Last week during Computer Science Education Week, more than 8,500 San Diego Unified students participated in The Hour of Code, a global movement to expose students to coding. In San Diego Unified, however, it is more appropriate to call it Hours of Code. Students spent hours developing many of the talents they will need to succeed after graduation. Writing computer code as a team teaches them how to work together, think through problems logically, identify solutions, and persist until they reach their goals—all valuable skills in the world and the workplace.
Here are some of the highlights of the week:
- Steve Stawski from Sony Electronics spoke to Lori William’s Criminal Justice students at Lincoln High School about the importance of coding in the world of criminal justice and how coding is an important field for our national security.
- All of the teachers and students at Innovation Middle School took part in the Hour of Code for the entire week. In addition to learning about the benefits of coding and computer science, students created their own computer programs using Scratch and Hopscotch. Elijah Galbraith-Knapp, from the San Diego Sockers along with a representative of Congressman Scott Peters came to see student programs and play some of the games students created. One group of students walked to Hawthorne Elementary School to teach their younger peers how to code.
- At Angier Elementary School, the students in Mr. Olsson’s after-school coding club were Hour of Code ambassadors for the third grade.
- The Control Group and Junior Achievement partnered to teach code to the Hoover High School Academy of Information Technology students. These students in turn, taught code to students at Wilson Middle School and Rosa Parks Elementary School.
- Kearny High School students in CorriAnne Burgess’s Geographic Information Systems class created an interactive map to display all the schools and the students in San Diego Unified that participated in The Hour of Code. See the map.
- Qualcomm hosted training for administrators and teachers at their Thinkabit Lab.
- Computer Science Principles teachers Barbara Adams, Morse High School, and Ray Kinne, San Diego High School of Business and Leadership, were invited to be part of the national celebration in Washington, D.C. at the 100 Teachers Meeting. They joined the students invited to the White House to do the Hour of Code with President Obama and Vice President Biden.
“With careers in computers slated to be some of the fast-growing jobs in the upcoming years, it has become increasingly important to provide young people with both exposure to these opportunities and the skills necessary to acquire jobs in computers,” said Sean Sharokhi of The Control Group. “We hope this event will encourage the students to continue to work hard and to ultimately consider pursuing a post-secondary education and/or career in computer sciences.”
For more information contact Gail Lake, program specialist, Office of College, Career & Technical Education, at glake@sandi.net .
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