Track 2 Thing 17 Coding

     This is one of the first lessons that has been pretty difficult for me. One thing was finding the quiet time I needed to get something accomplished was very tricky; and, the second thing  was that the concepts were a bit puzzling. I certainly could tell characters to follow directions and I could follow directions, but the problems were what to do with what I did. 
     Anyway, here is what I did: 
     I started by watching the videos on the Cool Tools site. I watched and completed "An Hour of Code".    I worked with Blockly.  At code.org I completed "One Hour of Code" and got my certificate (see below).

     My hope is to continue with more of this during the summer and to get some kids to try this, too.  After code.org, I moved on to Khan Academy and began their "hour". I onlu got through the first two parts and will get back to that at a later point. I got these items accomplished during some staff development time where my administration was kind enough to let me work on this.  :) Because I wanted to see several different organizations offerings, I moved on to CodeAcademy and did the "Animate Your Name" lesson. That was fun and I got it done. I still have not figured out what I can do with the code I used. It doesn't seem to embed here or at my library's Weebly site. But, I will provide the link so you can see Melinda in all its colorful glory.  :)

Melinda

 By doing this, I could better understand the importance of commands and the order they are used.  I also realize that punctuation for coding is also important.  
     Next, I downloaded several apps for my iPad: Kodable, Hopscotch and Daisy the Dino. My next mission was to  find some apps for my Nexus 7s and let the 5th and 6th graders play around with them. Although, I have found many fun and educational apps for the iPads, I have learned there are not nearly so many for androids. I did find a great article at Common Sense, which I am posting.

Cool Coding Apps and Websites for Kids

     From this article, I decided to download Light-bot, the free version (an hour of code) and then purchase the Light-bot Programming and the Light-bot Coding Puzzles.  Next week I plan to set the Nexus 7s out for the kids to try.  Here is the review from Apps Playground, a British site:

Light-bot is the latest app teaching kids to code by Stuart Dredge.

     While I was searching for apps for androids, I found other articles about apps that I liked:

Five iPad apps trying to teach programming skills to kids

How and Why to Teach Your Kids to Code

Teach Kids how to Code, Make Apps and 3-D Models With These Tools

Teach kids programming A collection of resources

Tynker is the latest iPad app aiming to teach kids to code

     I also discovered a couple more great tweeters to follow. That was a big plus!  :) 

     What I learned from all of this is that we need to be teaching coding to our kids. At first, I thought it would be for older students, but now I realize that it is another item that works with young students. For our school 4th-6th graders might be a good group to target.  I hope it is something we will see more of soon.  I shared some coding articles with others and hope to share a few more.  All in all, this lesson turned out to be very informative, interesting, and one that I (we) will need to re-visit here at Colton-Pierrepont.  Thanks!