This was a very scary "thing" for me. I remember taking web design classes in college and I would be good up to a certain point and then "the wheels would fall off". At our school the enrichment teacher does code with all the students in the elementary grades and I have to admit, I hadn't done much to learn it myself. So, this project although terrifying was good for me.
I started out by doing something small. I went to "codecademy" and tried making my name different colors and bounce up and down. I was happy that I was able to do it and understood most of what I was doing while creating it. The part I struggled with was trying share it. Unfortunately, I learned that I couldn't "simply" share it, so I just have the html code (<!DOCTYPE html>
<html> <head> <script type="text/javascript" src="//code.jquery.com/jquery-1.10.2.min.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/codecademy-content/courses/hour-of-code/js/alphabet.js"></script> </head> <body> <canvas id="myCanvas"></canvas> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/codecademy-content/courses/hour-of-code/js/bubbles.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript" src="main.js"></script> </body></html>)
After feeling a little braver, but still fairly uncomfortable, I decided to email the enrichment teacher at our school and use the coding site that our students use, called Code.org. It is a one hour code program that uses blocks to code. You learn terms such as programming and looping. It was fairly easy to use and "Elsa and Ona" making snowflakes made it much easier to understand visually. However, the trouble that I had with it was that if you got stuck you weren't able to move on and there were not any suggestions or help buttons to give you hints or indicate where you had trouble. However, the kids at our school seem to love it and I tried it with my own kids and they loved it!
My challenge was where to go from there. I run on a flex schedule in my library and scheduling becomes an issue, so I was hesitant to ask teachers for additional time to push into their classrooms when they are already coding with our enrichment teacher. Then I had a bright idea! I had been toying with the idea of maker spaces and wondering what that might look like in our library. I truly feel that the library is an extension of the classroom and when I utilized maker spaces I wanted it to follow that philosophy of an extension of learning. So I thought it would be great if I could have a maker space section of the library for coding. Students have already learned how to code and this would be a place where kids could tinker around with their new found skills through various coding sites and programs that were shared on the "Cool Tools" Wiki. However, when I pitched the idea to my principal there was some reservation, for valid reasons. My principal suggested having after-school, which I am going to make available at the start of the new year. I hope see a long trail of students coming into the library after-school.
So, what's next? Next week my enrichment teacher and technology coordinator for our school are putting on a night of code at our school. I am going to attend and help in anyway that I can. I am very grateful for this opportunity and am excited to see what I learn from it and most importantly what the students are able to learn! Hopefully, this will give me ideas for coding after-school in the library.
if you copy the html code in "edit mode" on the blog there is an html tab up at the top. if you paste the code there then preview or save, your name should work. since it is in code you need to paste it on the code page for it to show up correctly. hope this helps! Maureen
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