Coding for Students

Every Monday after school I work with the 5-E Engineering Club, a group of about 20 3rd graders.  Our work has consisted of everything from connecting batteries and lights to working on external motherboards.  As I was planning our time for the new year and began to think about the complex skills needed to run those pieces of technology, I quickly realized that students would need a wealth of skills I had never taught to such a young audience.  I knew there had to be a solution and sure enough there are more than one.  The “Hour of Code” project is the perfect way for us to learn the requisite skills to move forward.

As many parents know, iPads, tablets, and smart phones are quite the attraction for young people these days.  They do a pretty good job of engaging some of the older members of our society too!  But often we find that kids get on an iPad of Android device just to play “games.”  So the folks at code.org and other sites decided to start developing “games” that really were the building blocks of computer programming.  These are shrewdly configured masterpieces that look and feel just like your normal Candy Crush or Angry Birds game but are based on logical if/then thinking to solve complex problems.  I have two that I am currently using with our 5-E students.

The first is called LightBot.  It’s a simple enough “game.”  The little robot has to get to each blue block and light it up yellow.  The player has to program the robot to follow a certain set of steps in the right order to walk, turn, jump, light and more to get to those blue blocks.  Along the way, the player may need to make a batch of instructions that can be repeated so that he or she doesn’t run out of space.  Before long, students are persevering and problem solving through multiple steps and using complex, abstract thinking.  There is a free trial version on the web and an app for tablets that is only a few dollars.

The second app that I am using is called Lego Fix the Factory.  I found this by mistake searching for apps for my son.  This app follows the same principles as LightBot, but the premise is a little different.  The Lego robot has to work through these different problems to make the Lego factory come back to life.  Each level involves the picking up and moving of a critical part that will help the factory get back to work.  This is a free app. and is very engaging.

If you are looking for other options, there is a great site here that has links to many coding apps that feel like games.  It levels them by age and gives you some great reviews.  What I love about this is that while your son or daughter may be playing a game, what he or she is really learning are the coding skills and the perseverance mindset to use this powerful skill.  Below is a video of some 5-E students working hard on a LightBot level.  It was clearly a hit with them.