This week we had a great session with Rich McCue on coding. Prior to this class, my knowledge on coding was limited. I have taken one computer science course which required us to do some coding, but it was minimal, incredibly step-by-step, and I recall very little of how to do any of it. To be honest, the idea of ever having to teach anything coding related terrified me. What I loved about this session was how hands on it was. I have always found that I learn best by doing, and so being given access to different games and trying them out was a really great way to be introduced to the content. As well, it gave us a very real take at seeing how it would look to introduce coding into a classroom as well!
Rich introduced us to code.org which had a lot of great activities for us to get acquainted with what coding actually was like! I personally started off with an Anna and Elsa game, and then moved onto a Dance Party game. While going through the Dance Party one, I thought about how cool it would be to do a cross-curricular lesson between this coding activity and a PE lesson. Students could essentially code a dance for their robot to do, and then physically learn that dance and present it to the class! While I think that coding can be used in many cross-curricular ways, I don’t want to take away from the inherent usefulness it has without those cross-curricular connections too. In society nowadays, jobs are becoming ever more tech based, and so having the skill of coding is really crucial in order for students to be competitive applicants when entering the workforce. While we use to see tech classes and coding as these “extras” or “bonuses” that you were possibly lucky enough to get at school, we can no longer view them as such. Rather, these are fundamental skills that our students should be learning, just as they are learning any other subject!
I found this CBC article which discusses the importance of teaching kids to code and gives many helpful suggestions as to apps and websites to use (many of which were discussed in our class too!). This article is slightly outdated, in that it was written in 2015, but I would suggest its message is more timely than ever before!
This class actually made me a lot less worried about having to introduce coding to my own students, and if anything, more excited about learning more about coding!
Feature Photo by Robo Wunderkind on Unsplash
Second Photo by Rick Kimotho on Unsplash
