According to the Collins English Dictionary, coding is “The practice of writing computer programs” (2019) and is a vital skill which must be acquired by all children in today’s modern age. This week in Digital Technologies we explored coding programs and their impact on children. This was informative and also gave an idea of how coding will be used to help us teach children throughout our future careers. Coding is seen as the new literacy of the world as more children are becoming ‘digitally native’ (Prensky, 2001) and understanding the language of computers rather than the English language. Personally, I have never had any experience with the world of coding, so this week was my first time hearing about the benefits and also trying to create my own interactive story while using some basic coding.
As mentioned above, as time goes on, coding becomes more important in the education system as we now have a curriculum which includes the use of this technology but also its importance for the future lives of today’s children. In 2016 it was estimated that there was a shortage of 11000 digitally skilled workers within Scotland (Kennouche, 2016). One of the main purposes of teaching children coding is to make them highly employable in the future as many roles will have changed and working with a computer will be necessary (Goodwin, 2018). Another purpose is that children will gain many other life skills such as problem-solving, creative thinking and logical reasoning. These skills will help children in many situations in all curricular areas within and out-with the school environment. Personally, I think one of the biggest purposes for teaching coding to the children with Scotland’s primary schools is collaborative learning and communication among the class. As Vygotsky once believed, children who socially interact well will gain better results as they can gain more knowledge while working collaboratively with a more knowledgeable other. (Pound, 2006) For example, if a child is struggling to complete the coding task, they can socially interact with a member of the class who may already have acquired this skill which will further develop their knowledge. When older, children will need to be able to communicate with new staff members and within teams to allow them to do many of their jobs. This collaboration while coding allows meaningful dialogue to take place where children can share ideas and work together to create a final product of a high standard (Beauchamp, 2012). I believe that these benefits alone provide enough evidence of why this needs to be included in the everyday classroom. I also think that this could be motivating for the children as it brings a new perspective to subjects such as maths and English. The Scottish Book Trust also believe that coding is good for those who don’t feel at home with writing and reading as it allows them to work with a language which they may have a greater understanding of (2015).
The program we were exploring today was called Scratch Jr. I was lucky enough to use a family members iPad to explore its use before the class which definitely benefited while producing my own story. The Scottish Book trust says that Scratch Jr provides children with the building blocks of coding in a colourful and meaningful way (2015). To use Scratch Jr, the child can choose cartoon characters which they can code to move around, speak or even produce sound. They also have a choice of colourful backgrounds and other objects which can be used in their slides. Some of the tools which I personally like were the hide tool to enable easy transition and also the messenger tool which creates a link from one character to another. This app was also free which is another great benefit.
Today, I created a story where the children had to help the man with their phoneme of the week. I chose the sound ‘sh’ as scratch offered many objects and characters that incorporated it. The man went on an adventure from the shop, to the beach where he found a shell and a ship and to deep sea diving where he found a fish and a starfish which may help with the children vocabulary.
The CFE outcomes I used for my story were:
- I can explore and experiment with the features and functions of computer technology and I can use what I learn to support and enhance my learning in different contexts. – TCH 1-04a
- I can use my knowledge of sight vocabulary, phonics, context clues, punctuation and grammar to read with understanding and expression. – ENG 1-12a
I was able to code the man to move around the characters as well as coding the objects to hide when pressed if their answer was correct. I also felt it was important to add a recap slide to the end of my story as I wanted to consolidate all the information that the children had learned. I was also able to insert my friend’s photo into my story as the deep sea diver which would also be something that the children may take interest in. I found the program easy to use and could see where the benefits of coding are vital in the classroom. I collaborated with friends as we shared new skills we had found out as we further investigated scratch and also it got me to think creatively. Of course, not every program is perfect but I could only see one negative to this app. Your story could only be 4 slides long which wasn’t the best as it required you to cram a lot of information onto each slide and made your stories short and sweet.
I really enjoyed using this app due to my lack of coding knowledge, it provided a fun and simple introduction to the digital world. Using this app made me appreciate what the Scottish government are doing as they want to provide the children with the best skills and knowledge which they will use in the many years to come. Coding is an area in which I am excited to learn more about in my own time through further readings and apps but also I am excited to use these apps to teach in my future career.
As far as this blog is going, I would like to say that I am enjoying writing down my weekly thoughts on the subject matter and doing further reading to help benefit my teaching career. I also am getting better as the weeks go on with grammar (I hope) and my vocabulary which will also benefit me in the future.
References used within this blog:
Beauchamp, G. (2012) ICT in the Primary School: From Pedagogy to Practice. Pearson.
Collins. (2019) Definition of ‘coding.’[Online] Available: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/coding[Accessed: 29 January 2019]
Goodwin, K. (2018) Coding is the new alphabet … but are your kids prepared? The Herald. [Online] 18 February, non-paginated. Available: https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/16030509.coding-is-the-new-alphabet-but-are-your-kids-prepared/[Accessed: 29 January 2019]
Kennouche, S. (2016) Coding in Scotland: What is it, why you should learn and how to start. The Scotsman.[Online] 14 January, non- paginated. Available: https://www.scotsman.com/future-scotland/tech/coding-in-scotland-what-is-it-why-you-should-learn-and-how-to-start-1-4001065[Accessed: 29 January 2019]
Pound, L. (2006) How Children Learn.London: MA Education Ltd.
Prensky, M. (2001) Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants MCB University Press
Scottish Book Trust. (2015) Five Reasons to Get Kids (and Parents) Coding. [Online] Available: http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/blog/teachers-librarians/2015/12/five-reasons-to-get-kids-and-parents-coding[Accessed: 29 January 2019]
