Ponderosa Middle School science teacher Jeffrey Sparks brought an idea Principal Brett Lemieux and Assistant Principal Scott Olsen could not refuse.
It was something Sparks used for five years when he used to work in the Klamath County School District and heard positive feedback. He thought about the opportunity and what it would mean to bring it to his students at Ponderosa.
This past week, Hour of Code was introduced to all the students at Ponderosa Middle School to help them expand their learning capabilities. Hour of Code is a one-hour introduction to computer science, which occurs once a year internationally in the month of December.
Hour of Code is an international program that has had over a billion students over the last 8 years participate worldwide. It is a program countless of professional athletes have helped students with coding. Athletes such as Kobe Bryant, Serena Williams, Stephen Curry, Neymar Jr., to name a few.
Overall, Sparks and fellow teachers at Ponderosa Betsy Neuman, Amy Hill, Laurie Slaughter, Evan Mortenson, Brian Bailey and Lindsay James led the computer science program. For all the teachers except Sparks, it was their first-time leading Hour of Code.
There are over 850 games and activities which could be done, all with different levels of difficulty. The games start for students just beginning to learn how to read, all the way to high school.
Some games involved solving puzzles to help teach the students logical thinking. The activities included renown games such as Minecraft, which was not as much a game but a puzzle.
Students were also able to work on animations. The students could drag and drop codes that were given.
For example, if a character in a game wanted to move, students could enter a code that was given to them. To make it more challenging, students could figure out what the code was.
For students who really wanted to challenge themselves, there were options for working with JavaScript and Python. During a sixth grade Hour of Code with Slaughter, a group of her students were working on adjusting the Google logo.
The students worked on changing the colors and animation of the Google logo.
As of now, Sparks teaches a coding class at Ponderosa early in the morning three times a week.
Sixth grader Olivia Mitchell takes the class with Sparks and has created two projects she has saved. Mitchell has worked on an animation that had her work with different sounds and decibels.
Her first animation had her deal with changing the pitch of a sound with a code and adding different sounds effects. Her second animation had her create her name and had her deal with understanding coordinates and degrees. Each time she moved a letter, she was able to see where the coordinates were.
“I learned if you repeat different sections, you are able to understand what they are doing. It was great to understand coordinates better,” Mitchell said.
Sparks’ coding class will have students at Ponderosa work with CS First, which is a computer science program through Google, similar to Hour of Code but has students watch a video on coding, followed by them working through what they saw.
“There are 400,000 coding jobs in America not being sold and the kids will have an idea of the possibilities they can have. I proposed Hour of Code this year and the leadership said we should do it,” Sparks said. “It strengthens their logic ability to put things in order and see how computer logic works. I hope they can apply that to other things, especially math. I didn’t hear any negatives from anyone.”
aguilar-floresj@kfalls.k12.or.us