Coding Workshop (Feb 11)

The coding workshop hosted on February 11^th, 2021 was a great introduction to the use of coding and how it can be implemented into a classroom. While I personally have come across coding websites (and particularly this one) I have never done it before this day. This was very useful for myself in having even just a minimal amount of knowledge on how coding works. 

            Coding is a great way to allow students to have computer time while still learning valuable skills. In a world that is going more technology based and online, giving students at a younger age useful exposure to things like coding will only benefit them in the long run. Scratch is a great place for students (of all ages including myself) to start learning about coding and how it can be developed to more than just making a cat move to a soccer ball, but into how games and sequencing in digital computer games can be created. 

            For myself the workshop seemed to move very quickly, and while I understand we are all on a time crunch that day, if I were introducing this to my students, especially for the first time, I would be spending significantly more time on it. I found myself falling behind in the instructions that were being given and then not having as much interest in it because I did not have the chance to catch up or figure out where I had gone wrong in the first place. By the time that everyone had moved onto moving the plane around the map, I could just not keep up and figure out what was going on anymore. That made me feel more confused and discouraged. 

            While I believe that coding is excellent, and that I should eventually learn it, that workshop just made me feel like I would not be able to understand how to teach my students how to use it as a tool because I would be spending more time trying to troubleshoot it myself to try and figure out. At the end I did appreciate that there was option with detailed descriptions of how to learn coding, it just means working on it by myself and not with a group. If I were to then bring it into my classroom I think I would try and introduce it to smaller groups, or divide the class into who has used it before an who hasn’t and get peer teaching to occur so that students who get confused or lost do not feel discouraged. 

            Overall this was a great workshop to give exposure to coding and how it works, just next time I would like it slowed down or broken down for the people who are not technology savvy right from the start!