Computational Thinking – for me and my students

I’ve never been taught explicitly how to program or code. Over the years I have developed my skills as necessary to maintain and share teaching and learning materials. I’ve managed to learn what I need to know as I need it, and then I inevitably forget it. I have also (sheepishly) used a similar approach in teaching these topics to my students. I have shown then what they need for a task and they have no doubt also forgotten the skills.
With the new Digital Technologies curriculum I now have scope to explicitly teach computational thinking to my students. I will be using the Scratch program in the first instance, as I recall finding it useful myself. This is the realisation that inspired this post – I only know a little bit more than my students. Now, the gap is still very wide, but it is closer than I am familiar with. What it will allow me to do though, is to be more immersed in the learning process that I am offering my students, as it will be much more relevant to me. I will have a greater appreciation of what they a re going through. This is something that I have not experienced for a while as a teacher, and to be truthful, is something that I find quite invigorating.