The Hour of Code is Coming! 8:45AM was session zero in the fall VirtCon presented by James Gwertzman from Code.org. A full hour before the conference started! So you may have missed this diamond in the rough. Not to worry as it can be found in the archive. However, you should not let another min go by before you watch it…No really go now I will wait…
16 min later…
Wasn’t that fantastic. I hope your are as excited by it as I am. Just in case you did not get a chance to take notes I did:
The hour of code takes place during Computer Science Education Week This is recognized week by congress. You have till December 9th to get all the planning done for this event. I have already asked my principal about it and we are beginning the planning stage. A lot of the materials have already been created for you on the website including a participation guide you can print out. The goal is to get every student exposed to a one hour introduction to Computer Science. Why would you want to do that? Since a picture is worth 1000 words a video must be worth a googol (not a spelling mistake Google is spelled wrong) of words. I posted the video at the bottom. Only 5% of schools teach Computer Science where as 33% of schools teach AP Calculus. Code.org was founded a year ago by the Partov brothers to bring awareness to the serious issue of CS illiteracy.
Their Mission statement: “Code.org is a non-profit dedicated to growing computer science education 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 programming. We believe computer science 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.”
As you read look at the stats infographic on the left. In the US 35 of 50 states do not count CS as a graduation requirements for Math or Science Credit.(including my home state of PA).
If you, a student, or even your grandmother wants to learn to code goto Code.org and explore. They have tutorial apps right on the site that you can learn in. They have two new complete course
1) Exploring Computer Science
2) AP CS principles
80% male – students in CS
So joing me, Code.org and hopfully 10,000,000 students during CS Education week Dec 9 – 15th and take an hour of code.
PS there are PRIZES – 10gb dropbox, free class set up laptops, 50 classrooms web chats with Bill Gates.