This week’s blog is about coding. I’ve done a little bit of coding in grade six, where my class had to build a website on whatever we wanted as long as it was school appropriate.  This was not a great experience at the time, because we were given a booklet of keyboard letters and characteristics and were instructed to type out exactly as the book showed for the hour we were in class. Everyone would always be making mistakes, and being at different stages of skill development, as most of us were new to typing regularly on a computer, made it harder for the teachers to work with the class as one.

Flashforward almost ten years, and again we are on the subject of coding. In class we were given two sites to experiment with, Hour of Code or Scratch. At first I was hesitant because of the difficulty of the last experience, but was relieved that these sites were easily accessible and great for all learners. I’m glad to have had this class reintroduce me to a subject I had felt so uncomfortable with. 

There are many great resources and apps to use in the classroom. I decided the hour of code would be best for me as a beginner, as it was filled with images to enhance my learning. 

Another thing I noticed right away was that it catered to a wide variety of different ages, with many different choices of themes such as Frozen. That one was called “Coding with Anna & Elsa,” and I decided that would be my first reentry into coding. I found it fairly simple and well explained, and very smoothly got more difficult and in depth throughout each step. 

I have learned in our lectures coding can be described as another language. I see how coding is such an amazing opportunity to tie different learning elements together as well. Things such as problem solving, divergent & creative thinking, planning and sequencing, spatial reasoning, and many mathematical and other subject concepts.

I hope to continue to learn about more resources to enhance my future classroom. The more I read and learn about coding, the better I can help my students adapt to a more technological world. 

Here are some of the reasons I have come across as to why every child should learn to code.

On Twitter I posted more resources.