Hour of Code

Coding is a motivating way to engage students in technology. Students can be empowered by creating and using technology to manipulate their digital world, while increasing their knowledge in science, math, and technology. If you would like to introduce your students to coding code.org is a great place to start.  

Once you get to the site, The Hour of Code is an Angry Birds activity where students use coding to move the Angry Bird to get to the Pigs.  The activities use drag and drop coding and increase with difficulty as they solve the different puzzles.  As we move closer to winter break and you find it more challenging to keep students engaged, hopefully this will be an additional tool to add to your bag of tricks.  

12/5/14:

As an addendum to this original post, Google has announced that on madewithcode.com students can use Blockly to animate the lights of the trees that will decorate President's Park, home to the White House.  This activity is aimed at engaging girls in coding, however anyone can enjoy this activity.