The Hour of Code is Coming . . .

. . . are you ready?

The UK Hour of Code is a one-hour intro to computer science, designed to demystify code during  the week commencing 3rd March. If you haven’t heard of the Hour of Code, check out the website for more information. I’m really excited about it and we are hoping to make it really high profile in school, with parents and other teachers getting involved too.

Firstly, I have prepared some resources around using Kodu. These essentially assume some prior knowledge and are aimed at secondary school students. If you are new to Kodu take a look at the getting started guide here.

The resource I have prepared is very code-focussed being hour of code and enables students to create their own basic quiz game. The tutorial can be found here and an example of the start of the game can be downloaded from here. I’m aiming to do this with year 7 and some year 8 and 9 groups. I’ve also added a homework activity for students to complete with their parents.

If you need further guidance with using Kodu check out my range of tutorial videos on YouTube.

With some of the more advanced groups in years 8 and 9 we’re going to try TouchDevelop. The TouchDevelop idea came from Simon Johnson’s showcase on his TouchDevelop Challenge site and I think the girls I teach will love the fact that they can combine coding with creating digital artwork.

I hope you enjoy the resources and are keen to make the Hour of Code a huge success in as many schools as possible.