Annual hour: Students teach students computer skills in annual program

Published 1:03 pm Thursday, December 31, 2015

Children in the Snoqualmie Valley School district got a lesson in tech the week of Dec. 10, when Mount Si High School’s Hour of Code student helpers made their way out to elementary and middle schools in the Snoqualmie Valley. High schoolers gave lessons and demos to introduce children to the world of computer science.

Kyle Warren, computer science and robotics teacher at Mount Si High School, led the program with a group of his students as they went from school to school, teaching programming to  children. Warren said the program was started three years ago by code.org, a non-profit based in Seattle.

“They started this campaign to make computer science accessible to students of all ages across the world. To inspire, to get them interested and show them that it wasn’t really as daunting or challenging as it seems to be,” Warren said.

“I jumped on board as soon as I heard about it and started to introduce these lessons across the district to all the other schools. We only had computer science formally at the high school. So I thought here is an opportunity to give everyone from kindergarten up through 12th grade an opportunity to try it out.”

Now in its third year, code.org is developing new lessons and more teachers are participating. Warren and his students spent about an hour with elementary and middle school groups, assisting them through the lessons.

“A lot of the activities are online. There are a number of tutorials that have been created that walk the students through various concepts in computer science and they are all done through a very game-like atmosphere.

To keep students interested, he says, many of the exercises geared toward elementary students involve popular characters or popular games. Disney’s Anna and Elsa from “Frozen,” are featured, so are characters from “Star Wars” and “Minecraft.”

According to Warren, he couldn’t run the program on his own and gives a lot of credit to his students who work to make sure each of the classes runs smoothly.

In class, the students take in the information, but through working with younger children, they step into leadership roles and realize how much they have learned.

“In the classroom, I try to make it challenging and a little hard,” he said. “But to bring them into this atmosphere and showcase how much they actually do know, it builds up their confidence quite a bit.”

Through the Hour of Code program, Warren gets to help develop and challenge his students and younger students in a way that gets them engaged. Seeing how the students respond lets him know that the lessons are working.

“I love seeing the excitement that the young students, particularly at the elementary level, get when they do these kinds of things,” Warren said.

“Not only because it’s different, but because they are successful, and to see them cheer and congratulate each other is pretty excellent.”

Teacher Kyle Warren assists Kaylee Reynolds with an Hour of Code exercise.

Ethan Irvine finds success as his class plays a logic game.