Makerspace at IS 24

Curriculum connections -- in what ways are the activities in the makerspace connected to the current curriculum in your school? Describe collaborations, if any, with teachers.

I am working with the 6th grade social studies teacher who is teaching geography and ancient civilizations right now. She has already brought her classes into the library for a research lesson on the ABC-CLIO World Geography database. The students have to research a country and make a travel guide book and for me, since I teach the entire 6th grade a library skills class, they will make a website about their country. Or maybe just a web page. I haven’t gotten to this yet. This way, I am teaching both coding, and how to create something that is relevant to what they are doing in social studies. I only have 18 students in my computer programming elective but I have 30 kids in each of my 6th grade library skills classes. I tried teaching coding to a much larger group last year and it was really challenging. Some kids understood that you had to be absolutely precise when copying code but some kids didn’t. Hence, they did not understand why their code wasn’t working when they went to look at it in a browser. For some kids, having to be so precise is tedious and takes too much effort. I understand. But the reward is worth it to see your creation on the web and know that you made something for the internet. So with a large group, if everyone makes just one little mistake, I have to check the code of 30 students, which means that while I am helping one student, 29 other students are not getting my help. It is much easier to teach coding to a smaller group so I am glad I have my computer programming elective this year. I will give it a go with coding with my larger classes, whereby I want to integrate their social studies lessons into my library classes, and see how they do.

Who is using the space? Do teachers bring classes to use the space during the day? Is it an afterschool club?

Last year I held an afterschool club on Wednesdays from 3-4. I taught the students how to use http://codecademy.org because I thought it would be fun for the students to work at their own pace, but it turned out that the site is really fun for adults and not for kids. It is an unforgiving program that doesn’t give you enough hints when you have made a mistake. It also lacks the bells and whistles that middle school students have grown accustomed to. I also introduced the students to other programs like Tynker and RunMarco. This year however, I am not running a club. Instead the principal gave me my own computer programming elective, which meets on Mondays and Thursdays, two periods a week. I received 12 laptops with the INNOVATION! grant money and I use them with the class. No other teachers use them as I need them for my own program and can’t risk them being broken and waiting for tech support to come out and fix them. Hence, the materials, the laptops, are solely for the kids in my class(es). (I do teach a “library skills” class to each 6th grade homeroom as well and I use the laptops with those classes also). Since my makerspace is an actual class and teachers don’t bring their students to my class, they nevertheless come for research classes and although I am not teaching HTML coding to those classes, I am teaching research and I take out the laptops during those times as well. So the laptops are getting a workout. They are used not just for my makerspace.

What is your makerspace like today?

My makerspace has become an actual course in the middle school that I work in. I teach a computer programming elective this year, which I did not teach last year. Last year I held the makerspace activities after school once a week, and taught a bit of HTML5 programming in my middle school library classes and in my college research skills class, but this year I have my own class dedicated to HTML programming! It is an elective class which meets twice per week. There are 18 8th grade students in the class and I am teaching them, at this point, very basic HTML5 commands. We are up to learning how to link documents to each other and to link to outside URLs and will very soon start to learn how to add images to our web pages. The students use two programs this year that they did not use last year. One is the Editra text editor. This is a free program available for download that allows students to type in their code and save it to their flash drives. Next, students check their files at http://validator.w3.org. This is a site that allows you to upload your HTML files and it will tell you line by line where your errors are. It is very important to be able to check your code line by line because one small error can mean the difference between the page showing up properly in a browser and not showing up at all. If students have made mistakes, they will have to go back to that line and correct their code before saving and uploading again. Students then log in to their Neocities accounts where they upload their files to their website hosted by this free HTML hosting site. In preparation for each class, I create a sheet of code like the one below and I print out 18 copies with the printer that was purchased with the grant. Students are to copy the code exactly as they see it on the sheet. I thought of making a wiki and copying the code to the wiki, but then I ran the risk of students cheating and copying and pasting the code directly into their files. And they wouldn’t learn the code if they did that. It would certainly save on paper and ink, but the students wouldn’t learn anything. Once students have uploaded their HTML files that they create in class to their Neocities accounts, they are “live” on the Web. You can see one student’s site here: http://ahhcp.neocities.org/relativeURLs.html. Not everybody has gotten as far as this student has (most have), but you can go to the site, hit ctrl-u and take a look at the code underneath. All of the code was done by hand.

