Code in Every Class: Sparking Student Interest

Coding sometimes is intimidating to students, especially high school or middle school students. According to Brookhouser and Megnin (2016), dispelling the myth that if a student is bad at math, then they cannot code. It is crucial that teachers send a clear message that anyone who invests time and practice in math tools can excel in coding. Coding is about trial and error, and the more a student fails, then more learning can take place. "Coding is fixing, and failure is fun!" (p. 65).

Here is a TEDTalk video Let’s Teach Kids to Code by Mitch Resnik of MIT Media Lab. Resnik (2012) outlines that "coding isn't just for computer whizzes, -- it's for everyone. It's almost like students have learned to read with digital devices, but they haven't learned to write with digital devices. When you learn to code, you can code to learn.”  

Another way to spark student interest to coding is to "welcome non-programmers [and programmers] from their community" (Brookhouser & Megnin, 2016). Also, show them with field trips and guest speakers that "tech pays off," as well as flexible working hours, playful work environments, solid opportunities for professional growth, a sense of autonomy, and intangible projects that could change the world (p. 36).

Why not practice a healthy debate in the classroom regarding what tech careers are needed, and whether or not the students feel they could get such a job? According to Hicks (2013), healthy argumentative dialogue is paramount for digital literacy. This skill is important for our students to not only identify factual information, but to share that information on social media and be able to defend that information with research based evidence. Teacher should discuss the path to computer science careers by using an Info-graphic, like the one shown below. 

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/623607879637755845/

According to Hicks (2013), to accomplish the goal of an effective video text one must use the MAPS--mode, media, audience, purpose, and situation method. The TEDTalk video I posted explains why coding in the classroom is vital for sparking student interest. I posted the infographic to show how important it is to set a tone in the beginning that coding can be a lucrative and important career choice for the students in the future. In conclusion, infographics will force you to extract the most important features of your lesson or course, and similarly, they can encourage students to summarize the information they’ve learned.

References

 

Brookhouser, K., & Megnin, R. (2017). Code in every class. S.l.: EDTECH TEAM.

Hicks, T. (2013). Crafting digital writing: composing texts across media and genres. 

    
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Resnik (2012). TEDTalk video Let’s teach kids to code . MIT Media Lab.

 

Turner, K. H., & Hicks, T. (2017). Argument in the real world: teaching adolescents to 

    
read and write digital texts. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

 

 

Social Interaction on the Web

Social media can be the "civic forum" to teach students to "read, write, and participate 
in thoughtful, engaging ways" (Turner & Hicks, 2017, p. 116). According to Hicks (2017), 
students are able to create their own identities on a living archive of work while at the 
same time learning cyber citizenship.

One social media platform in particular, Pinterest, is a useful tool both for random linking 
and for targeted searching. The education community on Pinterest is significant. Boards 
are filled with lesson plans, activities, and general ideas for enhancing the classroom. 
These boards are a great place to learn how to use the search features on Pinterest: Users 
can link through interesting pins to find related boards, and they can add and subtract 
search terms to refine a search and better target relevant content. Also, this much-pinned 
infographic sums up some ways that teachers use Pinterest – to curate content, organize 
ideas, collaborate with others, and for student projects.

As Hicks (2013) states that possible purposes for social media can be to "follow 
the collections of others and offer constructive feedback" (p. 149). Teachers can 
set up a Pinterest page for one particular class or a series of classes with Pins that 
focus on themes or subtopics important to the lesson at hand. Below is an exampl3
Pinterest Pin for school technology. Pinterest is a visual tool that inspires creativity 
and ideas that text cannot, an educational hub of boards and pins, less personal 
than other platforms with a streamlined profile, and there are no limits to how many 
followers you can have. It also encourages quick collaboration between teachers on 
all sorts of subjects and interests.

Here is a YouTube video introducing Pinterest as an educational tool below.

References

Hicks, T. (2013). Crafting digital writing: composing texts across media and genres. 

    Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Peterson, L. (2018). Using pinterest in the classroom. Retrieved 

     from https://edtech.worlded.org/using-pinterest-classroom/ 

Pinterest Logo. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pinterest_Shiny_Icon.svg   

Turner, K. H., & Hicks, T. (2017). Argument in the real world: teaching adolescents to 

     read and write digital texts. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.