Lara Lina Ferrari’s experience with the CS First Platform
Lara Fina Ferrari is a long-standing coach with FMD. She is an English professor who loves new teaching methodologies and a fervent supporter that “experimenting with programming and coding in all subjects helps students to develop critical thinking.” In this interview with Onelia Onorati, the professor describes her experience with the CS First Platform, developed by Google: “Usually, in addition to the webinars planned with FMD, I employ CS First in all cosing activities both at school for the October CodeWeeks and in other schools, as I believe it is important to help teachers learn about block coding. The key works of block coding are planning, sharing, patience, and remix. Indeed, the last is the foundation of Scratch and the added value of the community. These key words must be the foundation of all teachers and their teamwork!”
How did collaboration with Project CS First begin?
“I learned about the CS First Platform during the Covid pandemic and immediately was attracted to it because of its simplicity and intuitive nature (and this meant that I was able to have colleagues use it during CodeWeek, even the most stubborn). The platform allows users to add opportunities for reflection to didactic activities. Moreover, students can reorganise the content to create new products.”
What do you think about the tools and its accessibility?
“The platform home page connected to each profile is very clear. It allows one to create classes to which to invite students, whether or not they have a Google Workspace for Education account. The classes, which are all listed in the teacher’s dashboard, are useful to monitor student work and organised the course, as well as to view completed projects. The CS First Platform allows teachers, even those with the least Scratch or block coding experience, to introduce fun and interesting activities to their classes as a tool to integrate their courses.”
Adopting two different points of view – teacher and student – what are the strengths of the CS First Platform?
“The added didactic value for teachers is the opportunity to introduce students to coding through simple, clear videos and entice them to use the content available to develop new projects, re-elaborating and summarising their new knowledge. Moreover, the projects can be uploaded to the Scratch Platform to share them. From the point of view of students, the platform allows them to develop digital skills, soft skills such as flexibility, problem solving and teamwork, and especially creativity, driving them to create characters. It’s an inclusive platform that allows students to experiment with coding, from basic to advanced projects, allowing each student to work at their own pace.”
Can you describe one of your lessons?
During my one-and-a-half hour lessons, I present the platform, its potential, and draw the teachers’ attention to the importance of having and sharing curriculum mapping. This allows them to draw on digital projects that are ready and can be remixed based on their needs and objectives. The webinars embrace all subjects as CS First is truly multidisciplinary! Here are a few examples: Narration Club, Discovering Music, The Monalisa (Art), and even Mathematics: “The Dragon and Times Tables” or Geometry “Geometric Figures: Perimeter and Area.”
