The Hour of Code

The Hour of Code is a great way to encourage computational thinking and Computer Science for learners of all ages. This year’s Hour of Code was only possible thanks to a great team of colleagues and students who made it so much fun (and busy!) On the week of December 8th to the 12th, we implemented a school-wide initiative with students participating from three divisions K-5, Grade 6-8 along with our Grade 9-12 programmers taking the lead. Our goals were to encourage students to use computer technology as a creative programmable tool and prepare them for the programmable times that we live in today and tomorrow. (I like this Wired article by: Bill Wasik!) Needless to say, this was a popular event as almost all primary and junior students, when given encouragement and support, love using technology and for some this opened up new possibilities of learning, expression, creativity and sharing on devices familiar to them.

Some of our events and highlights included:

1. Our Hour of Code led by our Grade 11 and 12 programming students who partnered with our Grade 3 coders to explore apps such as Scratch, Lightbot and the code.org tutorials. Having Scratch 1.4 as a backup proved invaluable when connectivity was slow or unavailable to the code.org site. (This happened as our Hour was the first Monday of Comp. Sci. week at 9:00am!)

2. All our K- 8 students completed their Hour of Code on a variety of programming and coding applications during ICT classes. Students from SK and up explored Lightbot, Scratch (Why write a holiday card when you can create a holiday code?), and the multitude of programming activities at code.org. Outside of classes, students were lined up the door to get a seat at our lab computers to complete our coding activities. (Enough to bring a tear to this Computer teacher’s eye…although no time for that, too busy helping and encouraging 😉

2. Competition  – After much discussion prompted by exploring the videos on the need for Computer Science in the K-12 curriculum, students were encouraged to create a program using Scratch. Some excellent ideas…Link
scratc2

3. We met and partnered with a local Computer Scientist, entrepreneur and CEO who supported our efforts and told us the journey of her career in Computer Science and some of her successes, challenges and adaptations to the always changing (and always exciting) field.

4. We also presented at Assembly including the famous Loop Dance and a popular visit from Sphero (so much buzz, I think I might have sold a few and or had the Sphero added to student’s lists for Santa…:)
loop1

5. Most importantly, our programmers from Grade 3 and up went beyond One Hour of Code and were keen to continue their programming journey through the code.org site especially when they could login and save their progress using their school Google accounts.

By my very, very rough estimate, I would say approximately over 10,000 lines of code were written over the week. Here is a link to my simple Scratch program and presentation at assembly!
scratch1

Probably, my favourite takeaway from this event was that we encouraged all, including our teachers that students can create and curate computer programs (like visual-based code like Scratch or text-based code) to demonstrate their learning and understanding in any topic. Learn to program or program to learns(?)…how about both!

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