Run Marco!

Yesterday and today I taught my students how to use Run Marco! It is very similar to scratch in the way you drag the commands to the left of the screen to tell Marco what to do. It was a success as 90+% of the students were doing the program. It is so much more fun than Codecademy, whereby many of my students gave up with it. One of yesterday's students didn't want to play it though, she wanted to continue to work on making a Web page using the Editra program, which of course was great. I found Run Marco! through edshelf the other day and gave it a try with my students yesterday and it was overall much much more fun than Codecademy.

Commands in Run Marco!

It is colorful, has music, is fun, and is somewhat easy. The students did run into snags though. I had several hands raised and I went from student to student helping them and I found myself challenged as well. Even though the program took about five minutes for me to learn, there were still things I wasn't familiar with. One thing I found with many students was that when they ran into problems with their code, I had them drag their commands to the trash and start again. This worked on at least two occasions and I was glad I was able to help.

Some additional coding programs

Run Marco: a coding adventure around the world

From edshelf: "Play an epic adventure game and have fun while learning to code i.e. program computers. Use visual instructions to guide Marco through a series of levels as he tries to discover himself. In this journey you will learn how to think as a software developer one step at a time! Instructions are in the form of the standard visual programming language “Google Blockly”, which is used by the official code.org tutorials."

Tynker

From edshelf: "Tynker is a new computing platform designed specifically to teach children computational learning and programming skills in a fun and imaginative way. Tynker is inspired by Scratch from MIT. It is a completely browser-based implementation written using Open Web standards such as Javascript, HTML5, CSS3 and does not use Flash."

Made with code

From edshelf: "Made with Code builds on our long­-standing commitment to increasing diversity in Computer Science. Since 2010 we’ve invested $40 million in organizations like Code.org, Girls Who Code, NCWIT and Black Girls Code. We are committing an additional $50 million over the next three years to further these efforts."

Code.org

From edshelf: "Launched in 2013, Code.org® is a non-profit dedicated to expanding participation in computer science by making it available in more schools, and increasing participation by women and underrepresented students of color. Our vision is that every student in every school should have the opportunity to learn computer science. We believe computer science and computer programming should be part of the core curriculum in education, alongside other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses, such as biology, physics, chemistry and algebra."

LearningDataScience.org

From edshelf: "LearningDataScience.org is a collection of some of the most powerful and effective data science learning resources from across the web, including online classes, books, coding tutorials, articles, and lectures."

Kodable

From edshelf: "LOST IN SPACE The furry aliens, known as Fuzzes were exploring space when their ship unexpectedly crashed on the maze-covered planet Smeeborg. The naturally curious fuzzes need kids to program them to explore all the colorful Technomazes on the planet’s surface.ACCOMPANYING CURRICULUM (Common Core Aligned)Upload your roster for easy sign on, get lesson plans, and track what concepts and standards students are learning when you create a free account at Kodable.com. (Homeschool and Parent curriculum available as well)WHY CODE WITH KODABLE?Even before your children can pronounce the word “algorithm” they have an astounding ability to learn how to use them. Today’s best programmers fell in love with coding at a young age by experimenting with the concepts taught in Kodable. Understanding the basics of programming empowers your child for the jobs of tomorrow, and expands your child’s mind to solve problems today in more intelligent ways.Kids learn the fundamentals of every modern programming language in a fun and inviting way."

Trinket

From edshelf: "Trinket helps you teach with code."

ComputerScienceOnline

From edshelf: "ComputerScienceOnline.org is an in-depth website for potential and current students considering a career with computers, software engineering, and more. Our staff is passionate about technology and dedicated to helping others find the information they need to make decisions about their future in the fast moving and rapidly growing tech industry."

K-8 Intro to Computer Science

From edshelf: "This 20-hour course introduces core computer science and programming concepts. The course is designed for use in classrooms for grades K-8, but it is fun to learn at all ages."

