Code.org is a great place to learn more and get your students excited about coding. It is ready for you to use with your students today. While you may create accounts for them, they may also use the website without an account. I started by having my students work through the Hour Of Code, 20 level tutorial. The tutorial is ready for students of all ages. Students in grades 1-8 will be challenged and find success. It is an excellent introduction to many of the coding terms and commands. It uses the Blockly drag and drop programming, and the videos inserted between the levels teach students along the way and feature celebrities and sports figures that appeal to the students.
Students should be encouraged to work in pairs, and to help each other. I loved watching the youngest students’ excitement when they figured out the steps and were able to share this with their friends. This is not going to be a quiet class, but one buzzing with excitement and learning. It also teaches students to persevere - try, try, again. Some of the help I do give the students is to have them verbalize what needs to happen. This often helps them figure out how to put the action into the correct code. I encourage teachers to go through the levels once themselves, to experience what the children will be learning. You may let them go at their own pace, or show the videos every few minutes to the whole group, talking about the terms that were introduced. Using the Hour of Code tutorial will also help you decide which course within Hour of Code you may want to assign to your students. The courses are listed by age level, but as we all know some students need a greater challenge, and others may need some more foundation building activities. Code.org has activities for all ages, all levels, and all abilities. The Hour of Code (https://code.org/) campaign was launched in 2013 to encourage students all over the United States to code for one hour. In addition to the Hour of Code activities, Code.org has provided a wealth of additional coding activities, websites, and apps complete with coding activities for all grade levels. Teachers can set up student accounts and monitor as they complete the levels of coding. Code.org provides video tutorials, many by celebrities, to teach each step in the coding process. My students have enjoyed progressing through the levels, from the Angry Bird lessons, moving on to create their own Flappy Bird, to creating a Snowflake with Elsa and Anna, and more.
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AuthorI teach technology to grades Preschool through 8th grade in the mornings, and 2nd grade math, science and religion in the afternoon.I love to share the ways we utilize technology to enhance our learning. Archives
September 2016
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