Timothy students from Kindergarten to 10th grade participated in the Hour of Code all week in their media classes. The movement is part of Computer Science Education Week, an international week scheduled each year, which recognizes the important need to bolster computer science education worldwide.
Timothy was on the cutting edge, participating in the program since it began just four years ago.
Coding is programming the computer to make it work. It is a list of instructions given to the computer so that the computer can execute the desired actions. TCS Media Specialist, Debbie Hubler describes it like this: “The computer doesn’t have a brain. God gave people brains to tell the computer what to do.”
“Students love using computers and especially playing games on them. The Hour of Code gives students the opportunity to discover how the games they play “work,” and then actually create the code to make a game to play,” says Hubler.
Fourth graders loved that their coding experience centered around the new Disney Movie: Moana.
“They showed you a video about the coding and you had to move these blocks and connect them with each other on your screen and direct the ship. That was pretty cool because I actually got to control a ship,” says Krittika Padwal.
“It was about turning the ship to dodge the rocks or get some fish,” said Holly Medina. “It was fun.”
Parents have reported that the Hour of Code was just the introduction their child needed to spark an interest in programming and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) related fields.
The activity excited student, Aaron George who sees more experiences like this in his future.
“We visited code.org. It made me like coding more. It was a very simple way of coding. It made it simpler.” George continued, “I definitely enjoyed it. I want to be an engineer and I think coding might help.”
Hubler says, although Timothy has had strong computer science course offerings for more than ten years, there has been a sharp increase in the number of students enrolling in these electives over the past three years.
“We believe it is important to expose all our students to coding. There are levels that range from beginner to advanced. We work with our Kindergartners and all the way through 10th graders,” says Hubler. “Our 11th and 12th graders have participated in Hour of Code in previous years, and now have the opportunity as upperclassmen to take a semester course in computer applications or other programming languages.”
Mark Zuckerberg said, “In fifteen years we’ll be teaching programming just like reading and writing . . . and wondering why we didn’t do it sooner.”
An important part of STEM, TCS believes computer programming education is a necessity for this generation and we are excited to offer this experience to our students.