A second model, the story-inspired flow, starts from a picture book, finds a problem in its plot and has children solve it by coding and by making.
Four curriculum spaces
The session ends on a Hong Kong case read at four levels: the kindergarten room, home and community, Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area, and culture.
Each level suggests concrete moves, from programming corners and parent workshops to partnerships with technology companies and activities tied to festival traditions such as dragon boat racing and lion and dragon dances.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Playful learning and children’s digital lives
- 02
The six Cs of positive technological development
- 03
Assets, behaviours and classroom practices
- 04
The six-part coding session
- 05
Story-inspired coding from a picture book
- 06
Curriculum spaces from kindergarten to culture
Worked example · free
Check a lesson plan against the six Cs
- 2Say which of the six Cs the lesson already supports.
- 2Identify at least three that are missing.
- 3Propose two changes and link each to a C.
Key terms
- Positive Technological Development
- Bers’ framework for technology-rich learning that pairs six behaviours with six personal assets and with classroom practices that grow them.
- Six Cs
- The six behaviours a technology programme should support: collaboration, communication, content creation, creativity, community building and choices of conduct.
- Expressive Exploration
- The open part of a coding session in which children use a newly taught idea to make something of their own.
- Structured Challenge
- The focused part of a coding session in which one powerful idea is taught through a task with a checkable outcome.
- Story-Inspired Coding
- A planning approach that starts from a picture book, finds a problem in its plot and has children solve it by coding and making.
- Curriculum Space
- A level of the environment around a child, from the classroom to culture, at which a unit can be planned and supported.
- Engineering Journal
- A child’s record of designs, attempts and changes, used to grow competence through content creation.
Designing Playful Coding Activities FAQ
How should a coding session for young children be structured?
The course uses six parts: a warm-up game, story time, a structured challenge on a coding platform, an expressive exploration, unplugged making, and a closing technology circle. Each part has a job, and dropping one usually loses either the reason for the code or the reflection on it.
What are the six Cs and why do they matter?
They are creativity, choices of conduct, communication, collaboration, community building and content creation, from the positive technological development framework. They matter because a coding unit is judged by the kind of learners and community it helps form, not only by the commands children can use.
How can a coding unit connect to Hong Kong culture?
The session suggests tying coding to festival traditions such as dragon boat racing and lion and dragon dances, and to local partners in Hong Kong and the Greater Bay Area. A story-inspired session built around a festival picture book is one practical way to do it.
Assessment move
Take a coding lesson you have seen or planned and rewrite it on the six-part structure, keeping the same idea. Then circle the C each part serves. The parts you had to invent are the ones your original plan was missing.
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