While procrastinating writing a new blog post, I found an incredible website that one of my Facebook friends had shared. The website is "Hour of Code" and can be found here. Hour of Code is a fun and easy way to teach children the basics of writing computer code. The website is genius. It takes well-known children's characters, such as the Angry Bird and the zombie from Plants vs Zombies to immediately grab the attention of children. Once the Hour of Code has started, videos from famous people such as Bill Gates and Chris Bosh hook the viewer in even more. The purpose of the site is to teach children the basics of computer code by leading recognizable characters through mazes. It is absolutely incredible to think that what used to be an advanced skill only offered in college is now being taught to small children just a few years late. One completes the maze by moving blocks depicting words such as "Move Forward" or "Turn Left" is the correct order so the character can complete the level. My immediate thought is this isn't basic computer science, this is a children's game. But I was WRONG. Between every two or three levels is one of the famous people teaching you about real-world programing applications that are connected to the little blocks. For example, one of the blocks says "Repeat" and all the smaller boxes inside of that box, continue to repeat until the maze is finished. Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook, tells the viewer that the repeat box is similar to the coding used on Facebook to send out millions of "Happy Birthdays" each day. To the left of the blocks are lines of actual code that each box correlates to. When you put these boxes together and complete the maze, code is written. The boxes get more and more complicated as the game goes on, and after the 20 levels, your Hour of Code is complete. The site then offers more easy ways to learn code. What a genius way to create interest in a field that only continues to grow as people rely more and more on technology: target the youth. Almost 300 million lines of code have been written by students already. The ages listed on the website are ages 6-106, sos if you fall into this age range, you should be okay to try. If you are interested in coding at all, or you love Angry Birds, go check out this nifty website!
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Hour of Fun
While procrastinating writing a new blog post, I found an incredible website that one of my Facebook friends had shared. The website is "Hour of Code" and can be found here. Hour of Code is a fun and easy way to teach children the basics of writing computer code. The website is genius. It takes well-known children's characters, such as the Angry Bird and the zombie from Plants vs Zombies to immediately grab the attention of children. Once the Hour of Code has started, videos from famous people such as Bill Gates and Chris Bosh hook the viewer in even more. The purpose of the site is to teach children the basics of computer code by leading recognizable characters through mazes. It is absolutely incredible to think that what used to be an advanced skill only offered in college is now being taught to small children just a few years late. One completes the maze by moving blocks depicting words such as "Move Forward" or "Turn Left" is the correct order so the character can complete the level. My immediate thought is this isn't basic computer science, this is a children's game. But I was WRONG. Between every two or three levels is one of the famous people teaching you about real-world programing applications that are connected to the little blocks. For example, one of the blocks says "Repeat" and all the smaller boxes inside of that box, continue to repeat until the maze is finished. Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook, tells the viewer that the repeat box is similar to the coding used on Facebook to send out millions of "Happy Birthdays" each day. To the left of the blocks are lines of actual code that each box correlates to. When you put these boxes together and complete the maze, code is written. The boxes get more and more complicated as the game goes on, and after the 20 levels, your Hour of Code is complete. The site then offers more easy ways to learn code. What a genius way to create interest in a field that only continues to grow as people rely more and more on technology: target the youth. Almost 300 million lines of code have been written by students already. The ages listed on the website are ages 6-106, sos if you fall into this age range, you should be okay to try. If you are interested in coding at all, or you love Angry Birds, go check out this nifty website!
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2 comments:
I think this is a really interesting website! I checked it out and was amazed and how people of all ages are being enouraged to learn computer programming. I think the importance of skills like computer coding are becoming more useful than ever with new jobs being created in web design and computer science.
Noah, glad you stumbled on this and had fun with it. Code.org is doing a lot nation-wide to ensure that _every_ student in the US (especially women, African American and Hispanic who are so underrepresented in the field) has a chance to experience computer science. Check out their latest deal with CPS http://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/mayor/press_room/press_releases/2013/december_2013/mayor-emanuel-and-cps-ceo-barbara-byrd-bennett-announce-comprehe.html
I have been working on this on a National Science Foundation grant - Taste of Computing - for a couple of years now. We bring LA's Exploring Computer Science course http://www.exploringcs.org/ to CPS high schools. I am determined to change the face of computing :)
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