Last week my students participated in the Hour of Code.  It was an overwhelming success!  They enjoyed it so much that they continue to code, and they continue to ask me everyday if we are going to code in class.  As soon as they have any extra work time in my class, they are coding!  With these amazing results, I am looking to the future.  I would love to plan lessons and projects with coding involved.  I only hope I have the time to prepare this for my students.  They deserve it.

After our Hour of Code, I surveyed my students to see if they liked coding (on a scale from 1 – 5), and if they would like to continue coding in class.  The results are below.  I have included some excerpts and  you can also read their responses in detail here.  They were emailing me their creations, so I created a “Coding Creations” wiki page where they could add things they have created (or continue to create).

Quotes from students:

It was really fun to just type in all the stuff and have no clue how it was going to turn out. It was also really fun when I got home and had to figure out what was wrong in all the billion lines of code I had typed in class. After hours of work all I had needed to do was take out the commas in the character’s speech. Thanks to the Hour of Code I am ready to go back and add in more complicated things to my campaign. Computer programming is really fun, and I can’t wait to do some more.

It was interesting and pushed my mind further and gave a sense of power in my mind and keyboard

I love coding so much! I think it is so fun to watch the videos and learn how to code! I woke up at 4:30 two mornings ago to code, and at 5 the day before. I am obsessed.

I thought it was really cool how you type in numbers and words, and it is linked to a little picture. I loved how you could make the holiday cards on khan academy! It was so fun! I also loved how it seemed really hard at first, but after you got the hang of it, and memorized the basic codes, you could create complex pictures.

I think it is really fun to look at all the things we use computer programing for and how important it really is in modern society and then be able to learn to do it! Its AMAZING!

I loved computer programming because you got a head start for the future. This has made me want to do more computer programming in the future!

I did 5 because coding is fun and interactive. It may seem scary but there is a world of computer science out there and coding is one major part.

I LOVE TO CODE!!!! DO MORE!!

I also asked them, “What did you like best about coding?”.

I liked best about coding that I could just type some letters and numbers and make what I imagined come to life! It truly is amazing.

It was very cool how you really got to control your computer and that you could build anything you wanted to.

I liked that it really made you think.

What was so cool was that after you got the hang of it you were basically doing it by yourself, at your own speed, and what every you wanted to draw.

It let your creativity flow, you could make anything you wanted with no strict deadlines.

I like coding because it lets you express your self in a more complex way.

The multitudes of possibilities and how simple it really is.

The fact that i could create those things on a computer just by typing in stuff!

The challenge and the good feeling when your character does exactly what you planed for it to do.