Tag Archives: Hour of Code

Weekly Photo Challenge: Seasonal

I’m not sure how it happened, but it’s December already. And not just the beginning of December, but almost half way through December!

With today’s stormy weather (at least by San Diego standards), winter feels near. Our students were in for their snack recess…and out in the blustery wind for lunch. I couldn’t resist swinging by the beach on my way home to glimpse the wind blown waves as the sun started to set. There’s something magnificent about the way the clouds cluster over the sea, walking along the shore with my jacket zipped to my chin and my hood up, and the wind pulling and pushing as I explored.

Just a few days before I had stopped on my way home to snap a few photos of the sun setting, golden in the distance. Instead of feeling the wind, this day was warm and sunny–reminiscent of the summer–unseasonably mild.

This week is also the annual season for computer coding. Beebot is the perfect tool for introducing students to the principles of coding…and the kids love programming this mechanical robot to move around its grid. You can see the engagement and intensity on their faces.

We haven’t gotten our Christmas tree yet, but I did go with my son and daughter-in-law last weekend to pick out theirs. I love the smell of the pines…and I couldn’t resist this shot of the trees wrapped in their webbing. It was a fun surprise to look through my pictures and notice the red stands contrasted with the green of the trees.

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And my neighborhood is ablaze with light this time of the year. It seems that each house is more elaborately lit up than the next. There are the traditional strings of lights hung from the eaves, the palm trees wrapped in loops of lights, and the much more kitchy reindeer, santas, snowmen, and more! This image is the tiniest fraction of the lights in this neighborhood!

So take a look around for what is seasonal in your parts this week. Will you find evidence of the holidays, notice weather patterns, or come up with some other seasonal evidence?

You can post your photo alone or along with some words: commentary, a story, a poem…maybe even a song! I love to study the photographs that others’ take and think about how I can use a technique, an angle, or their inspiration to try something new in my own photography. (I love a great mentor text…or mentor photo, in this case!) I share my photography and writing on social media. You can find me on Instagram and Twitter using @kd0602. If you share your photos and writing on social media too, please let me know so I can follow and see what you are doing. To help our Weekly Photo community find each other, use the hashtag #seasonal for this week and include @nwpianthology in your post.

Take a look around for the seasonal…and share the view through your lens. What does seasonal look like in your part of the world?

Poverty and Programming…and Questions

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My internet crashed last night. The TV wasn’t working, my computer wouldn’t pick up the wireless, and the micro-cell that boosts the cellular phone signal was down too. I had digital devices…but no connection at all.

I had big plans…to watch some Sunday night football, to do some online holiday shopping, to put together a blog post, and to catch up on some reading of posts made by others. Instead, I finished my book, put some laundry away, and went to bed a bit earlier than I might have otherwise.

My internet is back up and working today…but my experience last night turned my thoughts to issues of equity and access for students.

It seems that when people think about access to technology, devices are at the front of their thinking. If only we could put a device in the student’s hand, issues of access are solved.

But there is just so much more to access. Last night I had access to devices…but none of them would connect me to the internet or allow me to connect in any other way (text, phone, social media, even TV). I thought about getting in my car and heading down to the local Starbucks to have a cup of coffee and accomplish some of what I planned to do at home. I didn’t have any hard deadlines…and I knew that I would have internet access when I got to work this morning, so I decided to stay home and do without the connection.

But what if I were a high school student with a Monday morning deadline? What if I didn’t have reliable internet access in my home…and what if I didn’t have transportation as an option to get me to the Starbucks, the library, or even a friend’s house with internet access? Even if the school provided me with a device, there are so many things I couldn’t do without internet access.

I know there are programs to provide internet service to families with limited means, but I also know that they require paperwork be filled out…and may even require some kind of bank account or credit card to pay the nominal monthly fee.

So why am I writing about this? I’m thinking about the amount of school work that is assigned as homework. to be completed outside of school and the role that digital tools increasing play in our lives and I’m wondering about how access impacts our students. Can they create digital portfolios to showcase their learning? Can they access the information they need to locate resources for research, find scholarship and grant opportunities, secure internships or apply for employment?

How does access change when connectivity is only available outside of your home? In public spaces? Places with limited hours of operation?

And what do we take for granted? We ask students to blog, to research, to reply to discussion boards, to collaborate with Google docs…often outside of the school day. Which of our students have access…and what happens to those who don’t? Do our students who come from the poorest families see themselves as producers of technology? Who is learning to code? Who is primarily consuming in our digital world and who is producing? How often do we ask those questions…and how do the answers change the way we think about access and equity?

Last week on Teachers Teaching Teachers, we were on a Google Hangout talking about the Hour of Code and about Dasani. Two disparate topics…or are they? Poverty and programming…and questions of equity, voice, agency… What roles do schools play? What roles should they play? What does it mean to be a learner in the 21st century? How does “producing” change the learner…the learning? I have many more questions than answers…and I would love to continue the conversation. What do you think?

Hour of Code

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Coding, programming…words that are used to describe the process of “speaking” a machine language. This week classrooms and schools all over are participating in the Hour of Code, an attempt to get 10 million students to try computer science for an hour during Computer Science Education Week.

If you read this blog you already know that we have been working on computer programming using the Hopscotch app for a while now. (See here, here, and here) So in honor of the Hour of Code, we decided to pose a Winter Scene Design Challenge for our students.

Today was the day. Students were asked to create a scene using Hopscotch that depicts some aspect of winter. As you might expect, students thought snow, snowmen, Christmas trees, and more. They were super excited…with my speech students arranging to get out of speech (something they love!) so they could be part of the challenge.

And there were many highlights today–lots of successes, lots of students genuinely collaborating with one another and supporting each other without teacher direction. But my favorite moment was Esther. Esther is an 84 year old grandmother who lives in Australia and visits her daughter in our town each year in the winter. I taught her grandson and granddaughter many years ago (they are both college students now) and Esther has continued to come to our classroom several days a week when she is in town to help out and hang out.

As Esther began to watch the students at work on their winter scenes, I asked her if she would like to try it too. I handed her my iPad and asked Sophie if she would show Ms. Esther how Hopscotch (and the iPad) worked.

Esther was delighted! And so was Sophie. It is wonderful for my students to see the embodiment of lifelong learning…and Esther is just that!

An article I read recently points out the advantages of learning to code: problem solving, (digital) confidence, and understanding the world. And I see those advantages when my students work to program. They also learn about systems…and working through the many variables to figure out why their plan isn’t working as they imagined. They become persistent and learn the value of iteration. Each mistake becomes another opportunity for learning rather than a sign of failure.

Here are a few examples of students’ winter scenes:

A first grader who figured out how to use o’s as text features for eyes and nose on his snowman.

A second grader’s winter tree.

A third grader’s winter scene.

A peppermint candy created by a third grader.

And a holiday greeting card, Hopscotch style!

You can see that students are gaining confidence and expertise with this programming tool. Most of these projects were completed in less than 30 minutes and they represent only a fraction of the programming that was happening in the classroom today. Some of our students are still struggling while others can’t wait to go home and try some more programming on their own time.

Next week we plan to have student-led tutorials where students will teach and learn from each other in small groups.

How was your Hour of Code? What did students learn and create?