Computer Science Education week was December 10th and kicked off with President Obama writing a line of code as part of the Hour of Code. The Hour of Code is designed to be an introduction to coding in a simple and fun way to show that anyone can be a coder. There were 77,000 different Hour of Code events happening around the world. At one point, the traffic to the server reached its breaking point from all the excitement when the website went down due to so much activity!
Excitement for coding was high here in Iowa, especially for one of our area districts, English Valley, who won $10,000 from Code.org! At last count, 82 million people have tried the Hour of Code and have written 4 billion lines of code.
It has been great to see the excitement build for computer coding. At Grant Wood, we hosted a teacher training from Dr. Ben Schafer, professor from UNI, for Code.org's new K-5 curriculum. The free curriculum is designed to have unplugged (or computer-free) lessons blended with plugged lessons to support even the youngest students while they discover the world of coding. We know that young students need to be up and moving more and this curriculum recognizes and supports this. The photo on the right showcases our code dance, a lesson designed to show how dance and coding can connect. The curriculum has many other real-world connections and usually has a video lesson that introduces new concepts. It was created as part of the Creative Commons and aligns with Common Core, ISTE, and CSTA standards.
Twenty-three local teachers took part in the free, one day workshop to learn more about this curriculum. Dr. Schafer's energetic spirit for coding makes this not the typical sit-and-get workshop. We experienced lessons from the student's view and gained experience teaching some of the tougher lessons. There was a great dialogue amongst the group and on follow-up teachers resoundly said that there were planning on implementing the curriculum. Dr. Schafer will be conducting more workshops across Iowa throughout the spring. Click here to find a training near you to take advantage of this experience!
The new curriculum brings up a good point - it takes more than an hour. The curriculum is meant to build student's capacity for skills related to coding. Critical thinking, perseverance, problem-solving, and creativity are the skills we want to encourage in our students. The Hour of Code was created to get coding's foot in the door of schools. So, where is your school at? Have you celebrated an hour? Or has your school continued to support coding by implementing any of the great, free curriculums out there? Let us know where you are at or if you need any support in the coding process.
- Amber Bridge, Technology Consultant
@abridgesmith
Twenty-three local teachers took part in the free, one day workshop to learn more about this curriculum. Dr. Schafer's energetic spirit for coding makes this not the typical sit-and-get workshop. We experienced lessons from the student's view and gained experience teaching some of the tougher lessons. There was a great dialogue amongst the group and on follow-up teachers resoundly said that there were planning on implementing the curriculum. Dr. Schafer will be conducting more workshops across Iowa throughout the spring. Click here to find a training near you to take advantage of this experience!
The new curriculum brings up a good point - it takes more than an hour. The curriculum is meant to build student's capacity for skills related to coding. Critical thinking, perseverance, problem-solving, and creativity are the skills we want to encourage in our students. The Hour of Code was created to get coding's foot in the door of schools. So, where is your school at? Have you celebrated an hour? Or has your school continued to support coding by implementing any of the great, free curriculums out there? Let us know where you are at or if you need any support in the coding process.
- Amber Bridge, Technology Consultant
@abridgesmith
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