Bringing Creativity to STEAM with Drawing and Coding

Presented by Charlotte Cheng, Curriculum Content Manager, Wonder Workshop; and Dylan Portelance, Education Product Manager, Wonder Workshop
Sponsored by Wonder Workshop

Watch the Recording

If you view the recording and would like a CE certificate, join the Coding & Robotics K-8 community and go to the CE Quizzes link in the Community Toolbox.

For decades, drawing has provided students with a “why” for coding, engaging them with personally meaningful projects grounded in creative expression. Even as early as the 1960s, children wrote code for a line-drawing turtle with the LOGO programming language to generate graphics on their screen with scaffolded computer commands. Codable robots for young learners continue in this tradition, bridging computer science education with the arts.

Presenters from Wonder Workshop share how K–8 classrooms can bring coding to the canvas and provide students with tangible ways to explore, learn and delight in computational drawing. This edWebinar will benefit K-8 teachers, art teachers, SPED educators, librarians, tech specialists, administrators, and makerspace facilitators. Explore the creative side of STEAM using drawing and coding.

About the Presenters

Charlotte Cheng is a curriculum designer at Wonder Workshop. With over 15 years of curriculum design experience, she has developed curriculum content for Wonder Workshop, the Walt Disney Company, Save the Children, LeapFrog, and several edtech startups. Her expertise is creating effective and engaging content for kids at the intersection of education, media, and technology. Charlotte has also taught in a variety of K-12 classroom settings and one of her workshops was featured on ABC News. She received her BS in cognitive science and MA in elementary education at Stanford University. In her spare time, Charlotte likes to draw on walls, sidewalks, faces, and once in a while, the good old traditional piece of paper.

Dylan Portelance is a product manager at Wonder Workshop, where he enjoys thinking and learning with educators about coding and robotics in K–8 classrooms. Previously, Dylan spent three years with the ScratchJr team leading design research teams and developing curriculum for young children. He also spent two years writing code for design studios creating data visualizations and web applications. A creative coding tutor and musician, he is always searching for new ways to bridge computing with the arts. Dylan earned his MA in child development and BS in computer science and music from Tufts University.

Join the Coding & Robotics K-8 community to network with educators, participate in online discussions, receive invitations to upcoming edWebinars, view past edWebinars, take a quiz to receive a CE certificate for a past edWebinar, and access free resources.

Wonder Workshop creates engaging, hands-on learning tools, programming languages, and curriculum that bring STEM and coding to life for grades K-8. Robotics fosters critical thinking skills at an early age, encourages creativity, and turns students into makers rather than consumers. Wonder Workshop is the creator of the Dash and Dot robots. Let’s inspire students to be future leaders in technology. Find out more at makewonder.com