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Neighbors | Zack Shively.Boardman Center Intermediate School participated in the National Hour of Code Week starting on Dec. 4 and ending on Dec. 8. Pictured, from left, are Becky Sabino and Lisa Smith of ACCESS. The two talked to the BCIS students about their experience in the computer science world and coding.
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Neighbors | Zack Shively.Speakers Becky Sabino (left) and Lisa Smith (right) answered a few questions at the end of their presentation to the sixth-grade students at Boardman Center Intermediate School.
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Neighbors | Zack Shively.A game program taught the students the fundamentals of coding while entertaining them. They will build on these fundamental skills in seventh- and eighth-grade and will have the option to take computer science classes in high school.
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Neighbors | Zack Shively.Technology teacher Carrie Hurd brought in high school students to talk about their experiences in computer science courses at Boardman High School. They also discussed their future plans and what role knowing code will play in those plans. Pictured, Trevor Boggess (left) and Jarod Wilson (right) talk to the students in Hurd's class.
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Neighbors | Zack Shively.Carrie Hurd had the fifth- and sixth-grade students go to a website for National Hour of Code Week so they could get the basics of coding. The program demonstrated how basic coding works, without having the students get in depth into any actual code.
By ZACK SHIVELY
Boardman Center Intermediate School brought in speakers on Dec. 4 and 6 and had an hour of code each day of that week for National Hour of Code Week from Dec. 4-8.
Carrie Hurd, the school’s computer technology teacher, had the fifth- and sixth-grade students work on coding through Code.org each day during the week. Hurd brought in Lisa Smith and Becky Sabino from ACCESS to speak to the students about creating code and working in the technology field.
Hurd pulled the Google start page on her browser to introduce code to the students. She told them that every web page is designed using a series of numbers, letters and symbols. Then, she showed the students the Developer Tools section in the Chrome browser that shows the code used to make the web page.
They went to http://www.code.org to work on coding. Instead of making direct code, the site used a game using blocks of code to teach the students the fundamentals of coding. The game used Angry Birds mascots. They had to use a series of command to move the bird across the screen to win a level.
The students watched a video welcoming them to the world of code and introducing the game they would play and how that relates to coding. The video included programmers from Microsoft and Zynga Games, as well as Silicon Valley giants like Drew Houston, the founder and CEO of Dropbox, Inc., and Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder of Facebook.
Hurd brought high school students to the class from the AP Computer Science class at Boardman High School. They talked to the students about their future plans with coding and why they took the class. They helped the children with their assignment during the class period.
The school invited speakers Smith and Sabino to talk to the students on Monday and Wednesday of the week. The two work at ACCESS, a database service that schools throughout Mahoning and Columbiana counties use. Smith is the executive director at ACCESS, while Sabino works as the database administrator.
They explained to the students that much of what they do every day is a form of coding. Smith said that “coding is just a set of instruction.” She went on to say that the students who play music or participate in sports follow codes every day, as they have to follow a set of instruction.
The speakers said that anyone can learn to code, furthering the point by noting that they know of programs designed to teach kindergartners how to code. They said that those looking to enter the field need to have good problem-solving skills, strong abilities in math and be able to work both independently and as a part of a team.
The students in the school will go on to learn more advanced coding in seventh and eighth grade at the junior high school. They will have the option to pursue further education in coding and computer science through courses offered at the high school.