function actionPlan() {moveForward();}

As I progressed in my action plan research for how my school might best implement coding into our Junior School and Middle School, I realized there were so many possibilities and different ways to approach this initiative. There were many coding apps and platforms that all seem to have potential. However, in determining what would be best, I tried to envision how it would all play out for next school year. In order to create this vision I constantly asked myself a barrage of questions… (in no particular order!)

• Would  teachers and student like using this platform?
• Does it offer an easy to use, intuitive interface?
• Does it provide ample resources for learning the tool?
• How can teachers track student progress?
• How exactly would a teacher use this to teach one of their lessons?
• Does the platform’s content support students in both Junior and Middle School?
• Can our current device deployment support this?
• How will training and PD look like?
• How can I create excitement about coding?
• Why is coding even important?
• Are there any costs associated with rolling this out?
• Once “off the ground”, how can we maintain a solid support system for teachers as they progress?
• How can we gather feedback from both teachers and students alike?
• Will this platform be around in 2 years? 5 years? 10 years?

These questions, plus more, and various variations of these questions, were always on my mind as I explored and tested the various apps and platforms. Often I’d find my self stopping, arms crossed, head tilted, one eye closed perhaps, forcing myself to be skeptical as I pondered these questions over and over again. I found this “self-forced skepticism” to be quite helpful.

What I realized is that no platform or implementation will necessarily be 100% perfect out of the gate. However, taking the time to think about as many aspects of the initiative as possible, helped me to create a future vision of how the project could look and feel like. This allowed me to anticipate any bumps along the road, hopefully avoiding as many as possible.

As time passed, I came to the conclusion that this initiative should be made up of three main stages with the ideal end goal of having each grade in Junior and Middle school use coding for at least one lesson. (If teachers decided to use it even more, well then that would be pure gravy!)

So, how do we get there? What are the stages? What platform won?

I’ll start with the platform I feel is best… Code.org  

Code.org is web-based, uses block-based coding, with Javascript “under the hood”. Price = Free!

I’ll explain why I like Code.org, as I go…

The following three stages would make up the base implementation:

Stage 1: Have a Why Coding? Session for JS and MS faculty. 

I feel that in order for the teachers to be get excited about coding, providing insights into why coding is important and what skills it can provide to students, is very necessary.

Coding in itself teaches a variety of skills and concepts such as critical thinking, problem solving, decomposition, pattern matching, and collaboration just to name a few. But the lessons provided in the code.org platform allows for coding to be the means by which another curriculum item can be taught. The idea of using coding as the tech tool or “vehicle” for teaching something else is a very interesting concept. In a way, its the classic “killing to two birds with one stone” concept… albeit, way less violent. Imagine using coding lessons to teach fractions, or sequencing… That sort of idea.

Each lesson plan in code.org provides standards and curriculum covered within a particular lesson. They include ITSE Standards, CSTA Standards and Common Core curriculum. Although these are mostly US-based standards, there are handy Common Core State Mathematics (CCSSM) to Ontario Mathematics Curriculum conversion resources that could be used to “work backwards” in a way, to find out which lesson plan on code.org could be used.

For example, if there is a math lesson currently taught by a teacher, they could use these resources to cross reference which coding lesson covers the items they usually teach. They could see which CCSSM aspect is covered by the code.org lesson, then use the conversion resource to see what the Ontario equivalent is. Pretty neat!

Another important aspect of coding is its increasing relevance as a new 21st century literacy. There is much information available about this, this and, in my opinion, some convincing arguments for it. The basic premise is that in our increasing “everything is digital world”, knowing how applications, websites, and databases work, and how to create them, will be much more important than just how to use them.  Knowing how an airplane works, makes a better pilot.

During these initial sessions I feel it will be important to allow teachers to play with the code.org platform and the conversion resources to see what I’m talking about in “real-time”. it would be a sort of a “pre-PD” if you will.

I feel having these sessions with faculty and exploring some of the above reasoning will justify implementing coding into their classrooms. Again, even if for just one lesson plan!

 

Stage 2: Training and PD

In this stage I would take a deep dive into the platform itself. We would cover such things as how to create classes/rosters, how to assign lessons to individuals or whole classes, and how to track student progress.

One very nice feature of code.org is that each course/lesson provides a comprehensive guide for the teacher including an overview framework, list of standards covered, learning objectives, and much more. It’s very well laid out. Here’s an example of  the “Teacher PDF” for “Course 4: Lesson 16: Bee: Functions with Parameters“. Here’s the example of the “Framework” document for Course 4. There are even teacher video resources available.

As far as devices, because Code.org is web-based, and therefore device agnostic, we should have no issues using it across our grades. We currently have a MacBook Pro/MacBook Air 1:1 laptop program, so every student will have access to their own device in order to access the platform. We also have iPads available in the Junior School, so they are also an option.

As far as logistics for the training sessions, I will likely divide the groups in to smaller groups so that it is easier to provide more real-time assistance as we cover the content. I would also like to establish some “go to” mentors amongst the faculty who are willing to offer their help to others as they progress.

 

Stage 3: Roll out!

In this stage, teachers will be able to choose which lesson or lessons they would like to proceed with and use in their classes.  They will be able to create their rosters, and show students how to log in, and the basics of the interface. As far as timing, I feel that the first stage can be accomplished between May-June, then Training/PD in late August/early September allowing for Stage 3 to happen in September/October.

Conclusion

I feel that the above action plan will allow for coding to be implemented in an easy to manage, “small-steps-first” type approach. Hopefully, this will lead to the use of other coding apps and platforms, and perhaps even more in-class robotics coding projects down the road.

 

Cohort21 Reflection

The above action plan honestly wouldn’t have shaped out the way it did without being a part of Cohort21. Admittedly, I’m not a huge poster on social media (I gave up ICQ and MySpace cold turkey years ago), but am a very active reader of all posts on Twitter, Google groups and blogs. I myself, am more of a conversation guy, and the conversations I had at the F2F sessions, and even via email were extremely helpful in shaping my plan and providing me with so many “hey, you gotta check this out!”-type resources. This guided and inspired my research and plan development to an extent that would not have been possible if I were not a part of this incredible group!