Sunday 6 December 2015

TEACHING THE NEW LITERACY: A SCHOOL WIDE CODING EVENT

Thinking about planning a celebration for the HOUR OF CODE this week or just wondering how coding fits into your classroom? Then this post is for you...

THE NEW LITERACY

Every day around the world, teachers are educating and engaging their students using the new literacy: coding. According to Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs "whether you want to uncover the secrets of the universe or pursue a career in the 21st century, basic computer programming is an essential skill to learn." And they are all pretty smart guys right?  So why hasn't the rest of the world fully adopted this mentality when it comes to constructing curriculum in our education system.  Through computational thinking coding is uniquely suited to not only promote problem solving skills, but gives a voice to our students by providing the ability of a new language through which to express oneself. From Mathematics to a second language, coding is a uniquely
versatile skill and your students are already programmed to use it. Which is why we decided to find coding in the curriculum for our kids and celebrate their hard work.

COMPUTERS4CHANGE

Earlier this year, I attended the OTRK 12 conference, where I was inspired by the keynote to provide better access for my students to technology.  After a little research, I started with a crowd funding site on GOFUNDME. While this type of crowd funding in education is extremely popular in the United States, I was advised that it may be in conflict with certain union regulations here in Canada. Not being one to give up easily, I then contacted the Education Foundation of Niagara.  Soon after our initial meeting my initiative was picked up as a pilot for schools to raise funds through the board by the amazing EFN team.  

COMPUTERS4CHANGE seeks to provide the students of Central Public School with greater access to technology. Using a blended learning model in a maker style environment, this initiative would support student learning in both English, French languages. Our students are already becoming proficient in two languages, COMPUTERS4CHANGE seeks to empower our students further with the most globally sought after language today: coding. This new language will not only inspire them now, but provide them with skills for jobs that do not even exist yet. 


Furthermore, through our after school programs we would be able to support students struggling in mathematics through a flipped classroom capacity, develop enrichment clubs to push students further, and to further facilitate a coding/robotics club to inspire girls in this field. Through this initiative, Central School and Grimsby would become a centre for innovation in education. With the help of our donors, it is our goal to change the world of tomorrow, by empowering the students we teach today. It is this very mindset, which is at the heart of our C3 Event this week

THE EVENT PLAN

The key to any great initiative in education has two parts; it benefits students and it has support from colleagues and administration.  We have been very fortunate in our planning of this event to have both. I am blessed to work with a great staff and to continually have the support of my TECH FORCE 3 team members Julie and Ted. Each of us working in separate divisions allows us to support the school and bring OUR divisions unique perspective to any challenge.  They are legends...find these people at your school or in your board...they're there...just gotta find them.  I have also been fortunate to have earned the trust and support of my administration.  You can't just invite the world to your school and have 500+ kids from grades K-8 running around unless your administration is on board. I have also had continued support from our board's IT department, they are the unsung heroes who make our schools hum.

The day will be broken down into 3 blocks and each division is assigned one of those blocks to explore coding.  Through the six stations students, staff, parents and members of our community will interact and collaborate using a variety of technology and non-tech alternatives to increase competency and inspire an interest in coding.  The amazing challenges available on code.org for their Hour of Code initiative will be used throughout the week and on the day.  We will also use the fantastic MIT app Scratch and Scratchjr as well as the awesome Tickle app.  Robotics (Spheros and Parrot Drones) from our COMPUTERS4CHANGE initiative and our Lego Robotics club will also play a big role.  We have also created dry erase coding blocks for HPE to be used for students to design warm-ups for the partners.  The blocks are the same design as found in Scratch, which enables us to keep the language common across the learning. Each station will include a critical challenge that integrates a number of curriculum expectations in it.  I will post our more concrete plans in an update this week.

We are a French Immersion school and we have recognized the benefit a second language gives to enriching our students lives.  We are very excited to empower them further with exposure to the most sought after language worldwide and look forward to how they make the future. 

See you all this Friday!

Here are some helpful links that have supported us in this day: