Beyond Integration

Every year there is a greater emphasis on engaging our students in learning and experiencing coding. You may be thinking what exactly is coding? Coding is a language written to tell the computer what to do. As one becomes more comfortable with the coding process they develop the skills and dynamics of creating video games, computer apps, and software. The students who sit in your classroom today will need to know and understand the language and process in order to be successful for their future success. So now what?     You can start by participating in a week that is devoted to  Hour of Code , December 3-9 . It is normally more comfortable for teachers to work with content they are familiar with so they can assist students as they are learning. It's like the idea of always trying to be 1 step ahead of the game. However, with coding, it does not need to be that way. You could learn the material prior to teaching if that works best for you. OR, use th...

I remember when I was a school level Technology and Learning Coach, I loved working with the students and coding, whether it was with the 4th/5th Grade “Game Coding Club” that I ran or the events I coordinated for the yearly Hour of Code activities for the school. The students were engaged and showed such excitement while programming the characters to move; it was motivating for me to keep coding going for the school. However, just like other other “cool” thing there isn’t enough time to add in something new and then there’s the idea of how to connect coding to curriculum? Learning to program/code does not need to just stop after the week of Hour of Code ends. (Which, if you are not aware yet, Hour of Code is the week of December 4, 2017. ) This week of introducing coding is just the start of something new for the students. When students are programming/coding, they are given an opportunity to utilize and build skills such as logical thinking, problem-solving, perseverance, ...