Today Rich McCue came in to give us a beginning lesson for how to integrate and teach coding in our classrooms. He began the lesson by asking us why we think we should teach coding in elementary classrooms, some answers the class came up with was we teach coding to spark interest in this area as a potential career opportunity and that since coding and gaming is so popular for children they will be willing to learn more and be engaged in the material. We had the opportunity to visit a few of the coding sites Rich had found beneficial for elementary classrooms, the programs found were Scratch, Grasshopper, Hour of Code, Designing with algorithms using Tinkercad, and Code BC. Since my experience in coding is virtually nonexistent since my grade 7 robotics day it was sedimental going back and trying to figure out what little 13-year-old me back in the day. Since Scratch was said to be the simplest formatting for coding I decided to attempt it and use the “Scratch-Getting-Started-Guide-Basic” PDF that Rich provided us. My little scratch cat ended up only being able to move in a circle and saying “Aye there mate” however once I threw in a dinosaur friend my cat seemed to be a lot happier.
I also attempted how to code using the Grasshopper gaming system, this game was more realistic for a student because it showed code using a real coding looking formula. Below is a video of me successfully producing a flag.
My coding girl 🙂
The only real coding I do with my class is using different robot kits that our school district has. BeeBots, Caterpillars (forget official name) and my favourite, SpheroBots! Fun to design a maze on the floor with foam blocks and then see if the kids can first navigate by simply steering… then coding in the commands. 🙂
Have fun,
Dad
It was super basic coding with instructions to go along but I think it would be so cool if by teaching and using simple programs and games like this one if it could inspire some kids to learn more one day! Also, do you remember when I was in robotics???