Coding Club: Day 2

Two boys seeming to enjoy themselves

The coding club met for the second time yesterday. This time I took photos. Most kids went on Codecademy and continued where they left off the week before, and some kids went on Scratch. Scratch they learned with Mr. F. in technology class and they love it! I can see where it is a lot more fun than Codecademy because it's like a game and you can program the characters any way you like - make them certain colors, make them run around, make them talk, give them speech bubles, etc. Codecademy is not like that. You do lessons and you have to read the instructions. I can see where kids are having trouble though. It is because they are not reading the instructions. So I help them with their code and I tell them what they are doing wrong, but I don't think that is helpful. I have to model reading the instructions for them and with them. I also have to get farther in the lessons myself.

Three girls coding after school

This week I had just a few fewer kids than last week so I had enough laptops to go around. I had exactly 20 kids for exactly 20 laptops. The four MacBooks that I have are still the favorite. I would have loved to buy more of them but they are almost $500. more expensive than the Windows machines. Still, I hope to buy more of them in the future. They are a big hit and the first to go when the club starts.

At least two kids gave up with coding already and decided to use the time to do their homework.  The whole point of the club though is to turn kids on to coding and to expose them to coding and hopefully spark an interest that might develop into a career for them - a lucrative career.

Codecademy: Week 2: Class 5

Screenshot of Code Monster

Fridays I have my best class but most groaned when I told them we were going into the lab to continue to work on Codecademy. Unlike yesterday, I did not show them Code Monster because I felt I might be overloading them with too much information. They asked if they could borrow books and I said yes - for 7 minutes - but then we were going into the lab.

At the end of class I check every single computer to make sure that everyone has logged out. It's a lot of work! Not everyone does and I have to log out for them because otherwise the person who sits at their seat next will jump right in to the lessons where the other person left off and both will end up missing important information. Student 2 will jump into lessons that student 1 has not yet completed and Student 2 might start lessons before they have completed the first lessons. So I am always checking the computers.

As usual, I was asked for the MacBooks so I gave them out only to discover that the wifi was not working. I hope it works again by Tuesday. I don't have any other classes today.

Another screenshot of Code Monster

Most were on Codecademy but I had a few kids who have lost their patience with the program and I don't have anything else up my sleeve except for Code Monster - at least for now. I am just learning this whole process of coding as I go so expect to get better at it as time marches on. I will find out about other free coding programs, teach them to myself, and then teach them to the kids. But when the kids have me ("library" class), a lot of them just want to borrow books. I understand. It seems a waste to have an entire collection of books that they cannot borrow during their "library" time, but I want to teach them coding. This is a challenge. But some kids like it so that's a good thing. I'll hold on to that.

Introducing Code Monster

Today I showed my Thursday 6th graders Code Monster. It might have been overload. I had anticipated that like my other 6th grade classes who were in Week Two of using Codecademy, that they might have fogotten their usernames and passwords that they signed up with. I also thought that they might have found Codecademy not as user-friendly as some other programs made specifically for kids, so I read about Code Monster, tried it a little myself before class, and thought I'd introduce it. Some kids did use it, but I was surprised that most kids went to Codecademy. Code Monster is definitely for kids.

Coding Club: First Day

Whole class working

Unfortunately, I did not take any pictures but it was a success. It turns out I had more students than I had computers. All 20 laptops were used up, all 5 desktop computers, plus the 2 behind the circulation desk. I had the kids go to Codecademy and the 4 CSI students were working diligently on it. The younger kids did well too, but of all the questions I fielded, all of them were from the younger kids. I have got to learn some other programs for the younger kids to use. I don't think it turns out that Codecademy provides enough feedback to keep the kids interested. There are no bells and whistles.

The club started at 3:00 and ended at 4:00. I really thought I would not have that much of a turnout, at least on the first day, but I did - something like 27 students! That's almost an entire class. And like in class, I was running around the room, breaking into a sweat, answering questions. It's okay. If I am exposing kids to something they might not expose themselves to on their own, than that is a good thing.

I applied for another grant to buy two more MacBooks and a computer science collection and I hope I get it. I only have four MacBooks at the moment and the kids really love using the MacBooks.

Codecademy: Week 2: Class 3

Working intently

Today was my Wednesday's class 2nd week in the lab working on Codecademy. As with the other two classes on Monday and Tuesday, I had students who forgot the username and password they signed up with last week. I tell them to write it down, but they don't always listen. Still, most students were on the site and working intently.

