I have spent the last two days delving into "The hour of code". I know I missed the big kick off back in December, but wanted to look into this topic with new eyes... albeit sleepy eyes. I was interested in the "My Robot Friend". How fantastic is this! No computers needed and it is a great thing to have kids working in groups and talking strategy. I can see doing this with younger kids grades 2-3 as a whole group then breaking them down into smaller groups to write the "code" and switching directions with another group to see if they figured things out. Could have them try it in front of the room so that everyone was focused on each one. I could also see this as an intro class for my scholars and using it as a stepping stone into other forms of coding.
From there I did the hour of code at the Khan academy. it is set up with a short video as explanation to writing java script. Then you as the participant get to try what you learned. I really liked how this was set up and could see my fifth graders really having fun with it as the product is instantaneous on the screen. a little frustrating as hey don't show everything, but I am sure they have a video to explain more of the functions on the site. Ending the hour with a create a creature from the functions learned...
Spin-off of "Project: Wild Animal"
Made using: Khan Academy Computer Science.
Not my finest project, but I will need some more practice if I teach this to my students.
I was also remembering teaching my 5th graders about fifteen years ago how to write HTML code to create websites and how they loved it! Very interesting how it all comes around again. But my knowledge of HTML has helped me many times over the years including posting code in the blog!
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