Hour of Code

The hour of Code came and went back in December and where were we?  We were home on our first snow break.  Not wanting to pass the opportunity to expose the students to coding, we came back the second week of January, (not the first because we were home in our second snow break) and let the kids experiment with coding.  We started out with Crunchzilla.com.  The students learned about javascript and making rectangles and about the functions rect, fill, and line. One of our students was able to recreate the American Flag just by coding.   From there we went to code.org.  The students worked on the javascript program developed by the Kahn Academy.  It helped them become more familiar with what was going on with the numbers inside the parenthesis and have a better understanding of the canvas.  Many of them were able to make some cool designs based on using the various shapes and functions.   The javascript program also reiterated the x an y axis. This just fit in perfectly with what was going on with graphing in their classrooms.  From there we let them experiment with lightbot on the code.org site as well as the angry birds on code.org.  All of this has led some of them to exploring on their on.  Many of them have learned a lot and have been able to better understand the Scratch coding that MIT developed and a few of them have delved into the language of python. 


Coding is really not something I am going to sit down and work on every night.  It was a little bit of struggle for me personally.  I have to admit I had a real good team mate in facilitating this plan.  Our technology master for our campus, who by his own admission struggles with teaching the kids, would come in and teach me just enough that I could share. He would also hang around for class time to be able to ask those questions I just couldn't.    From there, the kids let us know just how much they wanted to learn.  Their questions led us on a journey.  Whatever they wanted to know, we helped them explore.  Coding gave the kids the responsibility of being in charge of their own learning-their own problem solving.  From this experience we developed a culture of collaboration.  Watching the kids work together to solve problems was one of the greatest benefits.