Tag: hour of code

If you’re a history teacher, here’s a great tie-in between history and Hour of Code:

During WWI, the Choctaw language had been used to transmit U.S. military messages. With this thought in mind, Philip Johnston, the son of a missionary grew up on a Navajo reservation and spoke the Diné tongue fluently, brought the suggestion of a similar code to General Clayton Vogel early in 1942. The Diné language has no alphabet, uses no symbols and one sound may hold an entire concept. The idea was tested and proved to be faster and more reliable than the mechanized methods. The language has more verbs than nouns, that helps to move the sentences along and makes it far more difficult for outsiders to learn – making it the most ingenious and successful code in military history.

The original class, the 382d Platoon, Navajo Communication Specialists, USMC, developed their code at Camp Pendleton. Once a unit of code talkers were trained, they were put on Marine rosters around the Pacific Theater. Even under severe combat conditions, they remained the living codes, since nothing was ever written down. During the first 48 hours of Iwo Jima, 800 transmissions were coded. These few men became warriors in their own right during some of the worst battles of the war.

Some examples of the English word/ Navajo sound/ literal translation:

Alaska………. Beh-hga……….. with winter
America……….Ne-he-mah……… our mother
Britain……….Toh-ta………… between waters
Australia……..Cha-yes-desi…….rolled hat
China…………Ceh-yehs-besi……braided hair
France………..Da-gha-hi……….beard

The existence of the code talkers and their accomplishments would remain top secret according to the U.S. government and use their expertise in the Korean War. Unfortunately, this resulted in many of the men not receiving the recognition they deserved. I was very lucky to have grown up knowing their story thanks to Smitty, my father.

President Ronald Reagan designated 14 August as National Code Talkers Day in 1982.

December 4-10, 2017, Computer Science Education will host the Hour Of Code–a one-hour introduction to students on coding, programming, and why they should love it, designed to demystify “code” and show that anyone can learn the basics to be a maker, a creator, and an innovator. Throughout participating websites, you’ll find a variety of self-guided tutorials that say “anybody can do, on a browser, tablet, or smartphone”. You’ll even find unplugged tutorials for classrooms without computers. No experience needed.

Here’s a video to kick things off–you can’t watch this and not get motivated:

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Coding–that geeky subject that confounds students and frightens teachers. Yet, kids who can code are better at logical thinking and problem solving, more independent and self-assured, and more likely to find a job when they graduate. In fact, according to Computer Science Education, by 2020, there will be 1.4 million coding jobs and only 400,000 applicants.

December 7-13, Computer Science Education will host the Hour Of Code–a one-hour introduction to coding, programming, and why students should love it. It’s designed to show that anyone can learn the basics to be a maker, a creator, and an innovator.

Here are ten projects (each, about one hour in length) you can use in your classroom to participate in this wildly popular event:

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Here are ideas of apps and websites that teachers in my PLN used successfully in the past during Hour of Code:

Kindergarten

Start kindergartners with problem solving. If they love Legos, they’ll love coding

1. BotLogic–great for Kindergarten and youngers
2. Code–learn to code, for students
3. How to train your robot–a lesson plan from Dr. Techniko
4. Kodable--great for youngers–learn to code before you can read
5. Primo–a wooden game, for ages 4-7
6. Program a human robot (unplugged)
7. Scratch Jr.

1st Grade

1. Code–learn to code, for students
2. Espresso Coding–for youngers
3. Foos–app or desktop; K-1
4. Hopscotch–programming on the iPad
5. Primo–a wooden game, for ages 4-7
6. Scratch Jr.
7. Tynker

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Coding–that mystical geeky subject that confounds students and teachers alike. Confess, when you think of coding, you see:

…when you should see

December 5-11, Computer Science Education will host the Hour Of Code–a one-hour introduction to coding, programming, and why students should love it. It’s designed to demystify “code” and show that anyone can learn the basics to be a maker, a creator, and an innovator.

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I took a Classroom 2.0 Live webinar last year on rolling out the Hour of Code in the classroom. There were so many great things about that webinar, but one I’ll share today is why teachers DON’T participate in Hour of Code. Here are what the webinar participants said:

How about you? Why are you NOT doing Hour of Code?

Stay tuned for these Hour of Code articles on how to present coding in your classroom:

1. Hour of Code: What is it? (November 15th)
2. Hour of Code Suggestions by Grade Level (November 16th)
3. 10 Projects to Kickstart Hour of Code (November 17th)

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Creating a macro is a quick, easy programming exercise that students fifth grade and up can accomplish with moderate supervision.

By fifth grade, students appreciate technology for how it can speed up their homework and class projects and seek out ways to use it to make their educational journey easier.. Take advantage of this by introducing pre-programming skills like creating macros. Here’s a video I shared during Summer PD:

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As a tech teacher, I see a lot of student websites. I’m always impressed with the effort, the tenacity, and often the skill, but most require ‘some additional work’ to be published.

And then I got an email from Stephen Byrne. In his quest to better learn history, he blended it with his love of of programming and built a website. It’s called History for Kids. It is exceptional, not only for its clean, intuitive presentation, but it’s age-appropriate language. If your students struggle finding research websites that use words at their grade level, suggest they build their own site like Stephen did:

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ScratchJr

ages 5-7

Free

Overview

ScratchJr (released July 2014) is an introductory programming language for ages 5-7 similar to the wildly popular Scratch (for 3rd grade and up). ScratchJr adjusts Scratch’s interface and programming language to make it developmentally appropriate for pre-readers with features that match young children’s cognitive, personal, social, and emotional development. For example, optional video directions are all visual–no reading required. No voice even!

ScratchJr treats programming (a term that frightens even adults) as simply a creative way to communicate–another language. Start by opening the app:

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Creating a shortkey for a program will quickly become a favorite with your students. I use it for the snipping tool–because we use that a lot in class–but you can create one for any program you use a lot. Then I discovered how to create a shortkey for it:

• Go to Start
• Right click on the desired program
• Select ‘properties’
• Click in ‘shortcut’
• Push the key combination you want to use to invoke the snipping tool. In my case, I used Ctrl+Alt+S
• Save

Here’s a video to show you:

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