Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Hour of Code

Last week was the Hour of Code.  What's that, you ask?  The Hour of Code is a 5-day initiative, tied to Computer Science Education Week, in which students are encouraged to try just one hour of computer coding to learn more about how coding impacts our everyday lives.  The goal is to introduce students to coding as a career.  The organizers of the event hoped they'd have 1 million participants and, by the end of the week, they were at 15 million...not bad!

At Blackland Prairie, student in Mrs. Masters' 5th grade class participated in the Hour of Code.  Students had tutorials from Scratch, Kahn Academy, and code.org to try.  What they found out is that anyone can code!  If you are interested, please visit one of the links and try it out.

Additional Resource:  14 Resources for Getting Started with Code









Monday, December 9, 2013

5th Grade Tech Camp

The 5th grade teachers here at BPE conducted the 1st Annual Tech Camp this year!  
Each teacher took on a different topic such as Google Docs, 
Google Chrome Store and Apps,  and Powtoon.
Students rotated to each classroom for a lesson on how to use these tools and 
ways they will be implemented throughout the year.  
Be sure to ask your 5th grader about what they learned!







Tuesday, December 3, 2013

How long does it take to count to 120?

First graders in Mrs. Fuchs' class found out that it doesn't take long at all when you use Microsoft Excel to help.  These students have used Excel before to they graph the kinds of  candy they received for Halloween.  This time they had the chance to use the copy feature in Excel.  First they counted to 10 then moved to a new row and counted to 20.  After that, Mrs. Fuchs' shared that Excel could guess what they were going to do and they used the copy feature to count to 120.  Well done!