Each year I co-sponsor Hour of Code events with two fabulous high school media specialists, Kathy Johnson (Greenwood High School) and Kay LeRoy (Emerald High School). We reach out to teachers of course alignment (study period) and AVID elective. We briefly explain the intent of Hour of Code, where information can be found about the computer science courses our school district offers, and then get students coding with an activity recommended by Code.org. Course alignment classes are a mixed bag of ability levels and only last 30 minutes so we do our best to get students interested and share how they can get back to the activity so that they complete the hour on their own. This year we embedded a Nearpod homework session on the media center website. (Per usual I found a typo after the fact.)
Thanks to the support given by these two media specialists I was able to broaden my reach. I co-sponsored our first ever Hour of Code competition with Ted Jenks. He provided his Intro to Computer Science students with a real world Java coding challenge and I provided gift cards to the winning team. Watching this in progress felt like standing in a control center. The lab was a hive of activity with calls for polls and feedback. I was actually worried about the winning team. While everyone else was frantically typing they seemed to be sitting back and studying the directions. Then all of sudden they were done long before anyone else.
I also reached out to the programming teacher (Sandra Best) at our county's technology center and the PLTW teachers at the technology center (Charles Johnson) and Emerald High School (Josh Buchanan). I challenged them to complete CodeCombat.com's free Python course. The students especially enjoyed the campaign and multi-player modes they were allowed to explore after completing the course. A few students chose to explore Code.org/learn instead and managed to complete another Hour of Code activity!
I look forward to Hour of Code every year. It is fascinating to see which students excel and watch other students try to readjust their whole way of thinking and processing. There are no hard and fast rules about who will do well, but it is incredible to see some students who aren't "good at school" lean over and help peers who attend honors courses. It is this spirit of cooperation and collaboration that makes my educator's heart glow. Listening to students "talk code" and work together brings a smile to my face every time.
