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Computer Science Week

Hour of Code at the Texas Capitol

by Jennifer Bergland December 17, 2017

written by Jennifer Bergland

On December 4, 2017, students came to the Texas State Capitol for the first Hour of Code held on the floor of the Texas Code House of Representatives. Students from Richardson, San Antonio, Austin, Pflugerville, Spring Branch, Leander, Hays County, and Lufkin came to the Capitol to demonstrate the different ways students gain coding experience in their elementary, middle, and high schools. They also came to teach state legislators and their staff members how to write their first line of code.

Code The Hour of Code is a national effort to help demystify computer coding and broaden participation in the field of computer science. The official Hour of Code takes place each year during Computer Science Education Week, which is held December 4-10. The Hour of Code at the Capitol was hosted by the University of Texas at Austin’s WeTeach CS project, TCEA, TechNet, and CS4TX to help promote the need for more support for computer science education in Texas schools.

Hands On Coding

The legislators and their staff had great fun learning how to program a robot from Pflugerville ISD middle school code students and listened to some San Antonio elementary students read a story they wrote, as their pre-programmed robots acted out the plot line. In fact, there were a variety of different robots roaming about the floor of the chamber, including: Lego, Sphero, Dot and Dash, Makeblock, Mircobits, and Ozobots. One of the participant’s favorite activities was test driving the code written for a virtual reality experience by the Richardson ISD high school students.

Several teachers who brought students to the event had recently participated in the University of Texas’ We Teach CS program which is aimed at assisting inservice teachers in obtaining a computer science teaching certification. These teachers currently teach science, view computer science as a natural complement to their curriculum, and are looking for ways to help students learn to code as they learn science.

Exploring the Job Market

Code The students also got to hear what it takes to work at Facebook, Google, and Uber. Representatives from these companies spoke to the students over pizza and soft drinks. They highlighted the benefits of working in the tech industry and what it takes to land a job at one of these three companies. It won’t be long before these students will be polishing their resumes and knocking on their doors. The likelihood of these students getting jobs is strong since there are currently over 40,000 unfilled high-tech jobs in Texas. And yet, only 3 percent of high school students took a computer science course last school year.

Strategies to Increase Enrollment in CS

Code This is why this day was so important. Educating policy makers on the benefits of computer science is critical to enacting policies that can effectively change the dismal statistics. Some of the strategies to increase the opportunities for students to gain computer science skills are:

Develop a comprehensive plan to expand K-12 computer science education statewide.
Incentivize school districts to offer computer science courses. Computer science and technology applications courses should be placed under the umbrella of Career and Technical Education (CTE) to unlock weighted funding through the CTE allotment.
Invest in professional development programs to train a corps of teachers to lead these courses. The key to this effort will be providing additional funding for computer science certification grant programs.

Code

For more information about hosting an Hour of Code at your school or district (or city hall, county court house, etc.), check out this blog post. You can host an Hour of Code anytime. Happy coding!

December 17, 2017 0 comment

Coding/Computer Science

How to Host an Hour of Code

by Jennifer Bergland November 27, 2017

written by Jennifer Bergland

The Hour of Code started as a one-hour introduction to computer science to demonstrate that anyone can learn the basics of coding. The effort was also designed to demystify computer coding and to broaden participation in the field of computer science. The official Hour of Code takes place each year during Computer Science Education Week. The 2017 Computer Science Education Week will be December 4-10, but for all practical purposes, you can host an Hour of Code all year round.

Organizing an Hour of Code event at your school or in your community is easy. Their website provides step-by-step instructions on how to pull off the event, complete with activities your participants can use to learn to code in an hour. They also provide ideas to get your community involved and a FAQ page that will answer almost every question you have about hosting an Hour of Code.

To assist you in your efforts, I reached out to several school districts who have participated in the event in the past to discover the best practices to follow when hosting an Hour of Code.

Strategies to Increase Participation

Photo courtesy of K.W. Barrett via Flickr.

Spring Branch ISD sends emails to district and campus leadership, posts planned Hour of Code activities on their website, and encourages community members to be “code buddies” with their students. They also use the #SBHourofCode hashtag to promote their efforts. To create some extra excitement, Karen Justl of SBISD, dresses up during the week as a Storm Trooper and visits several sites handing out stickers. How cool is that?!

Seguin ISD incorporates coding activities into all of their elementary and middle school technology application classes. And while students engage in coding lessons all year, there is a special emphasis during Computer Science Education Week.

Strategies to Involve the Community

Randy Rogers, Director of Digital Learning Services at Seguin ISD, invites numerous district and community leaders to come to campuses and participate in coding activities with their students. To facilitate this, elementary campuses submit a schedule of times that visitors can join students, and the dignitaries are assigned to various schools based upon their availability. In the past two years, SISD has had their state representative, mayor, city council members, county judge, chamber of commerce president, school board members, and more participate in an Hour of Code with one of Seguin’s students. What a great way to educate your elected officials about the need for more computer science!

How the Hour of Code Highlights Your District

Photo courtesy of K.W. Barrett via Flickr.

Spring Branch ISD includes pictures and stories about their Hour of Code activities on their district’s blog. Seguin sees the Hour of Code as an opportunity to have community members see and experience what their students are learning and a valuable opportunity to build relationships within the community. Rogers made clear the value he places in the Hour of Code when he said, “Our students are our best advertisement, and the interactions as our kids teach our community leaders how to use Scratch or Code Combat or Code.org is priceless!”

Computer science is foundational. It is changing every industry, which means every student should have the opportunity to learn how to create technology, not just use it. Participating in the Hour of Code will enable your students to experience the fun of creating a simple computer program and possibly encourage them to want to learn more. The sky is the limit!

November 27, 2017 0 comment

Coding/Computer Science

Go Bananas for Coding

by Lori Gracey November 19, 2016

written by Lori Gracey

If you’re looking for resources to use with elementary and middle school students during Computer Science Education Week December 5-11, look no further than Learning.com’s free trial of EasyCode. Providing ready-to-go lesson plans, a quick-start guide, and in-depth video tutorials, the program helps students learn to code in CoffeeScript, a powerful coding language that is the foundation for JavaScript, the programming language for HTML.

“To give today’s students a competitive edge in the digital economy, it is more critical than ever that they build a solid foundation in computer science concepts,” said Keith Oelrich, CEO, Learning.com. “We are passionate about helping teachers introduce even their youngest students to computational thinking and coding, without needing any prior experience in teaching these skills.”

EasyCode offers elementary and middle school educators a fun, game-based, and turnkey instructional solution that features story and skill challenges, game lessons, a game builder, and progress monitoring so teachers can quickly and efficiently introduce coding skills to their students.

The Go Bananas movement extends Learning.com’s commitment to CSforAll, the President’s call-to-action for more computer science opportunities in all K-12 schools. CSforAll empowers K-12 students to learn computer science and develop the computational thinking skills necessary to spur the transition from consumer to creator in today’s digital economy.

Teachers interested in participating in the free trial may sign up here. Registration is open through November 29.

November 19, 2016 0 comment