It's Time for the HOUR OF CODE!

It’s that time of year again, folks!  The Hour of Code is upon us. The grassroots campaign goal is for tens of millions of students to try an Hour of Code during December 8-14, 2014, in celebration of Computer Science Education Week. Is it one specific hour? No. You can do the Hour of Code anytime during this week. (And if you can't do it during that week, do it the week before or after).

90 percent of American schools don’t teach computer science. Fewer students are learning how computers work than a decade ago. Girls and minorities are severely underrepresented. And yet, technology is increasingly shaping almost every aspect of how we live our lives.

Why should you participate in Hour of Code?

While all of us know that it’s important for students to learn how to navigate today’s tech-saturated world, many teachers aren’t experienced in computer science and don’t know where to start. This event is a chance for all of us to see what computer science is about.

Hopefully  it’ll spark interest in students to keep learning. Research also shows that kids pick up programming concepts before they know how to read and write. In fact, their brains are more receptive to computer languages at a young age, just like foreign languages.

Why is it important?

In China, every students takes computer science to graduate high school. In the U.S., 90 percent of schools don’t even teach it. It’s time for us to catch up to the 21st century. We know that regardless of what our students do when they grow up, whether they go into medicine, business, politics, or the arts, knowing how to build technology will allow give them the confidence and know-how to succeed.

The Hour of Code is for all ages. Here are multiple sites from which to choose activities and tutorials:

Click on the pictures to view tutorials that will have your students (and you) writing code in no time.

• The first website takes you to code based learning that has a theme that EVERYONE loves this year, Frozen. Help Elsa and Anna and learn code along the way. There are many other tutorials available at this website.
• The next picture has code for all levels for pre-readers to high school. It's definitely worth a look. 
• Made W/ Code has kids writing code that will light the Christmas tree at the White House! Write your code, sign up for a specific time and tune in live via the net to see your lighting sequence on the tree! How cool is that?
• Next is SCRATCH. Scratch is a programming language and online community where you can create your own interactive stories, games, and animations -- and share your creations with others around the world. In the process of designing and programming Scratch projects, young people learn to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively.
• Lightbot is great fun and does a surprisingly thorough job of introducing some pretty complex principles of programming. Lightbot offers an easy way for kids to learn concepts like loops, if-then statements, and the like without typing or coding.

Tips on "hosting" an hour of code:

• Check out the tutorials and pick one for your class. Tutorials will be available in as many as 20 languages.
• Go through the tutorial yourself so you can help students during the Hour of Code.
• Test tutorials on student computers or devices. Make sure they work properly (with sound and video).
• Preview the congrats page to see what students will see when they finish.
• If the tutorial you choose works best with sound, provide headphones for your class, or ask students to bring their own.