I fielded several questions about lessons that I myself have not gotten up to yet so I definitely have to catch up. It is very important to me that I be able to help students with the code and if I don't know it, that is a problem for me. I want the students to feel confident in both me and in their ability to do the program. We still have some glitches, like laptops that don't display the site correctly, but it is easy to exchange one laptop for another since I have 20 of them now.

One other thing that was interesting is that I had one or two students who were on the wrong set of lessons. They went to "Make a Website" and I wanted them to learn "HTML & CSS" first, so I had to redirect them. They were disappointed as they had already done some of the lessons in the "Make a Website" module, but I told them it would not be a duplicate of what they had already done. Turns out "Make a Web site" is much harder than the "HTML & CSS" set of lessons.

Introducing 12th graders to Codecademy

Yesterday, I took out the laptop and projector (and whiteboard on which to project) and I introduced my 12th graders to Codecademy. I walked them through sign up and told them which lesson to go into: HTML & CSS, and I told them to read what was on the screen, do what the instructions said, and to "Save and submit" code when they were done, and to continue at their own pace to do the lessons - one after the other. One young woman's laptop was not letting her in so I gave her another laptop. When I walked around the room, everyone was doing the lessons. I told them to copy and paste their code into their wikis, but I have about 7 new students who don't have wikis yet, and I'm not sure that is feasible. I just want to keep track of who is doing the lessons. Another young woman asked me if she could do this for homework and of course I said yes and was thrilled that she would have an interest.

I had already introduced my 12th graders to HTML last term but I have approximately 7 new students who have no idea what code is and would be behind. So everyone is starting at the beginning by doing the lessons in Codecademy. For most, it will be a re-introduction. But it won't be enough for the class. I will most definitely have to create a template for them to do their own Web site and embed their own research into the site. I'm sure the students will need this kind of scaffolding. Creating your own Web site with code you've never used before can't be that easy. Maybe for some students, but I'm sure some will need the assistance. That will be a project for me over the mid-winter break. I also have to create a lesson plan for my students since I will be out on the 23rd. This class meets every Tuesday and Thursday, whereas I see 6th graders every day.

I also gave my 12th graders their first HTML quiz yesterday. There were 15 questions and the lowest score was a 7 and the highest score was a 13. The kids moaned about it because we've had a week and a half since our last HTML class and they claimed to have forgotten the material since, but I was going to do this quiz on the last day of school but because of the snow, a lot of kids did not show so I decided against giving the quiz. So I had new students yesterday and I excused them from the quiz.

I figure I will be giving out quizzes either every week or every other week. We'll see as the semester moves on.

Codecademy: Week 2: Class 2

Two boys coding

Much better day today. Much better class. Although some groaned at the idea of going into the lab (because they'd rather borrow books during "library class"), I took them into the lab and most all of them got started back on Codecademy. As predicted, like yesterday, some forgot the username and/or the password they used to sign up with last Tuesday so I had one or two students working on trying to get into the program during most of the class. That was a bummer. I had one student though who told me he LOVES Codecademy and that was gratifying. He has gotten pretty far into the lessons, but he does ask me for help and I am so happy to know enough code to be able to help my students.

One boy using MIT's Scratch program

Some students though said they don't like Codecademy so I let them go on Scratch from MIT. It is also a coding program and I understand its appeal to 6th grade boys. They learned about it in their technology class and they love it so I let them use it today. I will probably let them use it in the future as well. But except for those 6 boys, and the 1 girl who could not get in with her username and password, everyone was using Codecademy.

Unlike yesterday. I wasn't running around the room like a crazy woman. Everyone was working and I was needed only when they had questions about not passing a lesson. In this case, I checked their code and told them where the mistakes were. I have to get further in the modules myself in order to be able to continue to help the students. Large learning curve here. I've taught myself a lot of HTML but I need to  get further into the lessons and into the books.

