Why code? It’s not just about computer science skills or becoming a software engineer, though those are great interests to pursue for some students. Coding builds problem-solving skills for students of all ages. They have to determine what their desired outcome is, what steps are needed to get there, and how to accomplish each step. This also requires them to break down problems into smaller components, all skills that are needed in our daily lives. To explore “Hour of Code” in action, I completed two coding activities at different levels: Barbie: You Can Be Anything (https://hourofcode.com/beanything) and Ozaria (https://hourofcode.com/codecombatozaria).

Barbie / Tynker (Elementary): Barbie: You Can Be Anything uses storytelling and career exploration with a familiar character to support upper elementary school students to explore visual coding. Students can make robots dance with the robot engineer, or create their own musical tracks with a musician. Each career introduces a new visual element, from using “wait” commands to creating animated images. It also teaches the language that students will need to understand coding across platforms, such as loops and actions. Barbie uses a combination of text, visuals, and audio to teach and introduce each element, with scaffolding to learn new skills. At times, it can be slow to listen  through each new direction, but students can click forward if they are already familiar with certain elements. Visual coding is common for elementary school coding activities; students will quickly become familiar with the different types of commands. These types of story-based coding activities lend themselves to re-telling stories from favorite books, one’s own writing, or an event from history, as well.

Ozaria / JavaScript, Python (High school): Ozaria uses a story common to RPG style video games, where the user plays a hero who advances through different levels to defeat bosses at increasing levels of difficulty. Ozaria teaches more advanced coding to students as they work through these levels, beginning with how to code a character move on a game board, advancing through loops, and then creating their own levels of games with walls, spike traps, and more. There are video cut scenes in between levels, a coding bank, and the ability to view the coding solution. They also practice debugging code, which means reviewing someone else’s code to correct errors. Debugging is an important part of coding, as a simple mistake in capitalization or forgotten colon can break an entire game. The hour of code passed quite quickly, with great pacing.

Some of the lessons I learned throughout my own coding fun:

• Coding activities need the right amount of time. Educators should explore any coding activity before using it in the classroom. Some activities may be easily broken into 10-15 minute activities throughout the week, while others may be best when the class has a solid 30-60 minute time period available. Coding activities can be used to support the curriculum as above, but they can also be great for indoor recess, enrichment when a student finishes early, or exploration during student independent work.
• Coding activities need to match your student interests. There are lots of different ways to explore Tynker with elementary school students or Python with older students. Rather than expecting all students to engage in the same coding activity for the hour, offer choices. This increases student autonomy and interest, which will increase their engagement and learning.
• And their experience level. Similarly, some students will take off with coding! They may find beginner activities — or even activities targeted to their grade level — to be too easy. Don’t leave them stuck on coding activities that create boredom. Increase the challenge by offering other options or selecting games that have more open-ended coding exploration. For example, within Ozaria, students could create a game level that was very simple — meeting the basic objectives with 4 items — or very advanced — with multiple objects, obstacles, and traps. Coding is an excellent vehicle for low-floor, high-ceiling activities where everyone can find the just right amount of challenge.

Featured Image:

Pexels. (2016, November 19). Coding-computer-hacker-hacking-1841550 [Photograph]. Pixabay. https://pixabay.com/photos/coding-computer-hacker-hacking-1841550/

Image Credits:

Vanderland, A. (2021, July 23). Barbie cover image [Image, screen capture]. Barbie: You can be anything. https://hourofcode.com/beanything

Vanderland, A. (2021, July 23). Ozaria cover image [Image, screen capture]. Ozaria. https://hourofcode.com/codecombatozaria