In preparation for the Hour of Code activities high school ambassadors comprised of student volunteers, along with students in Mrs. Spaulding’s Exploring Computer Science course, utilized the Code.org website to learn specific activities. Here is a student example created in Mrs. Spaulding’s class to get ready for the big day. Student focus at the middle school was to be well versed with teacher requested programs like Scratch, Angry Birds, Khan Academy and Tynker. While some students led activities others assisted middle students in navigating through the code. At the high school, our ambassadors prepared to run another round of activities based on their own interests. Activities include Scratch in French and Spanish, Khan Academy, and Star Wars to name a few. We are so proud of our student ambassadors and thankful for the opportunity to expose staff and students to basic coding exercises!  

All Middle School students participated in the Hour of Code in science class on Wednesday of computer science week.  Students were exposed to a number of activities including Scratch, Kahn Academy, Minecraft programming and many more. High school computer science students visited each classroom in the morning to lead sessions and to assist the students with their exploration. While students did not necessarily have time write a complete program, here is an example of the start of a program using scratch from Mrs. Repaal’s classroom.

In the elementary schools, students and teachers participated in the Hour of Code in their classrooms as well as during computer special. Some classes are expanding their hour of code by working a bit each week on lessons provided by Code.org to expand basic concepts and eventually make a simple game app using drag and drop block programming languages.

To see more of the Hour of Code in action, check out the #gdrsdhourofcode and #gdrsdchat hashtags on Twitter or visit the Code.org site to try some activities on your own!