A Teaching Moment and the Hour of Code



A Teaching Moment and the Hour of Code

In  recent blog entry I wrote abou the Sessions I attended at the reent PETE&C onference (www.peteandc.org). Since coming back from the conference I tried to get some time to sit with my granddaughter and start teaching her programming on the code.org site.  I got her for a few minutes shortly after returning and started with the Elsa course where you can program Elsa to skate on the ice. She did not seem enthused and I found out later that Elsa and Frozen is so yesterday (She is 8 and in the second grade). Yesterday I saw her on the iPad playing Flappy Bird and said "You know you can create your own version of that game." She asked if she could make Myley Cyrus flap on it and was not happy when I said I don't think they have a Myley Cyrus avatar on the site but she said she would like to do it.

Later we sat at her Family PC and setup her account on code.org. She took to the Blockly interface like she had been using it for years. The interface is slick. Here is the link to her little contribution to the Hour of Code project.

http://studio.code.org/c/86214041

At the end she received her Certificate and was elated that she could take that to school to show her friends and teachers. She also could not wait to show them her program. 

The blockly interface is a great learning tool. There are other apps at https://blockly-games.appspot.com/ which will be the next site I add to her bookmarks. 

A take-a-way in this effort is that it is tough one on one with an eight year old as they have the attention span of a flea. I think it a group enviroment the attention span can be expanded as she would be able to interact with her classmates on the project. Probably gaining ideas from another person's effort.

My goal in this is to get her to understand that a computer is more than just a toy where she can go to web sites or play games. 

I just hope her school adds this to her technology sessions.