6 boys doing Scratch

Today, I will also be introducing my 12th graders to Codecademy for the first time. I've had them use the teacher-made sheets that I've handed out, but I am hoping they like Codecademy better. That's the goal. I have no idea how much they actually learned from the sheets I made and that they copied into Editra, but today I will give my first HTML quiz and see how they do. I was going to give this quiz last Monday, on the last day of the term, but more than half of my students did not show because of the snow and I did not want them to fail, so I am giving the quiz today. I have four new students who I will excuse from the quiz, and four students who have been taken out of the class. The goal is simply that I can teach my students enough HTML that they can make a very basic Web site. In thinking about this I also realize that I will need to type up a template for them for how to make one so that they can follow it. Right now, it seems to be difficult to expect them to start memorizing the HTML tags. The goal is that they will over time. I will also gauge their learning by maybe weekly quizzes. The other thing is that I only see them twice a week now so not as much. I hope we can accomplish as much seeing each two times a week as opposed to the three times a week I saw them last term.

3 boys on the laptops

Also, tomorrow starts the coding club that is being paid for with the INNOVATION! grant. I know I already have a good handful of students who've told me they are coming so that is good. Permission slips went out to the Marsh kids and Mr. Canale has made the announcements to the CSI students. I now just have to get announcements made at McCown. I sent an email to the principal and AP but never heard back from them.

Week two using Codecademy

Six girls coding in the lab

Two boys coding

Today I had a rough class - and lots of technical difficulties. I am going to have to come up with an alternative program for the students to use instead of Codecademy because Codecademy sort of pooped out on us during class. Most kids were working, but as I expected, some kids either forgot or lost their usernames and passwords after signing up last week. I told them to write it down, but not all did that.

As for the technical difficulties, we have 10 really old Macs and thank God for the laptops that came with the grant. I am able to hand out laptops for those with computers that do not work.

You can see from the photos that most of the students were working, but I fielded a lot of questions from those whose computers pooped out on them, or those for whom Codecademy pooped out.

Overall, I am pleased to see the majority working in the program and reading the instructions independently. But I think Codecademy might not be as child-friendly as it could be and I'm on a search for a better program. I know the kids use Scratch from MIT in their technology class and love it. I'll let them use Scratch if they want to, but I'd like to find another program for them to use. Next Monday there is no school so I have until after the February break to find another program - and one that is more kid-friendly. I applaud though those kids who are using Codecademy and working through the lessons. I hope they find it rewarding.

Day five in the lab

Today I had 601 and 606 in the lab. That's 36 6th graders - my largest group - and we used up just about every laptop. I gave out all four MacBooks and 15 of the 16 Lenovos. Again, I was so busy running around the room. So many questions! Turns out some kids are really picking it up and others are not. Some kids are not reading the instructions and call me over and ask me what to do or what to do next.

Two boys at the end of class

I feel like I understand what a math teacher must go through. Some kids pick up the concepts easily while others are simply lost. It is something I will push through though as I think coding is fun and I think kids, once they get the hang of it, will enjoy it.

Some kids though had so many computer glitches that they asked me if they could go back to the worksheets I created and if they could use Editra. Yes we can do that. I will do whatever the kids feel like they enjoy more. There are benefits to learning code both ways. Personally, I learned to code the old fashioned way, before there were sites like Codecademy. I used a book to teach myself and typed up code on the computer. With Codecademy, the program does a lot of the work for you. Still, I thought the kids might enjoy the satisfaction they got from the feedback the program provides.

Students working

Student Working

I brought 603 into the lab today to start Codecademy. I had previously taken out the projector and laptop and showed them on the big screen how to get in, but today they went into the lab to actually start the HTML5 and CSS3 modules. Like my other classes this week, it went well. Every student was on Codecademy and doing the modules.

Before class I had to run around the room to make sure that everyone from yesterday's class had logged off. Most did but some didn't so I had to log off for them so that no student in this class would accidentally start off where another student ended in yesterday's class.

Close-up shot of student work

We experienced some technical difficulties -- again. One students' page kept defaulting to French and I put it on English and it reverted back to French. I could not figure it out, but he did and I am grateful. He went into his account and changed the preferred language to English. Now I know how to do this!  This happened once before and I did not know how to fix it for the student. It kept showing up in French, but now I know.

As usual, I ran around the room checking students' code, especially if when they hit "Save & Submit" the module would not accept their code. That means the student didn't do it correctly so I fielded lots of these questions.

Books

I purchased eight books total on HTML, CSS, and Web site design with the INNOVATION! grant; two from Cengage Learning and two from Pearson Eduction. Unfortunately the ones from Pearson did not come. I believe they were out of stock. The books are for student circulation. Here are some photos of the covers. There are two additional books that I bought but they are for the instructor, which is me!

