Popular titles like “Frozen,” “Star Wars” and “Minecraft” drew in students at every school during the annual Hour of Code week, but it was the introduction to the characters behind the scenes that kept students engaged as they attempted to carry out commands like building and walking using coding.“Most of [the students] have never done any kind of coding before,” said Croton-Harmon High School teacher Eileen Pike, who watched even seniors become infatuated with the animated characters as they eagerly attempted to carry out complex commands. “The idea of coding can be intimidating to them, but when they find out it involves games, they get excited.”
Hour of Code, a program that has engaged more than 100 million students worldwide, was created in response to the growing number of available computer science jobs with few qualified candidates.
Students at Carrie E. Tompkins Elementary School and Pierre Van Cortlandt Middle School were just as eager to tackle coding and excitedly shared their progress with each other during the sessions. Many students also turned to their peers to collaborate on overcoming challenges as they coded.
“The coding consists of drag and drop commands,” said Pike. “As the students go through each level, more commands are added and the task becomes more complicated and involved.”
The entire sixth-grade at PVC participated in the Hour of Code.
“By day five, almost all of my students learned either Java or Python
while playing the coding games,” said teacher Maureen Dillon. “In
addition, most kids tried Scratch at least one. It is surprising how
much they learned in a single week of coding.”
Senior Delphine Bussiere said this year was her first time attempting to code.
“I am not a big computer person, but I think it’s a useful skill to have, especially with more jobs in the [computer science] fields,” she said. “I think it’s going to be really beneficial for the younger students especially to be introduced to coding.”
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