Hour of Code

“This Rocks!” is what every teacher-librarian wants to hear during class. And when I heard it yesterday in the library I knew I had hit upon a gold mine. All I can say is Thank You, Thank You, Thank You, Hour of Code! We had a 2-hour delay yesterday and I missed so many of my classes that I decided we were going to do something different in accordance with my desire to create a maker-space in the library, and Hour of Code did not disappoint. The Hour of Code people have done their homework, the students loved the angry-birds/zombie tutorial and while it is called Hour of Code I had several students do the tutorials for beginners within the 45 minutes of library class (minus book selection time). My first class was a group of 5^th graders and I had them pair programming. They had so much fun that I used extra computers (read library search stations and even my own iPad) for my 6^th grade classes to allow them to do the tutorials individually. And from the talk I heard in the bus line they were planning to go home and do more! How exciting is that? This is such a great beginning that I hope will continue a trend in the library. Learn what most schools don't teach and should... teaching kids to code was a big topic at Engadget Expand when I attended a few weeks ago.  Check out what Hour of Code is all about... maybe you want to try it in your library!