This week Sky Class, along with the rest of the Lower School and students and teachers throughout the country, participated in the national program, Hour of Code.
We used the Scratch Jr. programming language within an iPad app for our coding. Some of our students had already been using Scratch Jr. In the app, students use graphical programming blocks to create animated pictures and stories. They were challenged to create a program that would help their fellow students learn how to use Scratch Jr. Then the "teaching students" met with the others in groups of two or three. The other students watched their partners' lessons. Then they got to make their own programs.
There is an expression that we teach students to code, "not just to learn to code, but to code to learn." Learning code develops upper level thinking skills in students. It also allows them to be in control of the digital world instead of being passive consumers.
Scratch Jr. was developed by a collaboration between groups at Tufts University and the MIT Media Lab. We chose to use this app in particular as it is a good lead-in to Scratch, the MIT developed programming language, which is often taught in Forest and Mountain.
You can go to the Scratch Jr. website to learn more aboutScratch Jr., the rationale for teaching it, instructions and activity ideas, and links to iPad and Android versions of the free app. There is now a new version of the app (also free) which uses characters from PBS Kids. You can learn more about it and get links to download it for the iPad here and or for Android tablets here.
You can go to the Scratch Jr. website to learn more aboutScratch Jr., the rationale for teaching it, instructions and activity ideas, and links to iPad and Android versions of the free app. There is now a new version of the app (also free) which uses characters from PBS Kids. You can learn more about it and get links to download it for the iPad here and or for Android tablets here.
