Hour of Code

I took the liberty of registering our school to host an Hour of Code December 7-13!

What is Hour of Code?
"The Hour of Code is a one-hour introduction to computer science, designed to demystify code and show that anybody can learn the basics.  The Hour of Code is a global movement reaching tens of millions of students in 180+ countries.  Anyone, anywhere can organize an Hour of Code event.  One-hour tutorials are available in over 40 languages. No experience needed.  Ages 4-104."
-https://hourofcode.com/us

What can teachers do?
You can give your students the option to participate, or make it a class event.  The "hour" does not have to be one consecutive hour, it can be spread out over the week, and students can do it at home too.  The idea is to introduce students to computer programming, and give them an opportunity to practice some critical thinking skills.

There are a variety of resources available for students to learn the basics of coding.  I have come across three that I think would be valuable to teachers and students.  There are MANY other options, so if you find one please let me know so we can share with others!

Code.org

This website works well on any device.  Teachers have the option to create accounts for their students.  Students in grades 3-5 can use their google accounts to log in, and teachers of younger students can set them up to log in with a picture or secret word.  Students play games with high interest themes, such as Frozen and Minecraft, while learning code.

Khan Academy

You may have used Khan Academy to supplement your instruction in other subjects, and now they have a great mission on coding.  The motto of this website is simple, "You only have to know one thing: You can learn anything." With the videos and interactive support, students work to complete missions while learning the basics of computer programming.  If students already have accounts, they can use their account to save their progress, if not they can still work though the missions.

Kodable

This website and app is geared toward younger students.  There is more instruction required before students can understand what they are supposed to do in the game, but the website does offer free curriculum to teachers to aid in planning the lessons.  Unlike the other two resources, this one is much more dependent on teacher guidance, but for younger students this may be appropriate anyway.