Reflection

This is the first time I have interacted with coding at all and I found it very useful and actually fun! I think I can incorporate this into my future classroom easily because it ties in literacy, math, and is disguised as a game so students will not realize they are learning and will be eager to play!

This program is an easy introduction and crash course into the process of coding.  The use of the blocks to guide students   As a future math teacher, the code.org website can encourage my students to start coding and understand the process, even if they start it a little late.  One thing that stood out to me, and one thing that I can definitely take advantage of, is the emphasis on logic that coding has.  Logic is very important and often neglected in today's mathematics instruction, so if I were to use this, I would hope that students digest the coding process more than the features themselves.  

I think that code.org would be useful in an elementary school or even a middle school setting.  However, as a high school teacher, I think the program and methods need to be more sophisticated and mature to entice students to pursue a computer science degree. At the most, I would hope my students would spend no more than a week going through the code.org process.  In a high school computer science classroom, standards expect students to use higher-level coding languages to program and write code, so code.org may be a bit too basic. 

I do not find this activity useful in the classroom. I am a specialized teacher in social studies these activities have nothing to do with that. I can see the uses in coding for math or computer majors. I think this is good extra work outside of the classroom. 

I don’t think that these activities would be very useful in my future classroom, but I can see how they would be very good for younger students in computer science classrooms. These activities are definitely geared towards younger students, and I think that they do an excellent job of showing basic coding. They add fun and colorful skins to the activities, which makes it even more appropriate for younger students.

While it took me a few tries to get used to the coding functions, I quickly learned that the modules on Code.org could be very useful in a classroom setting. This educational tool can work for a wide variety of ages and skill levels and also allows for a certain degree of variability in terms of demonstrating one's understanding. As a future special education teacher, I am constantly looking for classroom activities that are flexible and easy to personalize according to individual skills. As I completed the modules, I was able to recognize several elements that were consistent with the overarching goals of special education such as individualization, universal design for learning (UDL) and providing alternative options for demonstrating knowledge. I feel that using Code.org in my future classroom would be highly effective and foster an environment that is accommodating of different learning needs while encouraging critical thinking and problem solving skills. 

There are a number of ways that the Code.org modules could be implemented within the classroom however, I feel that they would be most useful in my classroom as a supplemental activity for high-functioning students. Using the material in this context would allow me to provide constructive activities that go beyond the standard curriculum that is typically enforced in special education classrooms. These activities would allow students to strengthen their ability to think analytically and therefore improve in other aspects of the education. While there is a high degree of academic value associated with learning to code, I feel that implementation within my own classroom would be limited depending on that range of disabilities that are present. As a result, I would likely use this website as an option for free time available to students who would benefit from it. 

This activity is fairly relevant to my future classroom, but this skill is extremely relevant. I want to teach Kindergarten, so with a few modifications, I think this activity could be appropriately implemented. I think if I were to use this tool in my classroom I would give my students an older "buddy" to work with. This way the younger children could work with someone older and that older student could provide assistance when needed. By utilizing both older buddies and coding activities, students could work on their communication skills and their coding skills at the same time. Coding helps students work on directions and systems. Through these activities, kindergarteners will begin to notice the theme of cause and effect.

I think coding activities are absolutely an effective use of classroom time. Children show positive responses and often act extremely engaged when they are presented with lessons via games. The students will not even realize they are learning when they play these games. Coding is an extremely valuable skill that should be taught in all classrooms, just like math or reading. Time in a classroom could never be wasted on a skill like this.

This is really relevant to my future classroom, if I have the technology to do this since I am aiming toward teaching at an urban school. This was honestly great, one of the most entertaining assignments that I have had and it made me feel so cool to do it. I never knew what coding really was, I had heard about it thrown out here and there but I just knew that it was something that I probably would never do. I think most people don’t think that they can code, and they might also think that it is some astronomically difficult task. With code.org, they made it seem not so bad, still a bit frustrating but definitely doable. I would use this in my class because students would see that they too can code and they can maybe be future app creators or computer programmers. This would boost their confidence, because it surely boosted mine after being able to say “yeah I have to code, that’s my homework”. In the future once I have my own classroom, I will hopefully be in an urban setting and in that setting kids may not a have a high self efficacy because of the hidden curriculum that’s around them that tells them they aren’t going to make it far. Something as simple (or complex) as code.org would give students that hope that they can make it out there and be something more than what is expected of them. This opens that door for them to see their own abilities and see that it really isn’t that hard to code. Coding would be an effective use of classroom time because it is not only dealing with technology, but it’s also dealing with numbers and math. In some of the activities you have to do “repeat 4 times” for a flower that may need nectar collected 4 times. This gives them an opportunity to work on their math skills too, even if it’s something small like that. I’m glad I had the opportunity to code for this assignment and I am very excited to introduce it to others as well.

I thought this website was super cool. I would love to implement this in my classroom. I think coding is important to show to students because it gets them engaged and interested in the technological world we live in. By doing this, I would hope to spark interests in future jobs in coding, computer science, technology, etc. for all my students. I would use this for many lessons in my class, not just to teach coding. I believe this website could very easily be used to teach math, literacy, teamwork skills, etc. I do think this is a very effective use of classroom time. I think this because children can work together to solve problems on the computer where there are several possible solutions. Overall, I think using this website would be a perfect lesson for many students.

I enjoyed being able to learn about coding and how it is used in a lot of things that we do. I felt challenged during some of these tasks and I had to think hard and try new ways for the task to be completed. I think these activities are a good way to get students engaged because it kept me engaged. It challenges them and allows them keep their attention to finishing the task. Code.org is a great way for students to attain certain skills that they will use in the future. These activities would allow children to learn how to think critically, become problem solvers and become creative. They could figure out ways to accomplish a task and they could also create their own games using coding. 
I do not believe that this would be relevant in my classroom since I am pursuing secondary Spanish, but I do think that this could be taught in the elementary setting. This website would expose children to the idea of coding and computer science. It would allow them to see that coding is used everywhere like video games and websites like YouTube. It would introduce them to the ins and outs of technology. I think this should be implemented somewhere in the classroom because it will help children develop creativity, problem solving and critically thinking skills. They will need these skills in their future as they continue to grow into successful individuals. I enjoyed learning about this topic and I would recommend it to anyone as an introductory tool to coding. 

Code.org made me realize that integrating computer science into the classroom is attainable. I have little to no experience with coding, and I automatically assumed that it would be too hard for me to understand. However, this website provided me with very clear instructions, a gradual increase in difficulty, and it was engaging. I can definitely see this website being utilized during a centers rotation, especially if a school only has access to a few devices. I don’t necessarily see how code.org could be used during whole class lessons because it seems to be set up for individual work.

I really enjoyed how it allows students to work at their own pace and how it incorporated several popular games, such as Flappy Bird and Angry Birds. If I had this opportunity as an elementary school student and I already had an interest in those types of video games, seeing how they work with codes would be exciting. I also want to point out that at the end of each section, the person working through the problems has the opportunity to create their very own game or story from scratch. This allows the students to be creative and get an idea of how far they can go with simple codes. I think code.org could also be used when students finish their assignments early.

This activity was very informational for me. You could incorporate math, literacy and all other sorts of curriculum into these games and your students would be learning programming at the same time. It requires a different kind of creativity that involved critical thinking and communication with your partner. I think this would be an excellent use of classroom time both in free time or placed specifically into the lesson plans.