One Hour of Code Initiative

After finishing two graduate courses on utilizing technology in the classroom, I was tasked with one for a collaborative research project.   The project consisted of classmates and I researching a technology trend in education and we chose coding in the classroom.  I was very impressed with the Code.org website and all of the resources that are available for free on the site, including their One Hour of Code Initiative.  I had students watch the five minute video from Code.org to get them excited to investigate coding.  Students then created a free Code.org account and started the process of completing the One Hour of Code initiative from December 4th through December 8th this year.

Following the One Hour of Code program, students were then given a set of Scratch coding activities that progressively increased in difficulty.  Students were tasked with creating an easy set of code that drew four different polygons.  Then they were given a second task to code a random polygon generator using some more complex coding pieces, which also had students create a block (their own code piece) to name the polygon that was generated. For the final project students were tasked with creating coding blocks to draw a Sierpinski Triangle.  (My code is attached below.)  I used these projects in my Saturday STEM Mathematics program last spring, and found that they would be great for school this year as well. 

The whole program took students about 5 days and an average of 5 hours to complete all of the coding projects.  Students were given a great opportunity to investigate coding.  To celebrate and reward their accomplishments with more than just a grade, I created a certificate of completion.  Students who successfully completed all of the projects and showed that they ran were awarded the certificate that they could then use in any resume.  My district is trying to increase the amount of experiences students are given for job and college readiness for PA State Act 339.  So the experiences in coding and computer science will give them more confidence in working on computers, and some confidence with job readiness skills.

Once students finalized the projects, they began to investigate the math and history of fractal geometry, a mathematical definition of the patterns seen in nature.  Computer science has used fractals to create more and more realistic computer generated imagery in video games and movies.  Students got to investigate logarithms to define the fractal dimension and took in-depth looks at how the math has changed how we look at the similarities in nature.  For the last four years, I have been implementing and developing this two week unit before Christmas break. Leading up to students creating a holiday Sierpinski Tree.  I hope to one day inspire my students to investigate fractals even more, because the math behind it is very interesting.