A Firefox Curriculum for Computer Science Principles?

Archives Community Education
#1

I’m currently taking an on-line course through a MOOC for the College Board’s upcoming Computer Science Principles course, http://www.csprinciples.org/. The MOOC is located here:

https://csp-cs4hs.appspot.com/course

CS Principles is an interesting course. It is being actively promoted and since it will earn AP credit it will have a big impact on the high school CS curriculum throughout the US.

I like the fact that it does not dictate the programming language used. Curricula have already been developed for SNAP!, https://snap.berkeley.edu, and App Inventor, http://appinventor.mit.edu/explore/.

I’m wondering if there are folks within the Mozilla community who have given thought to creating CSP curricula for FXOS?

It seems to me that this is “low hanging fruit”, which is one the things attracting me so strongly to FXOS in the first place. Much of the curriculum is already written, since there are abundant HTML and CSS resources (I have my own), and things like the Khan Academy’s Intro to JS course, https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-programming/programming, provide a wonderful introduction to programming with JavaScript.

What is missing is a collection of lessons, activities, and resources aimed at enabling students to create mobile applications on FXOS (students want to do that, which is why App Inventor is so popular).

I’m going to gradually build up a collection of these types of resources on my own, but it would be really nice to be part of a larger community.

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#2

@jelkner very interesting. I’d love to know more about it

#3

What would you like to know, Michael? My plan is to do four things which
over time can lead to what I need to put together a curriculum for CS
Principles:

  1. Work with students to develop FXOS apps that are of interest to them.
  2. Learn about the requirements of CSP from things like the MOOC.
  3. Gather and test the best OER (open educational resource) materials for
    HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
  4. Gain experience developing apps for FXOS myself so that I can add new
    resources specifically aimed at FXOS app development.

I’m especially hoping to get help from the Mozilla community with 1 and 4.
We are looking for Mozilla devs who are willing to help new learners with
questions they have as they work on their own apps.

#4

Hi @jelkner

This is great! I’m thinking about how to connect you with this information. I’m also curious about how you see this as something we can offer as part of our Community Education program? We have volunteers who want to get better at at or learn Firefox OS app development as well. Thanks!

#5

http://firefoxosbooks.org/

#6

and this: masterfirefoxos.com

#7

Hi Emma! I’ll be posting everything I develop here:

http://openbookproject.net/

I would most gratefully welcome contributions!

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#8