All levels of students from elementary to high school participated and in some cases, high school students acted as mentors in the lower grades classrooms. The self-guided activities were designed to encourage interest in the field and show that anyone can learn the basics of computer code and foster computational thinking early and nurture creativity, problem solving and critical thinking. As the late co-founder of Apple Computer, Steve Jobs, said, “I think everyone in this country should learn how to program a computer.. because it teaches you how to think.”
The Office of College, Career and Technical Education supported some middle and high schools by helping to select a lesson everyone could use and even supplied business professionals in some classrooms as mentors during the event. The courses involved in the event were not just computer science courses, but also engineering, geographic information systems, business management and ownership, website architecture, statistics, marketing, intermediate algebra, English and many others.
Geographic Information Systems students at Kearny High, prepared a geographic and demographic map of the participating CCTE classes. The size of the circle representing the school site was determined by the number of students participating. Photography students from Point Loma High and Kearny Digital Media and Design traveled the district taking pictures of many of the participating sites.
Even though the event happened in early December, some teachers have reported their students liked the lessons so much, they have been choosing a new one to work on in their spare time each week.
Map of participation: http://www.arcgis.com/apps/OnePane/basicviewer/index.html?appid=b139d89ade48491cbe158d4d02e3f7ce
For more information about Computer Science Week and the Hour of Code: http://csedweek.org/learn
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