Lake Forest Country Day School to Partake in World-Wide "Hour of Code" Computer Science Event

“Everybody in this country should learn how to program a computer…because it teaches you how to think.” —Steve Jobs

Lake Forest Country Day School (LFCDS) will participate in an international computer science program known as “The Hour of Code” in conjunction with Computer Science Education Week from December 8 through December 14. Code.org organized the Hour of Code, which began last year. This year’s Hour of Code will be the single largest learning event in history with an estimated 100 million students participating in this year’s program.

The Hour of Code is an international campaign that aims to generate excitement and momentum around the principles and topics that underpin computer programming and computer science learning. This ambitious motive for the Hour of Code generated from a simple statistical dilemma as it relates to the increasingly competitive global economy. Today, the number of computing jobs is growing three times faster than the rate of computer science graduates worldwide. The Hour of Code hopes to induce some equity to this imbalance by introducing students around the globe to the interactive and exciting possibilities that lie within the computer science discipline.

Participating in the Hour of Code is simple, due to an organized, step-by-step process provided by Hour of Code organizers Code.org on http://hourofcode.com/us. This site provides tutorials in over 30 languages that teachers can access and implement during their Hour of Code event at their school. While some schools host their events in one area of the school at one time, other schools prefer to conduct their Hour of Code tutorials in each classroom. No matter how the lesson is conducted, the point is that students are actively engaged as a school community in exploring computing—a topic of study that is often feared or downplayed because of its perceived complexity.

“The Hour of Code is designed to demystify code and show that computer science is not rocket-science, anybody can learn the basics,” said Hadi Partovi, founder and CEO of Code.org. “In one week last year, 15 million students tried an Hour of Code. Now we’re aiming for 100 million worldwide to prove that the demand for relevant 21st century computer science education crosses all borders and knows no boundaries.”

Echoing Mr. Partovi’s sentiment, LFCDS faculty and students are firm believers in integrating coding and computer-literacy skillsets into everyday curriculum at every grade. At LFCDS, the STEAM (Science Technology Engineering Arts Math) program formally begins in fifth-grade with a video game programming project. Using Scratch, a programming language, fifth-grade students learn how to design their own games through programming. LFCDS faculty understands that coding is not something that is illusive and impossible. Instead, it is very much an intuitive process that can be easily taught and learned. In fact, senior kindergarten students at LFCDS begin learning code by using “bee-bots” in language arts class to practice spelling.

Griffin Shortsle, a senior kindergarten student at LFCDS, explained how you direct a “bee-bot” to move sequentially to certain letters in order to spell out a word: “You press a button and it moves where you want it to go. You just make sure to program it to go to the letter.”

The joy and ease with which many of LFCDS’ younger students take up coding reflects the fact that coding is not just for experienced developers.

According to third-grade student Phoebe Park, who partook in the Hour of Code last year as a second-grade student, “I like programming. I can’t explain exactly why. It just makes sense to me.”

Current fourth-grade student Nicky Lubaev weighed in on his experience last year as well, saying, “The Hour of Code helps you learn about computer science in a fun way. We did it as a class last year in science class and played the app ‘Angry Birds.’”

While the Hour of Code tutorials are designed to entertain students, Code.org organizers also keep a clear focus on the educational motive.

According to studies, over 90% of K-12 schools in the United States do not teach computer science, while in many countries (including China), computer science is required. By introducing schools nationwide to the basics of computer science principles, Code.org hopes to convince schools that do not typically focus on computer science, such as many schools in the United States, to take on this important study as an integral component in their curriculum.

LFCDS already integrates computing into everyday curriculum; however, faculty members recognize the advantage of increasing the amount of computing and coding lessons in education. After all, computing is certainly the future.

According to senior kindergarten teacher at LFCDS, Shira Schwartz, who worked with fellow LFCDS faculty members to bring the Hour of Code to LFCDS classrooms, “Coding is the new world language. Learning to program empowers kids and gives them tools to express themselves in really cool ways. Our students are going to be change makers. Learning to code can help facilitate this by teaching problem solving skills and logic. It is a way to bring to life the next big tech invention that our kids are capable of creating.”

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