Power of Code

TRS-80

When I was in eighth grade, circa 1983, our school got its first computer: a TRS-80 in the Media Center. A friend of mine and I were given the opportunity to use it. We were handed a book for learning the programming language BASIC and just dove in. In high school, our computer classes were programming classes: BASIC and Pascal were the two classes I took.

Fast forward to the school where I work today. Through our Digital Conversion initiative, our students are fortunate to each have a Macbook throughout the school year. Their experience of using computers is vastly different from my student days. It is a fantastic tool for accessing information, producing media, practicing skills, and communicating amongst students and staff.

While my students are using the computer in amazing ways, I have not seen anything about learning computer programming like I did as a student. The focus is on using a variety of web sites and applications, not creating them with code. Students produce a lot of cool media projects with iMovie, ComicLife, SketchUp, etc., but they don’t have any idea what is behind the applications and web sites they use every day.

Through a 3D GameLab quest line this past October, I learned some of the basics of Scratch, a kid-friendly programming language and web site created by a group at MIT. I was attracted to this tool partly out of nostalgia and partly because of the fun factor. Making a cartoon cat or robot or shark move around the screen at my command is a heady and extremely satisfying experience!



For my students, I saw this as a powerful tool for doing new things in new ways. We could go beyond creating a Keynote presentation or Paintbrush picture. Students could make something that moves, talks, interacts. So my first thought was that Scratch would kick our media production up a notch. My fifth grade students are already learning the basics in preparation for creating a project that shows the creatures that fill various niches in specific ecosystems.

In the last couple weeks, I have been hearing a lot about the Hour of Code, a promotional event for Computer Science Education Week, December 9-15, 2013. Their site has tutorials that just about anyone can use to learn coding using different tools such as Scratch. They also have infographics about the need for more computer science students and the underrepresentation of women and people of color.

This promotion increases my motivation to get all of my students using Scratch, not just as a cool media production tool, but as an experience with computer programming. My hope is not just that many of them will be prepared for good-paying jobs. I think about the power of knowing the language that runs our information economy. We are surrounded by apps and web sites and video games. I don’t want my students to be mere consumers of these tools. I want them to help shape them.

Photo credit:
Flominator. TRS-80 Model 1 - Rechnermuseum cropped. [GFDL or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0], via Wikimedia Commons

My First App

I just made a super-simple app for Android! It meows at you when you tap on the picture of the kitty. Amazing!

I am working on a quest chain in 3D GameLab that is teaching me how to design apps. We are using MIT's App Inventor. There were some technical challenges to overcome.

I found it important to follow the set up directions carefully. I had to search around my computer to make sure that Java was enabled. I couldn't get it to connect to my phone, so I used the emulator option instead.

If you want to see my super-amazing-totally-awesome HelloPurrKT app, use a barcode reader to scan the blue QR code at the end of this post

My Second App

In our second quest, we did a tutorial to create a PaintPot app: tapping and dragging on the screen lets the user color on an image. This time, I was able to connect my phone, so I could download the app directly to my phone. And it worked!

I went beyond the tutorial a bit, because I noticed that I could upload images for the buttons. I got these ones from Open Clip Art Library, my favorite place to get clip art in the public domain. The tutorial explained how to make buttons that would make the paint dots big or small. I used that to make lines big or small as well. I was very proud of figuring out how to do that.

In fact, the whole thing just makes me burst with pride. Even though it's just a little coloring app. I. MADE. IT. I'm sure the experience of making it is better than the app itself, but you can try the red QR code to download this one.

I would be very interested to hear if anyone was able to get one of these apps to work on their Android device.

Update 8/22/12: I changed where I was hosting the app files and posted new QR codes. These ones seem to work.

Download HelloPurrKT for Android

Download PaintPotKT for Android