Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Getting Excited About Coding

Allie, my daughter who is in 8th grade, got excited about coding after watching the following video from Code.org:

I had downloaded Scratch for her several months ago, telling her that she might be interested in it. However, she had not really looked at it until after she watched the video from Code.org. With her newfound drive to create, she created a video game that evening and tweaked it over the next few days. This is her completed first game:


Scratch Project
Click the image to jump to Allie's first game: "Hit the Button"

She has been so excited about creating the game and using logic to produce the outcomes that she desired that she had me load Scratch onto a flashdrive so she could run it at school and show her teachers the project as she worked on it. Her next goal is to look into Alice, and then Unity3D - if she is that excited, I can only imagine how many other students would be just as excited to see coding integrated back into the curriculum, and I hope to instill that energy in district teachers as well. Just as luck would have it, the PPHS guidance counselor sent me a link to the Code.org video this week. It seems the coding fever is coming alive again!

Give comments of advice, etc. below for Allie - she's eager for feedback.