Reprinted from the PEG page, a programming education project promoted by CANVAS.

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We Held a Programming Training Session for Teachers!
On July 22, we held a training session at
the Saitama Prefectural Comprehensive Education Center for
teachers from elementary, junior high, and high schools, as well as special education schools, throughout the prefecture.

This was the second year of the program, following last year’s event, and
approximately 30 teachers participated.
Half of the participants were teachers from schools that do not offer information technology courses, and we were pleased to see such
widespread interest.
On the day of the event, we welcomed Mr. Kazuhiro Abe, a CANVAS Fellow, as our instructor, and the session proceeded in the following order:
lecture, hands-on exercises, and discussion.

During the lecture, participants learned about the history of computers and the development of programming education. In the hands-on
session, teachers—many of whom were experiencing
programming for the first time—had a fun time creating a line-following robot on screen using “Scratch,” a programming language designed for children, and the “Raspberry Pi”
microcomputer,
as well as controlling an LED to make it blink using a homemade external switch.

During the discussion, we reviewed the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology’s “Guidelines on Programming Education in Elementary Schools”

http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/shingi/chousa/shotou/122/attach/1372525.htm を読んだのち. Based
on today’s training, participants exchanged opinions in small groups on: initiatives
to foster computational thinking; concerns regarding programming education (learning); andissues or concerns regarding programming education (learning)
, and systematic learning starting in elementary school
. After exchanging opinions within each group and presenting their findings, the training concluded with closing remarks from Professor Abe.

Although the training session lasted all day, I was particularly impressed by how the
participating teachers gathered around Mr. Abe’s desk during breaks to ask questions and engage in conversation.
While this session focused on computer programming
, we will be holding another training session—
this time on programming with tablets—at the Saitama Prefectural Comprehensive Education Center this winter.
We will continue to focus not only on the children but also on teacher training as we work to promote these initiatives nationwide!

In addition, there were
two news articles about this training session, and since they were featured, I’d like to share those with you as well!
Published
in the “Japan Education News” on August 1 *Some photos included
“Education News”
https://www.kyobun.co.jp/news/20160722_04/
*The article ranked third in the weekly viewership rankings (July 25–29),
so it seems to have generated a great deal of interest among our teacher readers as well.