Randolph students get into computer coding
Contributed by
Susan Victor, January 08, 2015
Randolph Community Middle School computer students participate in Hour of Code
During the week of December 8 to 12, 2014, all of Mrs. Foley’s and Mrs. Victor’s RCMS computer students and the RCMS Afterschool Stars Computer Animation Club participated in Computer Science Education Week’s “Hour of Code.” All students were given the opportunity to complete at least one hour of fun computer coding activities provided by Code.org. The “Hour of Code” campaign was created to inspire students, especially girls who may not have the opportunity to try computer programming.
Large technology companies including Microsoft, Google and Apple joined forces to provide resources and activities to illustrate the power and simplicity of computer coding. Why? Our 21st century world creates a high priority need for the skill. There is an expectation that by 2020, a shortage of trained coders will create high demand in the job market for those with this background and training. An overview of the Hour of Code philosophy is located at http://csedweek.org/promote
Here are a few pictures of our students coding with Scratch, a free program developed by The Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab, as a teaching language especially for kids from 8 to 16 year olds who want to learn the basics of computer programming. With Scratch, students code interactive stories, games, and multimedia projects. Learning these basic concepts helps students learn more advanced programming languages in the future.
During the week of December 8 to 12, 2014, all of Mrs. Foley’s and Mrs. Victor’s RCMS computer students and the RCMS Afterschool Stars Computer Animation Club participated in Computer Science Education Week’s “Hour of Code.” All students were given the opportunity to complete at least one hour of fun computer coding activities provided by Code.org. The “Hour of Code” campaign was created to inspire students, especially girls who may not have the opportunity to try computer programming.
Large technology companies including Microsoft, Google and Apple joined forces to provide resources and activities to illustrate the power and simplicity of computer coding. Why? Our 21st century world creates a high priority need for the skill. There is an expectation that by 2020, a shortage of trained coders will create high demand in the job market for those with this background and training. An overview of the Hour of Code philosophy is located at http://csedweek.org/promote
Here are a few pictures of our students coding with Scratch, a free program developed by The Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab, as a teaching language especially for kids from 8 to 16 year olds who want to learn the basics of computer programming. With Scratch, students code interactive stories, games, and multimedia projects. Learning these basic concepts helps students learn more advanced programming languages in the future.
Thanks for sharing your Hour of Code experiences! Your story mentioned pictures of your students coding with Scratch, but I don't see them above. Is there a link where I can view them or could you post them in your story. Looking forward to seeing the photos!
Thanks,
M