Saturday, December 12, 2015

The Hour of Code 2015


WAIS participated in this year's Hour of Code. This is our third year to participate in the Hour of Code. The Hour of Code event has a massive number of participants logging in from across the whole world. Its aim is to increase student awareness of coding and computer science.

The event and its publicity is spearheaded by Code.org and related site HourofCode.com. Each year, the Hour of Code event has reached more and more students from across the world. During the first event three years ago, they had hoped that they'd see a million participants across the US. Instead, it caught on across the globe. What was expected to be a hopeful estimate of 1 million in the US became over 20 million across the world. For 2015, the estimate is nearly 200 million participants.

Hour of Code receives a wide variety of support, both from educators and parents, but also from industry. If you ask parents, 9 of 10 say they want their student to have exposure to coding. Despite how technologically involved our world is becoming, when Hour of Code started 3 years ago, less than 1 of 10 schools offered coding classes. These numbers have greatly improved in the past 3 years, however, there are still a lot of students who don't have access to courses that teach programming.

Through the Hour of Code, hundreds of our students try out different programming activities from various providers participating in the event. This includes activities like Code.org's Programming with Minecraft and StarWars, Lightbot, Codester, and many more. All of our 9th grade students will participate in a programming unit in their Digital Communications class, and programming activities are also included in our 6th grade Tech Apps/Design course. Students who enjoy programming and the Hour of Code can continue learning about the topic in Intro to Robotics, Intro to Computer Science, Computer Science I & II, Robotics Programming & Design, and/or in Web Design.


No comments:

Post a Comment

Twitter Delicious Facebook Digg Stumbleupon Favorites More