This week, December 7th – 13th, is the Hour of Code. Over 100 million students have already participated, but new content is made each year! The idea behind Hour of Code is to introduce kids (and adults too) to the challenge and excitement of coding.
Here is a comprehensive list of Hour of Code Modules that can be found on the Hour of Code Homepage. Each of these is designed as an exploration of programming that should take ~1 hour.
If you are introducing students to coding for the first time, I would recommend using the Snap! programming language. I use Snap! in my Introduction to Computer Science course, a course for students with little to no prior programming experience. The Snap! program is a programming language from UC Berkeley, and I use it as part of a curriculum from TEALS (link to TEALS). Snap! is wonderful for Hour of Code because it allows students to do a lot and learn the basics of computing quickly. Here is a sample Hour of Code exercise on Snap! Math teachers, this Hour of Code exercise also gives student practice with cartesian coordinates in an interesting way!
Using Edcite to Assess in Computer Science: If you’re interested in making an assignment to assess what students learned from hour of code, check out some assignments I’ve made for students in my class!
Lists and Loops
Lists Assignment 1
Variables Assignment
Edcite allows me to create interesting assignments that use screenshots from the Snap! program. I can also share my assignments at the end of the year with other teachers using Edcite’s sharing system.
When making these assignments, I like to use the following item types:
- Multiple choice, multi-select (quick to grade, good to spot misconceptions)
- Free Response (good way to push students to explain their thinking)
- Touch Image (you can use screenshots from the program have students click on the block to test specific understanding)
More Great Programs:
- Girls Who Code – promotes computer science for girls in schools
- Minecraft – a program that allows students to construct world (or even smartphones)
The Edcite Blog 
this thingy is awesome boys
I am trying my best to prepare my 3rd grade students for the Performance Task and will be giving them a sample test next week. Currently the test in a PDF but I wanted to upload it to Edcite.com because the interface(I think that’s what it’s called) looks the same. I have successfully uploaded all of the test except a table that keeps giving me issues. I copy and pasted it and it came up with only text. I then thought I was quite clever and converted to HTML code and got the same result (shooting for the moon here). Can you help me out? I went looking for help on edcite.com and ran across this blog…and you seem to know more about code than myself. Thank you!