For this week’s class SEVEN (only 4 or 5 more classes, wahoooooo), we explored coding resources for elementary students. Think: interactive games, Minecraft coding, puzzles, etc. etc.
I’m about the last person to advocate or even understand why coding matters or is important. As someone who needs to deeply understand the whys of something I don’t understand, I tried to do just that. And here’s what I came up with!
- Helps to break down complex problem into small digestible steps
- Turn passive consuming of digital media to a creative outlet
- Build, create, and solve problems
- Resilience in problem solving
- Interactive
- Relates to the real world
- Preparing them to learn how a lot of the world works
And finally, as user James, from this community thread on what the point of teaching kids to code is if they don’t plan on, or are not interested in, computer programming, he said “there is no such thing as wasted learning. It all compounds. If you learn how to code, you can learn how so many things work…“. Ya got me there James, fine, I’ll work on understanding why coding can help kids explore and better understand the world around them.
Fun hands-on activity to approach the topic of coding
Take apart electronic components to understand the concept of “learning what’s under the hood” is the same as learning how a computer works and how coding is fundamental to computers (getting “under the hood” of a computer)
Resource to intro to coding games
https://code.org/en-US/hour-of-code
I’ve played Minecraft and I’m not a fan but I do recognize that many kids are so I tried it out and its actually pretty engaging. Basically you drag and drop commands in the correct order to get your character to complete the task given.
In this task I had to get my character to reach the treasure box. This was after a couple of very basic levels where I learned to move forward, left, and right. Now it becomes more complicated with commands that look like giant colored brackets. The difficulty increases as you finish each level, and you can start to get a bit more creative with how you get your character to reach it’s destination.
Unplugged/screenless coding activities
https://studio.code.org/courses/k5-unplugged/units/1
Here is a video tutorial of what is a similar concept to the Minecraft game above. Students are trying to get their character get to where they are trying to go by cutting out and gluing arrows pointing in the correct direction, in the correct order, of where the character needs to go.
This website also has a lot of different screenless, unplugged coding activities and worksheets for educators.
Now what? I’ll be honest, I’m still not totally sold on coding. It feels like a very narrow and specific skill to have, and while I see the value in it, I’m not quite on board with how much emphasis is placed on tech and coding right now. It seems like its just new and upcoming, but it is by means the be all end all of technology (cause that’s always evolving!).