Students take part in Hour of Code: Nonprofit aims to get 100 million to take coding lessons this year

Students along the Peninsula are taking out their iPads, laptops and other devices to learn to code with Anna and Elsa from the movie “Frozen” and through games like Flappy Bird in this week’s worldwide Computer Science Education Week.The week kicked off Monday with Hour of Code events put on by the nonprofit Code.org. Last year, 15 million students tried computer programming during the week and this year the group is aiming for 100 million students. Each of the 520 students at Horrall/LEAD Elementary School in San Mateo is participating this week. “It’s really exciting,” said kindergarten teacher Angela Kollerer. “It’s exposing the kids almost to a different language. As teachers, we’re learning about it too.”The school is actually going through a rebranding effort and will be moving toward focusing on technology with the name LEAD Elementary. The school was focused on visual and performing arts with technology integration. The new program focuses on using computers and technology to facilitate literacy, writing and other creative arts through recording, video production, graphic design, coding and other media. It would also include a lunch-hour and after-school enrichment program, an iPad lab, a state-of-the-art library and multi-media facilities. Part of this means the school is adding coding lessons to its classes, along with an after-school enrichment program in which students create video announcements, said Tim Merritt, a third-grade teacher at the school, who is also the school’s new technology coordinator. It is hard for some students to participate in certain activities at home that involve use of technology, as only about 50 percent of students have Internet access there, he added. Most do have access to smartphones though, he said.“The ones with Internet access kind of have an advantage,” he said. “Not all things work on smartphones.”Because of this, Merritt and other officials at the school are pursuing corporate funding so each student has a tablet they can use at school. The school would also like to partner with a company to train parents on how to use the Internet and have that company also provide families with Internet access for a nominal charge, as about 70 percent of students at the school are socioeconomically disadvantaged, said Principal Pattie Dullea.The school is also looking at partnering with Silicon Valley tech firms and Cal State East Bay’s education department. The San Mateo-Foster City Elementary School District has been very supportive of Hour of Code and board Vice President Audrey Ng is even volunteering in the classroom to help with the event.For fifth-grade teacher Rebecca Slater’s students, technology has become a much bigger part of their classroom assignments. Her students run a classroom blog using Kidblog.org, uploading photos and commenting on posts to gain a sense of community and team build. She is planning on implementing coding into her class.“We live in Silicon Valley and so few kids from Silicon Valley end up holding the jobs,” she said. “This gives kids a chance to have hope and it gives the older kids an opportunity to be mentors (by helping younger students learn to code).”Fifth-grader Jay did his first programming on Monday and enjoyed being able to create his own code for a game. He liked coloring a snowflake in Frozen.“It’s educational yet fun,” he said.Kindergartner Lexie said she likes being able to play games like Flappy Bird.In Burlingame, Roosevelt Elementary School is participating in the week and all other schools in the district are taking part in the week.“It’s such a great thing to do with the kids,” said fourth-grade teacher Jude Lawrence. “Coding is in everything now. Opening up code to them allows them to think of technology in a different way. They can actually create and don’t have to rely on someone else to create.”Lawrence notes that it also opens up to the whole classroom to coding.“Some of the kids are saying, ‘I’m a girl, but I can do this.’ It’s not just for the boys.”On Friday mornings, Lawrence holds what she calls Genius Hour for her fourth-graders. They get to use any resources around the school to work on things they want to research and three or four of the students are doing coding projects, she said.In the San Bruno Park Elementary School District, schools like El Crystal Elementary School and Parkside Intermediate School are participating this year. Aside from the Hour of Code events, students have been working with Google after school at Parkside on learning computer skills.“It’s great to see all the kids respond to the computers and really get into understanding how code works,” said board President Patrick Flynn. “It’s very important to have our kids involved and learning how code works at an early age so they can progress with that.” In the Redwood City Elementary School District, Hoover Elementary School, Garfield Elementary School, Garfield Elementary School, Roy Cloud Elementary School, Adelante Spanish Immersion School, Clifford Elementary School and John Gill Elementary School are taking part. Students in the district are also getting exposure to coding throughout the year, said Karyn Warner, the district’s technology integration coach. The district had a few hundred students participate in Hour of Code events informally last year and was able to build on the success to add more participants this year, she said. “I was struck by how amazing it is the kids are able to really learn how to think,” she said. “They’re creating things; rather than playing video games, they’re creating a video game. It’s the types of skills we want them to have to be able to do that collaboration and different thinking.”Part of Warner’s job is to coach and train teachers throughout the district on using technology in our classrooms. She also teaches students in the coding club at Orion Elementary School before school on Mondays and Tuesdays with the help of parent volunteers. Students learn to create video games during the club.Schools in San Carlos, such as the Tierra Linda Middle School, White Oaks Elementary School and Brittan Acres Elementary School are participating in the week. In South San Francisco, Buri Buri Elementary School, El Camino High School and Westborough Middle School are taking part. Mills High School in Millbrae, Spring Valley Elementary School and Taylor Middle School are also participating, according to Code.org.For more on the week go to Code.org.

angela@smdailyjournal.com(650) 344-5200 ext. 105