As part of the international initiative “Hour of Code” sponsored by Code.org, the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of Teaching (NCCAT), in partnership with Western Carolina University, Southwestern Community College, and the public schools of Jackson County in western N.C., hosted a series of events to promote literacy in coding.
The “Carolina Coding Initiative” at NCCAT, a recognized national leader in professional development programming for our state’s teachers, started the first week of December by hosting a number of afternoon classes open to teachers in the surrounding region. Classes taught by WCU faculty included a basic introduction to the use of simple languages and tools (Jython, Scratch, and Progranimate) as an entry to teaching programming. Another class, taught by NCCAT’s Director of Programming, Jonathan Wade, focused specifically on using the tools available on Code.org to teach programming with computers, on mobile devices and even without computers to teach the basic structure of coding.
“The intent of the ‘Hour of Code,’ and our own ‘Carolina Coding Initiative’ is to help people understand that coding is just another literacy—and it is a literacy that can help our children remain relevant in a world saturated by technology,” said Wade.
During the week of December 9–15, NCCAT hosted classes for the public taught by Mark Holiday, Scott Barlow, and Andrew Scott of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at Western Carolina. It also hosted a public reception displaying the works of students from Southwestern Community College and a series of public expositions highlighting the work of WCU student programmers.
With more than 100 people in physical attendance and with a much larger number of children and adults being reached by the efforts of those attendees, the inaugural “Carolina Coding Initiative” at NCCAT was a great start to a program that has only just begun to be written, Wade said.
K.J. Ammons, 11, of Cullowhee Valley School was one of those reached who had an interest in coding sparked.
“It was really great,” Ammons said. “I loved seeing how it worked and getting to actually do it.”
Ammons’ mother Courtney said her son begged to come after seeing information about the programs.
“I’m here for him and I’m really glad we came,” Courtney said. “It was excellent and he is already talking about wanting to learn more.”