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This week in class, we explored cross-curricular coding and discussed something called pair programming!

Coding

When Allie first mentioned coding at the beginning of class I was like, “this is going to be horrible and super difficult” and “why would we teach elementary students this?”. Thankfully, all that was clarified almost right away. Coding is not just programming with super intricate letters and numbers and symbols. It can be fun AND easy! There are multiple websites that you and your students can use to learn to code. My favourite one that we explored was Scratch. On this website, we were able to play some games using coding. It was nice that we were given step-by-step instructions as we went on. Also on Scratch, we were able to animate our names using codes. It was tricky at first, but so cool once we figured it out.

Here is a link to my animated name:

https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/754638195/embed

Pair Programming

As described in class, pair programming is when two students work together on one computer. One student would operate the computer while the other student gives ideas on what they should do.

I did not attempt this during class as it is something that scares me. I am ADHD and struggle when things do not go my way. This is also why it worries me about using it in my classroom. On the other hand, I understand that being able to work as a team is a valuable skill for students to have. I think I would definitely try this out with my students once I got to know them well, so I could put them into partners that I could see being successful at this. I would also make sure that there was always time for each student to play both roles, so no one would feel upset if they did not get to operate the computer.

Personally, I prefer the idea of having a 1:1 student-to-device ratio because I feel it would help me avoid conflict within the class. But, I like the thought of trying out pair programming a few times here and there to work on teamwork with my students and allow the students who are strong in this area “teach” and others to learn.