This sandbox felt intimidating to me in a way previous weeks have not. I saw "coding and 3D printing" and felt immediately out of my element. Despite my initial sense of dread and imagining of Matrix type code running down to envelop me, I was pleasantly surprised at the ease with which this hour of dabble really passed.
Perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised though. Haines (2018) explained computational thinking, "involves identifying problems, breaking apart or decomposing the problem into smaller parts, finding patterns, and designing solutions" (as cited in Libraries Ready to Code, 2018). Which when I thought of it this way, I was like "oh that isn't so bad", "I can do that", and "it is just like creating patterns with upper and lower case letters like my PreK-aged-son and I did this afternoon". Furthermore, Moen (2016) points out, "coding helps develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills, and these are at the core of our professional mission: to help people understand how to solve problems using information effectively, which are skills that support people as lifelong learners".
Ultimately, I opted to try the hour of coding, because on title alone it sounded like it would be more structured and had been developed to teach an entire process within the time constraint of one hour, and I really like to see the end of a project. When I went to https://code.org/learn I selected the Poem Art option for 1-hour code sessions for several reasons: the pink octopus seemed inviting and fun, it was English based, and said it went down to a second grade level. I wanted to know what was available for a lower elementary audience, as well as to make sure it was truly a beginner option. It really was. Consequently, as I was testing it I was wanting to do things quicker than it allowed, and I had to work through some of the starter lessons to get there. For example, adding elements based on or at a specific line within the poem wasn't introduced on the first step. In the end I was really pleased with the lesson and my progress. Although one thing I found a bit frustrating was coding with the music. I wanted to be able to stop the "forest" sound which had the birds which were fitting in "line one", but then the birds left and I wanted that sound to stop also. The only way I could figure out to make the noise stop was actually just to change it to a different sound in "line two". That was annoying, because I could stop or remove the sprite images and other features, but could not figure out how to stop or remove the music. I've included a screenshot below of what the code looked like for me while working, and without further ado, you can view the product of my one hour coding session here.
References:
Libraries Ready to Code. (2018, November 26). How Computational thinking Fits Within Library Services. Retrieved on November 8, 2022 from https://www.ala.org/tools/readytocode/how-computational-thinking-fits-within-library-services
Miller, K. (2022, November 8). Coding poem art [screenshot]. Retrieved on November 8, 2022 from https://studio.code.org/s/poem-art-2021/lessons/1/levels/9 CC Zero.
Moen, M. (2016, September 30). Computer coding and literacy: Librarians lead the connection. International Literacy Association. Retrieved on November 8, 2022 from https://www.literacyworldwide.org/blog/literacy-now/2016/09/30/computer-coding-and-literacy-librarians-lead-the-connection
Spiske, M. (2015, May 15). Hacker binary code [photograph]. Unsplash. Retrieved on November 8, 2022 from https://unsplash.com/photos/iar-afB0QQw CC Zero.
Your coding lesson looks really interesting. As a preschool STEAM teacher I had coding tools designed for pre-readers and I found their formats not very code-like. The blocks and patterning didn't speak to me. As a result, I mostly ignored the 2+ lessons on code.org in favor of the middle grades or higher lessons, thinking the 2+ lessons would be similar to blocks. I like that your lesson looks more like 'real code' in a true beginner format. Maybe I should have started there!