Computer Science Education Week was last month, before our long winter holiday, and I managed to squeeze in an Hour of Code event even though I was out of the school for most of the week. Leading up to CSEdWeek, I planned and promoted our very own HoC event through HS assemblies, posters and this promo video that I put together for fun . . .
Our small HoC event was successful and fun, with about a dozen students turning up to try their hand at programming. The MS tech club also participated earlier in the week, so we had about 25-30 students participating across the school. It was a little disappointing that I could not get any interest from the ES faculty to get involved, but I attribute that to the timing - the last week of school before Christmas break is simply too hectic and full of other seasonal events . . . too much competition for people's time and energy. I think the one person who was the most excited about all of this was my daughter Jasmine (G6). She singlehandedly poked and prodded the MS tech club into participating, got other students interested in writing code, attempted/completed numerous tutorials over the week, and even came to do some coding with me and the HS students . . . pretty sweet!
The tutorials that were produced for the Hour of Code are all excellent - great that this movement will continue and grow. In particular (as a computer science educator), I really liked the LightBot tutorial for beginners or students with a little experience, the Angry Birds/Plants vs Zombies maze project for younger students and complete beginners for it's accessibility, and the App Inventor project where you can build an Android program and put it onto your phone in an hour (for more advanced students or ones that want to challenge themselves).
On the Thursday after school when we held our own HoC event, students spread out around my room or went and found their own space in the hallways . . . to start writing code. When we started our hour, the counter on the CSEdWeek website was just below the 10 million mark . . . and ticked over the 10 million goal as we were working. Now, about a month later, the counter is well over 20 million and still counting! This project from Code.org has done so much to change people's awareness of computer science and computer programming . . . let's all keep the ball rolling, the zombies walking, and the little LightBot jumping! I still have students coming by my room asking about the Hour of Code, as they could not attend that day. This whole process has really made me aware of the existing need that we have in my school for programming courses and other opportunities for students . . . something to definitely think about and work on for next year and years to come. It's a shame that we retired IB Diploma CS a few years ago, as there are still so many interested students. But the changes that have been made to IB CS have made it untenable to offer, at least at my school. In a previous posting I wrote about the decision to stop offering CS here - you can read about it here.
So what were my favourite parts of our HoC event? Well, the first one is obvious - my daughter Jasmine asked her coach if she could miss the first half of her basketball practise in order to "come and write code with her Dad". Even though she is in MS, she was not put off by doing the HoC with a bunch of HS students. Good on her! And my second fav bit was after the fact, when my principal told me that he was returning to his office after school to find two girls sitting on the floor in the hallway, intently working on their laptops. When he had a peek at what they were doing, he was amazed to see that they were busy writing code and were totally engrossed by it. Pretty cool!
Did you host an Hour of Code event in your school? Does your school offer computer science/computer programming courses in ES/MS/HS? Has your school phased out the computer science course in recent years (as we have) due to falling enrolment or the inability to find a teacher for the course?
Our small HoC event was successful and fun, with about a dozen students turning up to try their hand at programming. The MS tech club also participated earlier in the week, so we had about 25-30 students participating across the school. It was a little disappointing that I could not get any interest from the ES faculty to get involved, but I attribute that to the timing - the last week of school before Christmas break is simply too hectic and full of other seasonal events . . . too much competition for people's time and energy. I think the one person who was the most excited about all of this was my daughter Jasmine (G6). She singlehandedly poked and prodded the MS tech club into participating, got other students interested in writing code, attempted/completed numerous tutorials over the week, and even came to do some coding with me and the HS students . . . pretty sweet!
The tutorials that were produced for the Hour of Code are all excellent - great that this movement will continue and grow. In particular (as a computer science educator), I really liked the LightBot tutorial for beginners or students with a little experience, the Angry Birds/Plants vs Zombies maze project for younger students and complete beginners for it's accessibility, and the App Inventor project where you can build an Android program and put it onto your phone in an hour (for more advanced students or ones that want to challenge themselves).
On the Thursday after school when we held our own HoC event, students spread out around my room or went and found their own space in the hallways . . . to start writing code. When we started our hour, the counter on the CSEdWeek website was just below the 10 million mark . . . and ticked over the 10 million goal as we were working. Now, about a month later, the counter is well over 20 million and still counting! This project from Code.org has done so much to change people's awareness of computer science and computer programming . . . let's all keep the ball rolling, the zombies walking, and the little LightBot jumping! I still have students coming by my room asking about the Hour of Code, as they could not attend that day. This whole process has really made me aware of the existing need that we have in my school for programming courses and other opportunities for students . . . something to definitely think about and work on for next year and years to come. It's a shame that we retired IB Diploma CS a few years ago, as there are still so many interested students. But the changes that have been made to IB CS have made it untenable to offer, at least at my school. In a previous posting I wrote about the decision to stop offering CS here - you can read about it here.
So what were my favourite parts of our HoC event? Well, the first one is obvious - my daughter Jasmine asked her coach if she could miss the first half of her basketball practise in order to "come and write code with her Dad". Even though she is in MS, she was not put off by doing the HoC with a bunch of HS students. Good on her! And my second fav bit was after the fact, when my principal told me that he was returning to his office after school to find two girls sitting on the floor in the hallway, intently working on their laptops. When he had a peek at what they were doing, he was amazed to see that they were busy writing code and were totally engrossed by it. Pretty cool!
Did you host an Hour of Code event in your school? Does your school offer computer science/computer programming courses in ES/MS/HS? Has your school phased out the computer science course in recent years (as we have) due to falling enrolment or the inability to find a teacher for the course?