Codecademy Day 2

Student working

604 has library on Wednesdays and today I brought them back into the lab to sign up for Codecademy. Last week I showed them with the laptop and projector and screen how to get into Codecademy and this week we all went into the lab. By the way I have five 6th grade classes, each meeting once a week, so each day is a new adventure with coding.

Today went well. Not as well as yesterday, but still it went well. Every kid, except one, was on the Web site and doing the modules. I was quite pleased. Only one student was not doing the modules and that is because he did not have an email with which to sign up. He is going to go home tonight and see if he can create one with his parents. Incidentally, for some 6th graders, parents do not allow their child to have an email. I don't think that was the case with JM though. He said he forgot what it was. Now, the real trick is getting everyone to remember the username and password they used to sign up with today, next week. I'll find out when I see them again next week.

As usual, I was running, and I mean running, around the room helping all the kids who had their hands up. I was busy the entire class period but of course I expected to be. Plus time moves faster the busier you are and I love being busy. Many of the questions involved, "Am I doing this right?" "What am I doing wrong here?" "How come it says, "Oops! Try again," and of course the "What do I do?" question. For that one I had to break the news to the student that they had to read the instructions on the left hand side of the screen. Of course, I walked them through the instructions as some kids have IEPs and need directions read to them, so that's what I did. When I walked around the room, I saw black screens on everyone's computer. The black screen meant that everyone was in the "sandbox" doing the modules.

At the very end of class, one student I saw, MF, had gotten very far into the program and had done quite a bit of work. He was one of the few students who never raised his hand for help. It was so gratifying to see that. Now what I have to do is get back onto the modules myself because some of the students are going to pass me by and then I'm afraid I won't be able to answer their questions. It is so important to me to be able to answer kids' questions, especially because if a student gets stuck and I am not able to help them, they might become discouraged and I just don't want that to happen. I want every kid to learn to code and to feel good about what they've learned.

Lenovo laptop cart

This is my Lenovo laptop cart. I first bought this one in 2014 when I won a REACH grant. At the time, I could afford to buy 8 Lenovos with that grant money, but it didn't fill up the cart. Now I just bought 8 more and my cart is full! All of these laptops have Editra installed on them and the newest version of Chrome. I had to do all that installation myself!

New Lexmark printer

Among the things I asked for in my INNOVATION! grant application was a printer. I did not buy an expensive one although I would have loved to!! Instead I bought a $423.00 model. (I also remembered to buy a lockdown device so the print doesn't walk away)!!! The purpose for the printer was so that I could print out teacher-made worksheets with code on them so that the students could copy the code into Editra. Editra is a free text editor that I discovered online. It is easy to download and install. I've installed it on all 20 of my laptops in addition to every computer in the lab! Yes, it took a while but it was a very easy download and installation.

I've used the teacher-made worksheets (below and to the left is just one sample) with both of my classes - the 6th graders and the 12th graders. I've been using them since last spring. I create the code in Editra, print the page out, make photocopies, hand one out to each student, and it is the student's job to copy the code EXACTLY as they see it on the page. Then they are to save their file as an HTML file to their flash drive and open it up in a browser by opening a browser, any one, and selecting "Open File." To the left is a sample of the teacher-made worksheets that I've made. I am going to start doing things a little differently, in fact I've already started, by having my students use Codecademy to learn HTML and CSS. Instead of me writing code, printing it out, photocopying it, and handing it out to students for them to copy, they can just do modules in Codecademy. This is the downside to that though. When I write the code and then have them copy it, I can help them with any difficulties they have because I am familiar with the code. With the modules, if a student goes ahead of me (I am doing the modules too), then I cannot help them as I would like. The upside of the modules as I said yesterday is that students can work at their own pace and the program also provides feedback. It's too soon to tell, but I think the students will enjoy Codecademy more. We'll see.

Teacher-made worksheet

Worksheet up-close

MacBooks

Among the items I received with the INNOVATION! grant are a laptop cart specifically for the MacBooks. (I have two laptop carts now). I was only able to purchase four MacBooks and so far, these are VERY POPULAR with my 6th graders. To the left is a picture of the cart with two MacBooks open on top. It's my goal to eventually fill up this 16-unit laptop cart with 12 more MacBooks, whether through other grant monies or maybe my school can buy them for the library??? Either way I am grateful to have these four. I also purchased 8 Lenovo laptops with the INNOVATION! grant money and was able to fill up my other 16-unit laptop cart.

