Coding in the Classroom: Is It That Important?

When coding in the classroom became mainstream, I must admit I wasn’t ready to jump on the bandwagon. For one, I didn’t understand it well. How can I teach students something I don’t know myself? I also worried that it was just a fad. I didn’t see the connection it played in the mandatory curriculum. So I put the idea to the side and let others teach coding to their students.

Then last week I went to a Project Lead the Way conference. I was intrigued by how educators were teaching coding. They were infusing it into their regular subject areas. Integration was something I could get behind. I need a way to show teachers how to use coding in the classroom as part of the curriculum. Teachers have enough on their plate. I don’t want to put more on them. I decided to do some research. Over the next few weeks I am going to share with you what I have learned:

• Why we should teach coding in the classroom
• Coding resources you can use in the classroom
• Use coding for Interactive Storytelling

I always like to start with the why. One article I read discussed whether we should teach coding to everyone. The author mentioned that coding is deemed, by some, to be a new type of literacy. This idea is one to consider. Technology is changing the way we do things every day and logically effects the jobs of our students’ future.

Another article suggests that coding should be considered “as essential as reading, writing and arithmetic due to its fundamental importance in the digital world we are now living in”. I was intrigued by these strong opinions and needed to know more. I came across a great article from Kodable that gave me specific reasons for teaching kids coding in the classroom.

But if coding is to become emedded in schools wouldn’t it take a massive overhaul in teacher training and honestly a massive overhaul within the curriculum? I consider myself pretty proficient with technology and curriculum but even I didn’t feel comfortable with the idea of teaching my students how to code. Nor could I see the connection between coding and teaching students how to read and write. Teachers need to feel confident in teaching coding skills in the classroom but they also need to be able to do it with what they already do on a day-to-day basis rather than having to add one more thing to their schedule.

Coding Basics: What You Need to Know to Get Started

Coding has become the new buzz word in education, but if you are like me, there is no way to add one more thing to my already busy schedule. As a classroom teacher, I look for resources to help me teach all of the core subjects. So why coding at all? Well rather than explain the why in this post be sure to check out my coding in the classroom post. Knowing that coding is something important I need to expose my students to often, I decided to do a little research. I needed to understand a little bit of coding basics to get started.

Now don’t get me wrong. I believe I don’t have to know everything about technology to teach it, but I need to have some background knowledge on the subject. While I work a lot on the computer and know have extensive knowledge of how to use all types of software and apps, I really have no idea how all of this works behind the scenes. So I am glad I took the time to learn the nuts and bolts of coding basics.

Rather than you have to do the research yourself, I decided to give you a little help and share with you a few coding basics to help you get started with coding.

Coding Basics

There are a lot of coding websites out there, but I think the tutorials below helped me the most. They were written for kids but would be a great place to start for any beginner.

Course 1 from Code.org – Course 1 is for early readers. Students will create computer programs to help them learn to collaborate, develop problem-solving skills, and persist through difficult tasks. Recommended for grades K-1.

Course 2 from Code.org – Course 2 recommends this course for students who can read with no prior programming skills. Students will create computer programs to help them learn to collaborate, develop problem-solving skills, and persist through difficult tasks. Recommended for grades 2-5.

Each lesson has math and literacy standards to help you see the connection between coding and the core subjects so time would not be wasted going through them in the regular classroom.

Coding in the Subject Areas

However, if you are looking for more specific examples of infusing coding into core areas, check some other great finds below:

Want to tie in coding basics to reading? Well check out the following two sites to help you:

• Hello Ruby: Adventures in Coding – Your students will love this book about Ruby and her adventures and you can use the storyline to help teach a few coding basics as well.
• Hello Ruby Website for Lesson Ideas – Find out how educators are using Hello Ruby in the classroom.
• Picture Books to Teach Coding Skills – LOVE this site and this post! Use these picture books to help teach students coding basics.
• Learning to Program with Makey Makey in the Elementary Classroom – I hear Julie talk about Makey Makey’s all the time. Here is a great post she did about how to incorporate them into the classroom.
• Working with Affixes: Digital Activities – Another post from Julie using Makey Makey’s and Scratch to code when working with affixes.
• Practicing Pitch Water Activity – Using the Makey Makey to learn science concepts. Very cool.

I know there are tons more resources out there but these are the ones that stood out to me the most. To be honest, I didn’t find a lot of ways to incorporate coding into the already existing curriculum. Which is why I decided to make a few things for myself. I think out of all the sites I looked at, my favorite coding apps are Scratch and Scratch Jr. Next week I am going to share with you how I tied in the concept of looping, circular endings and the Book Snowmen at Night by Caralyn Buehner using the app Scratch Jr. UPDATE: You can find it here. Until then you might check out these tutorials from Scratch Jr. so you will know how to use the app or check out my coding resources.