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Coding is now a part of the Ontario Math curriculum but still, during practicum, I felt that most teachers felt apprehensive about teaching it. I attribute this anxiety to the newness of coding in elementary education, teachers' lack of formal training, and their subsequent lack of confidence in their coding knowledge and skills.

However, it is our responsibility to equip our students with this "new literacy", especially because we now live in a digital age. Technology education is less about how to use available tools and more about learning how these tools can be used to create something new. Holsted et al. (2008) found a disparity in the use of technology for innovation between schools in affluent and poorer neighbourhoods. This inequity makes a compelling argument for teachers to employ coding instruction as an equalizer.

There is a focus on using coding as a vehicle to teach computational thinking - a process that can be applied to other areas of life to improve students' problem-solving, critical thinking, and analytical skills. Teaching computational thinking also furthers students social emotional skills including conflict resolution, self-regulation, and self-awareness.

Coding can also make learning engaging, allowing students to be creative and express themselves through new modalities. Students can apply coding to create games, animations, and even in website design. Students learn through experimentation, taking risks, and making mistakes.

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This is an example of teaching computational thinking and coding skills while fostering collaboration and problem solving skills. Over the course of 3 classes, students learned the fundamentals of how to program Ozobots through experimentation and problem-based learning, eventually culminating in a collaborative task where they created a "town" for their community of Ozobots.

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Encourage students to explore poetry through coding in this activity. In each level, students read a short poem and receive prompts to create programs that create relevant visuals and animate the poetry.

This activity can be applied in:

Grade 3 language:

1.1 read a variety of literary texts

1.4 demonstrate understanding of a variety of texts by identifying important ideas and some supporting details

Grade 4 language :

1.1 read a variety of texts from diverse cultures, including literary texts

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Teacher Info

How to continue learning after Coding with Poetry

In our new CS Connections curriculum, explore additional activities that combine ELA and computer science, and check out even more connections between computer science and other subjects like math, science, and social studies that you can bring into your classroom.

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Students learn about computer science concepts and writing poetry in this CS Connections module.

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https://hourofcode.com/codejikaresume

This activity guides students through website creation using HTML and CSS with scaffolded prompts. I think this activity could be incorporated into a media literacy activity where students can use this activity to present their final product.

Grade 3 lanugage:

3.4 produce media texts for specific purposes and audiences, using a few simple media forms and appropriate conventions and techniques