Blog 10: Google Classroom and Coding

This week, we had Tina O’Keefe zoom in and talk about her experiences with using technology in her classroom. Tina is a high school technology and robotics teacher within the school district of 61, providing students with a very unique learning experience. Tina makes use of the platform Google Classroom to produce multiple lessons surrounding the topic of technology. She gave us a sneak peek of her digital classroom, and I was so impressed to see not only the number of classes that she had, but also the organizational level that was implemented. There were all sorts of classes that piqued my interest and would’ve loved to have when I was in high school.

I never really had the chance to learn through gamification when I was in school. The education I went through was quite different and was often in an outdoor setting where technology wasn’t really in the picture. But, I can definitely see the benefits of gamifying learning. Over the years, I have definitely seen more and more incorporation of technology in my younger brother and sister’s education, specifically the use of games as a way to learn. It makes learning a lot more fun, and the concept of failing doesn’t seem like “the end of the world”, because you just get to hit retry and start again. In my Link2Practice class, there’s a student who is on the spectrum who relies on an iPad for a lot of their learning. I notice the most engagement when playing games or apps that help them learn different subjects. For example, they use Prodigy, Duolingo and IXL, and there is a big difference in focus and engagement from them.

One of the resources Tina talked about was Hour of Code. Hour of Code is a program that introduces Computer Science in a variety of ages and grades. We got a chance to engage in one or more Hour of Code activities, and I found them to be both a great introduction to computer science, as well as fun! I think that a lot of students would be interested in learning computer sciences that would go further than what Hour of Code offers, because of how fun and interesting Hour of Code makes it to be. One of the activities that I tried out was Candy Quest. This game is designed for students to bring their character through different levels where they will have to jump over obstacles, done by solving coding puzzles. Here is the link to the activity: https://hourofcode.com/tynkercq:

I think that Candy Quest is appropriate for the age range that I would like to teach, which is about Grades 2-5. I found that the earlier stages of the activity were easy to understand and Grade 2’s would be able to manage it. As I got through more levels nearer to the end, I thought that it would be more appropriate for older grades. Around level 20, it introduced coding where it wasn’t a consistent pattern, and this was where I found it tricky. But, I think that students in Grades 4/5 could figure it out with some time, depending on the individual. The instructions are thorough and clear enough, and it allows as many retries as you want!

Tina’s presentation was full of resources that we, as future teachers can use to incorporate technology into our classrooms. There are so many benefits to gamifying the curriculum, which is evident in my own Link2Practice as well as personal experience, and I’m so grateful that we had the chance to see how creative we can get, and the number of options that are out there for us to use.