Deciding to Conduct Hour of Code Sessions

Today, I researched on the possible platforms which I could use to teach the children. Through some research, I came across code.org®, which “is a non-profit dedicated to expanding access to computer science and increasing participation by women and underrepresented minorities.” Their philosophy and vision “is that every student in every school should have the opportunity to learn computer science.”

Code.org® provides a free curriculum and open source learning resources for learning the basics of computer science. It offers a range of several short duration activities called the Hour of Code®, and longer duration main courses which have accompanying curriculum and in-depth lesson plans. Some examples of these longer duration courses include the CS Fundamentals and CS Principles courses (CS stands for Computer Science).

The Hour of Code® initiative of code.org® caught my attention immediately. It is a “one-hour introduction to computer science, designed to demystify "code", to show that anybody can learn the basics, and to broaden participation in the field of computer science.” The 1-hour coding activities have become a “global movement” with a reach of more than 180 countries.

A few characteristics of the Hour of Code® really stood out for me. First: The Hour of Code® activities are self-guided activities and require absolutely no prior programming experience. Secondly, it uses the Blockly Scripts which has drag and drop easy-to-use code blocks that can be used to make games with varying levels of difficulty. Thirdly, the games in the activities are very well organized and categorized on an age appropriate and grade appropriate basis which will be very helpful for me when I select the necessary games to teach. Fourthly, the structure of the games is such that they can, on an average, be completed in an hour and yet cover basic computer coding concepts that teach logical thinking. Thus, these Hour of Code® activities can be used by both the children just getting started with coding, as well as for those more comfortable with coding or logic as a tool to encourage them to challenge themselves.

However, not only do the age-grade level categorization or the use of Blockly Scripts make this more appealing, but the themes of the games are also another big plus. The games involve recreations of popular game and movie characters such as Star Wars, Angry Birds, Flappy Bird and Minecraft. I believe that the children will be able to take an interest and instant liking to these games, which will assist me in my teaching process.

I was very excited that I had found a truly valuable resource and I noted down code.org® as a good place to base my key documents and teaching plan on.

I was very happy with what the Hour of Code® platform was offering, but I decided to do more investigation to make sure that I do not miss any other better platforms. I looked at The Computer Science Fundamentals for Elementary Schools Course, a part of the CS Fundamentals course. I thought this course was advantageous because the courses came in a pre-defined order, meaning, I would not need to spend time in shortlisting games.

However, the fundamentals course is quite detail oriented and teaches all fundamentals in depth. Presumably, I will have only a maximum of 2 hours with the children in each session, and so I will not like to spend that time focusing on building complex concepts or the fundamentals to an extent that the learning seems tedious and more like work. My objective rather is to show that coding is fun and can be learnt by anyone irrespective of the age/gender/background, touching on some basic fundamentals rather than reinforcing one fundamental in every game (sub-course). Hence, the Hour of Code® initiative suits best to introduce the children to the basics of coding; to show just how interesting coding is through a diverse range of games.

Now that I knew that Hour of Code® in Code.org® would provide a nice, suitable and flexible framework to conduct my teaching, I made a note to myself to understand what teacher resources are already in the Hour of Code®, and whether they can be used optimally in my scenario: teaching government school children.