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Photos: Hour of Code event at Peter J. Shields shows students the science behind the fun
Three primary classrooms at Peter J. Shields participated in the Hour of Code event last Monday December 9.
During Hour of Code, students were encouraged to explore computer science in the form of coding activities. They learned that there is a whole career field related to this topic and those professionals are actually behind all the apps and games they love to play.
They worked as partners to navigate and problem solve their way through coding challenges.
Special guest speaker Yurii Sekretar, CEO and Co-founder of Quiks Inc. brought his laptop, wireless router and a small, very basic computer called Raspberry. He coded a simple reaction time game for two players. He explained and showed the children how he coded the LED light to light up at random intervals of time, inputted player names and then, get the children to play the game.
During the game, they had to press their button first when the light flashed on. Then, the kids asked if the light could just flash on and off, so he changed his code to accomplish that. This enabled kids to see that a person is behind each and every function we do on our technology devices.
In January, school will be starting the Crusader Coding Club open to 3-5 graders. They will be using the computer science curriculum for beginning coding skills from Hour of Code.org.
Students will begin coding using a block format which progresses from basic commands and advances towards more complex commands such as loops and events. The club will run for 8 weeks and so on depending on student interest.