Hour of Code 2023: December 4-10

In January of 2013, Hadi & Ali Partovi (two Iranian-American brothers) started Code.org with the intention of making computer programming more accessible to people of all ages. They launched the first Hour of Code in sync with Computer Science Education Week that December 2013--5 years after Computer Science Education's first week, which was December 6-12, 2009.

Computer Science Education Week takes place during the full week that encompasses Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper's birthday. Grace Hopper was born December 9, 1906. She was a woman ahead of her time: a Vassar graduate, a naval officer, a mathematician with her PhD from Yale in that and mathematical physics, a World War II veteran, a computer programmer, a software developer, and one of the developers of the programming language COBOL. She's credited with literally "debugging" the first computer infiltrated by a moth, coining a term we still use today. She was the first individual woman to receive our country's highest technology award: the National Medal of Technology in 1991 and was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016 by President Obama.

Code.org's Hour of Code is December 4th through 10th this year--making this the 11th year of highlighting that anyone can learn to code. Now a global movement across 180 countries, Hour of Code inspires people of all ages to take on some coding activities for at least an hour. In my K-5th grade tech classes, we'll all be coding this week!

Looking for some ways to host your own Hour of Code, check out these activities:

• Hour of Code's Library of Activities -- You can filter by activity, device, age, and more.

• Create & Learn's Hour of Code Free Activities  -- Curriculum is designed by Google, Stanford, MIT and more.

• Promotional resources and videos from Hour of Code

• Tie it in with your librarian using Shannon McClintock Miller's idea of linking library books about coding from her blog The Library Voice. I was fortunate enough to take a FETC workshop from Shannon years ago. She's a phenomenal edtech educator, leader, and author and I love this tie in between classes.

Image from  http://twofifthsfudge.blogspot.com/2012/12/amazing-grace.html (posted December 9, 2012), https://hourofcode.com/us/learn, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2014/12/22/honoring-grace-hopper#:~:text=Grace%20Hopper%20was%20born%20in,a%20woman%20during%20that%20era), and https://goglobalways.com/blog/benefits-online-coding-classes-kids-2021/; videos from https://youtu.be/Fg82iV-L8ZY?si=aJn97UyePKWMEn0T and https://youtu.be/ybBUd9-0ZJQ?si=doqsuS-veK8v1NYd