Hour of Code - Take 2 Recap

Computer Science Education Week is done and dusted, and the second Hour of Code has come and gone.  Last week was busy!  Support for Code.org at my school this year has grown considerably, especially through the efforts of the tech coaches in the ES where every class from K-G5 did an Hour of Code!

As mentioned in my last post, I conducted three HoC events this year . . . one for parents, and two hours for HS students.  I also know of a number of HS students who did at least one Hour of Code on their own during the week, so I am not discouraged by the actual numbers who showed up to do some coding with me.  Here's a couple of photos from the week's events . . .

Small group of parents exploring coding for the first time - this was an interesting group to work with (they loved coding).

First Hour of Code this year for HS students - lots of deep thinking and collaboration.

My MS daughter getting in a couple hours of coding alongside the HS students - she's really into it!

An interesting twist to this year's Hour of Code happened during and after the second student event that I held in the HS.  On Friday after school, a small group of students gathered in my room to explore coding.  What was unusual this time was a "new student" joined us . . . let's call him Mikey.  Mikey is actually our HS Principal who was experiencing a "Day in the Life" of a G10 student for the day, which included going to an after school activity.  I had actually spent the entire day filming Mikey as he went through his day, and then did double-duty filming and hosting the HoC at the same time.  Mikey really enjoyed his coding experience - he went through the Flappy Birds tutorial and built his own game.  You can see in the image below that he finished the tutorial and earned his HoC certificate.

Mikey completing the Flappy Birds tutorial and earning his Hour of Code certificate.

What was also particularly interesting this year, came at the end of this second student HoC.  When everyone was packing up to leave and head home for the weekend, a bunch of the G11-12 students wanted to talk more about coding classes in our school, what they could do to learn more, and what should they be thinking about if they wanted to pursue programming in post-secondary school.  All great topics, worthy of spending more time on.  As my school has phased out the IB Diploma Computer Science course (as explained in this previous post), this conversation turned to alternative avenues for these students to learn more.  They were obviously hungry to learn, ready to delve into programming in a deep way, and asking all of the right questions.  The end result?  This group of students is going to self-form a new Coding Club which we will start in the new year, where we will jump into programming topics that I will draw from IB DP CS and AP CS courses.  I can see the club working through topics such as data representation and how the CPU works, working with some machine & assembly language simulators (knob and switch computers), programming in Python (using Alice 3D), and getting into some Java as well (Greenfoot and my favourite - the Greeps Challenge, plus BlueJay).  Mikey was part of this whole conversation, and it confirmed what we have been talking about for awhile now - that we need to update and change our elective offerings to include computer programming and computation thinking, even if we do not go back to offering the IB DP CS course.  There is obviously a need and a desire for doing programming - we just don't have the elective courses right now for these students to take.  In the meantime, a computing club will fill some of this need but it really needs to be a course for credit.

At your school, do you offer computer programming courses?  IB DP CS or AP CS or some other curriculum?  Do you have a coding club?  How are you preparing students who want to pursue their studies in computer science, programming, electrical engineering, computer architecture, etc.?

One of my HoC certificates from this year's events - thanks to Code.org!

Hour of Code - Reloaded

What is the only thing better than an Hour of Code?  No, not the second coming of the Hour of Code (but that's a good answer ;-) . . . two Hours of Code, of course!

Code.org is again supporting Computer Science Education Week (December 8-14th 2014) and we are making a more concerted effort here to have more students participate this year.  In the ES, all classes from G1-5 will be doing some coding during the week.  In the MS, I know that the MS Tech Club will be doing some coding again, and there might be some buy-in from math or science classes as well.  In the HS, I running an Hour of Code again as an after school activity, but I am offering two different sessions for students on separate days.  I am also offering a parent workshop during the week . . . let's see if any parents show up to try their hand at coding.

This year, to promote the Hour of Code in the HS, I built this short promo video based on statistics from Code.org and modelled after Karl Fisch's "Did you know?" style presentations.  This was just shown to all students in the HS to launch this year's Hour of Code, and it got students talking about it.  Yeah!

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[Music - "Geronimo" by Sheppard] for educational use/viewing only

Hour of Code Recap

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?