Week of Code
 
This week the ISB joined 5 million students around the world in celebrating Computer Science Education Week by taking part in their Hour of Code initiative.  Hour of Code promotes students learning coding basics in fun ways for 1 hour during the past week.  Why learn coding? Computer coding and programming are a skill necessary to creating new technologies, to innovation in our increasingly technological world, and are the basis of being able to work in the 1.4 million computing jobs available on today's job market.  This number will only increase and having coding skills will be an important skill in every field.  
 
Coding also teaches students the skills of problem solving, creativity, critical thinking, mathematical patterns, and collaboration.
 
Upper School students were invited to the library during lunches to try their hand at computer coding using Hour of Code's free tutorials. (https://code.org/learn)
3rd grade students coded in the library in connection to their unit on Poetry -- the language of computer programming is often called poetic in it's ability to allow humans to express themselves through computers and other technologies.  They used the coding tutorial featuring Disney's Frozen - continue this activity with your 3rd grader by clicking here.
2nd grade students also coded in the library in connection to their unit on Communication; at it's base coding is simply the language in which programmers communicate with the computer to tell it what to do and in turn makes new types of communication possible (Skype, email, smart phones, etc. all run on code).  2nd graders used the coding tutorial LightBot - continue this activity with your 2nd grader by clicking here.
 
Overall, students collaborated, learned why coding is important in our daily lives in the 21st century, and were hopefully inspired to continue on their own.  For more information or to learn coding alongside your student go to www.code.org/learn.
 
Happy coding!