Codecademy.com

Student working 

Yesterday, I had my Monday 6th graders get onto codecademy.com in order to get started learning how to code with HTML5 and CSS3.

First I took out the projector and laptop and screen and showed them the Web site and how to get in by creating an account. Some kids asked me, what is HTML? and I explained to them it stands for hypertext markup language. At that point, I went to Google on my laptop and hit ctrl-u for view source code. A new screen opened up and the source code for Google was visible. It looks prohibitive - not welcoming at all. I told them that this is the coding language that is used to create Web sites and that this is the language I will be teaching them. One student asked if it was like French and I told them that hypertext markup language is a language, yes, but that French is a human language, while HTML is a computer language.

We went into the lab and here is where the fun began. I had kids sign up for accounts in codecademy only to discover that every child's computer said that the browser they were using was not supported by that Web site. This was a new message as just before Christmas when we went on to Codecademy, the browser was supported just fine. So that class was a bust.

Fast forward to today and I came in extra early, went into the lab, and installed a newer version of Google Chrome on 16 desktop computers! This took about 45 mintues. I tried to install a newer version of Chrome on the older Macs - the ones from 2008 - and the operating system would not let me because it is too old. I then tried to install Safari - an older but newer version onto the desktops - and that would not let me install Safari either. So I have 10 Macs that are completely unusable for this project.

Student working

When 602 came in at 8:22, I told everyone we are going in the lab today to start Codecademy. (I had already introduced coding to them in the form of teacher-made handouts back in December and using the text editor, Editra, but I decided to try something different - to have kids use Codecademy instead of using the teacher-made handouts). I had already set up 16 of the 26 computers with Codecademy on the screen so no one had to type it in. I was afraid there would be chaos in the lab as kids and computers are sometimes a dangerous combination in the sense that kids can't help themselves sometimes from going on to inappropriate sites. But everyone either signed up or logged into Codecademy and EVERYONE in the room was doing the lessons!!! (Well, there was just one student who could not get in because he could not remember his email. You need an email address to sign up. So there was just one student not doing the lessons in codecademy).

I was running around the room as I anticipated as questions arose, and I was helping students with questions they had about their code. I think Codecademy is fun because it talks to you. It tells you, "Way to go!" when you do a lesson correctly, and then you are ready to move on. Lots of kids went pretty far into the HTML & CSS course. They still have a long way to go but if they did 5 of the lessons today - at least some of them - then that is great.

At the end of class I told everyone to log out by clicking on the pixelated monster (or machine) in the top right of the program. Most kids logged out this way, but I double checked at the end of the period. (I had the time), and went from computer to computer to make sure that kids had logged out and if not, I logged out for them.

Also...it turns out that those older Macs that I tried to install updated browsers for, were able to use the program. I do not know how or why, but there were kids on the older Macs who were working in Codecademy. And of course, for those students who could not get in, I had the laptops at the ready to lend them so that they could use the program. I have 20 laptops now!!!!! This is awesome!!! The lab has 16 newish Macs and 10 really old Macs, and now I have 20 laptops so I am able to give laptops to students who are on computers that don't work well or are not up-to-date enough to handle the program.

Before the beginning

Last week I created a text for the daily announcements. It reads:

Did you know that computer science is the highest paying career for college graduates and that 60% of U.S. employers are having difficulties finding qualified workers to fill vacancies in science, technology, engineering, and math at their companies? Come learn about this field and learn to code with Ms. Sarles in the library every Wednesday from 3:05 - 4:05, starting on February 3rd.

Now I've been teaching coding since last year. Last year I had two sections of 6th graders and starting in the spring, I decided to start teaching them the beginnings of HTML. It was a challenge trying to teach 33 kids how to code. Some kids "got it" right away. They persisted in learning the code, while others had technical difficulties. This required me running around the room trying to check kids' code. The best part was when they saved their HTML files and then opened their files in a browser and got to see the fruits of their labor. They were very excited when everything worked; when they typed all their code correctly and the browser displayed their work without a hitch.