Kids Who Code: Get Started with Coding in the Classroom

For the last few years, I have supported my early years students in planning a special Code-a-thon event for Computer Science Education Week.  This year, my week looks a little different.  Since I'm currently acting as the LwICT Teacher Leader for Park West School Division, I get to work with dozens of classes on coding and computer science this December!   I kicked off the week with a coding workshop for teachers and I'm scheduled to work on coding with many classes this week.  For those interested in getting started with coding in the classroom, I would suggest trying one or more of the following:

Unplugged Coding
I typically introduce students to unplugged coding first.  For middle years and high school students, I have modified this Grid Paper Programming Lesson from code.org.  For younger learners, I prefer to start working on the 100 grid of a learning carpet or a smaller 4X4 grid taped on the floor.   I use arrows printed on cardstock and demonstrate how we can "program" a stuffed toy to move around the grid using left, right, up and down arrows.  Students can then work with a partner using a paper copy of the grid and a smaller manipulative to practice "programming" the manipulative to move around the grid.  

unplugged coding for early years

Hour of Code(TM)
Signing up for Hour of Code is great way to get started with coding in the classroom.  There are TONS of great tutorials available from code.org with different options for different grade levels.  You might want to try one of the tutorials yourself and then share it with your students or just jump right in and learn alongside them.  

Code-a-thon
Using a project-based learning model, I've guided my class in planning and hosting three Code-a-thon events.  Each year involved different tools, partners and activities, but each event was a great success!  Check out my Kids Who Code Code-a-thon guide below for tips on planning your own event.

Kids Who Code: 2016 Code-a-thon

We had a minor setback this year as our scheduled Code-a-thon kickoff date ended up being a snow day due to a severe blizzard. This meant that we had to postpone our collaborative coding session with the OLCS Kindergartens until after our Christmas concerts. Although we were disappointed, we still had other Hour of Code sessions to lead! Once we were back at school, the grade 1s led coding sessions for the Grade 7/8 and Kindergarten students who were here during our no-bus day on the second day of the blizzard.  The weather settled down later in the week and we continued with our planned Hour of Code sessions at HES.  The grade 1s led sessions for all 30 of the grade 4 students and our 20 grade 2 neighbours.   It was awesome to see such great cooperation and collaboration between students!

We finally got to work with our OLCS Kindergarten buddies on the final day of school before Christmas break. Our class taught them how to code using Kodable and Tynker. Their class taught us to code with The Foos. It was a really fun way to spend our final morning of school before the holidays!  In total, the 22 grade 1s worked with over 70 other students to learn about coding!  I also led coding sessions for our HES Coding Club.  That means over 100 of us completed the Hour of Code this year!


Check out the video of the 2016 Kids Who Code Code-a-thon

Kids Who Code: Planning the 2016 Code-a-thon

It has become an annual tradition for my class to plan and host an event for Hour of Code during Computer Science Education Week.  In our inaugural year, my grade 2 class co-planned the first ever Kids Who Code Code-a-thon with Mrs. Caldwell's Kindergarten class.  Last year, my grade 1s planned the 2015 Code-a-thon event and invited students from our school and surrounding schools.  This year, my grade 1s collaborated with our partner class, the OLCS Kindergartens, to plan the 2016 Kids Who Code Code-a-thon. 

When we are working on a project with another class, we often use a to do list to guide us.  The to do list changes as we work together to complete the project.  We typically meet via video call to stay on track with our event planning.  This system of collaborative project-based learning worked well for us as we prepared for our big event!

One of our jobs for this project was writing instructions for our selected coding tools.  We saved them as PDFs to print out and we created a video version with narration.  This was a great opportunity to introduce procedural writing to my grade 1s and it always adds motivation to write for an authentic audience.  Check out our final shared writing projects below:

Coding Club: Exploring TouchDevelop

This post is part of a series of entries documenting the startup of our Kids Who Code Coding Club at Hamiota Elementary.  

When we resumed coding club meetings after Christmas, I offered to introduce a new coding tool to any Grade 5 students who were interested in trying something more challenging.  I had heard a lot of good things about how middle years students were using TouchDevelop to complete tutorials and create games and I felt the Grade 5s would be successful with the added difficulty.  Unfortunately, with dozens of other students in the gym, I didn’t have a lot of time to spend directly teaching students how to get started.  I helped them get to touchdevelop.com and then suggested they begin a tutorial and try following the steps.  They were able to get started, but they had a lot of questions and needed more support from me, so we decided to have a small-group meeting on an alternate day to get them started.   The following week, the small group met on Monday and I was able to better support them in completing levels of their chosen TouchDevelop tutorial.  During our regular club meeting on Wednesday, many students chose to continue working on their tutorials (which went much better now that they’d had some support to get started.) 

