I’ve been talking about Hour of Code with elementary teachers at my school for the past few weeks. Hour of Code is part of Computer Science Education Week from December 8 – 14, 2014. We had a little preview in a Grade 2 class last week where students used Tynker as an introduction to Hour of Code. We tried to do something similar in Grade 1 yesterday but unfortunately, the app crashed every time the character got to the jelly bean.
Participate in Hour of Code whether you’re an adult or a child. Today (Friday, December 5) is the last day to sign up to win prizes for yourself, classroom or school. Don’t be intimidated even if you’ve never done any programming before. There are a number of resources that you can use. The platforms mentioned are available all year round but many of them have put on special activities for hour of code. For example, Code Studio has recently added in an actiivity where you can code with Elsa from Frozen.
For all ages
- Code Studio – http://studio.code.org/ (multi-platform)
- Lightbot – http://lightbot.com/hocflash.html (multi-platform)
- Tynker – http://www.tynker.com/hour-of-code/ (multi-platform)
- Made with Code from Google – https://www.madewithcode.com/projects (multi-platform)
- Blockly Games – https://blockly-games.appspot.com/ (multi-platform)
Lower Elementary
- Tynker on Brainpop – https://www.brainpop.com/games/tynkerpuppyadventure/
Upper elementary (Grades 3+)
- Scratch – http://scratch.mit.edu/hoc2014/ (flash-based)
- Code Academy – http://www.codecademy.com/goals/hourofcode (flash-based)
- Turtle Academy – http://turtleacademy.com/ (multi-platform)
Interested in learning more about Hour of Code from a teacher’s perspective? Check out this webinar from Brainpop. Their computer science resources are free this week.