The following Monday, I was surprised to see grade 5s start arriving in my classroom at lunchtime.  The first one asked “Are we working on TouchDevelop with you again today?” to which I replied “I hadn’t planned on it… did you want to work on TouchDevelop today?”  I got a firm “Yes!” Apparently, the students involved had been discussing it all morning and were eager to get back to work on their tutorials.  During this second (somewhat impromptu) meeting, I was able to help students login so that their progress would be saved and we also learned how to rename tutorials so we could keep track of who the work belonged to even though we were sharing a login.  One student even completed and published his first project!  It was exciting to see a finished project and to share it online!  Again that Wednesday, most of the students chose to continue their tutorials during our regular coding club meeting.  Another group was able to publish their finished work.  I think we’ve started something big here.   Many students joined coding club with the idea of creating games or apps and I think that TouchDevelop has the capabilities to help us meet that goal!

Coding Club: Computer Science Education Week

This post is part of a series of entries documenting the startup of our Kids Who Code Coding Club at Hamiota Elementary.  

During Computer Science Education Week, I explained the Hour of Code movement to coding club students and introduced them to the code.org tutorials.  Since we have so many members (and only one of me!) I had to get creative in order to effectively share the tutorials with students.  I wanted to make sure that students got to spend most of the time actually engaged in coding and not struggling to get started or waiting for me to help them.  Luckily, my grade 1s had already done some work that would come in handy… 

As a part of our text-type study on procedural texts, my grade 1s had written instructions for how to access the code.org tutorials.  The instructions were designed to be used by guests at the Kids Who Code Code-a-thon which my grade 1s organized to celebrate Hour of Code. Using the instructions at coding club was a great way to help students more independently access the tutorials (thus keeping me sane and ensuring that students were making good use of their time).   

The code-a-thon event we hosted was another opportunity for coding club members to experience some new coding tools.  Many of the classes in our school attended the event and had the chance to briefly try out 1 or 2 coding tools at the stations run by my grade 1 coders.  The following week, I gave all club members the choice to code with any tool they’d tried.  Many students chose to work with a tool they’d tried out at the code-a-thon, others worked on the code.org tutorials again and some picked a favourite tool that they’d learned during previous meetings.  I believe that choice is important for students and also very engaging… 50 children coding (relatively) quietly in small groups with their peers on the last Wednesday before Christmas break is pretty solid proof for me that learners are engaged.   

I have found (just as I have found in my classroom) that even if only a few students have experience with a particular coding tool, they will work together to teach each other and support each other when they run into challenges. 

 

Kids Who Code: Starting a Coding Club - What Next?

This fall, I started a Grades 2-5 coding club at our school (which you can read about here).  I'm sharing our experiences in hopes of helping others wanting to start a coding club and also to document this aspect of the Kids Who Code project.

In our first coding club meetings, students worked in multi-age teams to complete Scratch Jr. challenges using activities from their website.  After the first couple of meetings, students were able to work fairly independently in Scratch Jr, so I started working with small groups to introduce other coding tools.  Since I didn’t want to take whole teams away from their Scratch Jr. challenges, I chose a grade to work with each week while the other students continued with Scratch Jr.  I picked different tools to introduce to each grade so that, as a collective club, we had experience with a variety of tools.  For example, I introduced Lightbot to our Grade 5 members and set up Kodable accounts for the Grade 2s.  This system of “small group instruction” works well, since teaching 50 kids at a time seems a bit overwhelming to me.   

There were a few little “housekeeping” tasks that came up for us as a new coding club.  If you're thinking of starting a club, they are things to consider when you're planning!

Clean up – On the first day, I didn’t even think about the fact that there isn’t a garbage can in the gym, so we had to make a habit of bringing one in from my classroom.  I also realized that we needed to sweep the gym floor after our meetings since we were eating our lunches in there, so I asked for student volunteers and was very pleased to have more than enough students offer to help.  (I actually turn down students every week because so many of them volunteer to help – what a great bunch of kids I work with!).  So basically, whichever 3-4 kids volunteer first stay for a few minutes after our meeting and I give them the brooms to clean up – easy!   

Attendance – I felt it was important to have a record of which students were meeting with me each week, so I made a simple “class list” of club members.  Older students volunteer to check off all members in attendance or I carry my clipboard with me as I circulate during meetings and mark down attendance as I work with students.   

Membership – I’m still working on this one.  Over 60 students signed up to try coding club.  Most of them attended our first few meetings to see what it was like.  Now that we have been running for several weeks, a few students have decided not to attend.  I’ve been doing lots of thinking about this… is it okay to “let” them quit?  Should their parents sign off on it since their parents signed the form for them to participate?  Is it important that students commit to attending every meeting or is it okay for them to choose their usual lunchtime routine and outdoor play after an initial trial period?  I’m leaning towards the latter – for several reasons.  Coding club is an extracurricular activity.  Sure, we are learning a lot, but it’s meant to be fun.  I don’t want to force kids to attend.  I also think that it was great for students to sign up and “give it a try”.  When I sign up for a new exercise class or activity, I expect to have a choice about whether or not I continue with it – and I think our students deserve that same choice.  That said, I may still create a simple note to go home so that parents are aware that their child is no longer attending.   In future years, I would discuss this aspect with students and come to an agreement about membership in our club.  

On the whole, our coding club start-up has run very smoothly and I really enjoy working with the students each week.  It's nice to reconnect with my former students and get to know some students I didn't teach.  If you're thinking of starting a coding club, I'd certainly encourage you to give it a try!