Do you know what coding is? Coding is the process to write text in specific languages that a computer can understand.

Well, for this term, Phil Martin, a seventh-grade math teacher at Watertown Middle School and his enrichment class are meeting in the Mac lab during the fifth period on B days for a coding class.

For now, they are following a course in a website called “Hour of Code,” that gives students the background of logical thinking for code. The students are to follow a logical sequence to do a task that, bit by bit, gets harder. For example: They need to lead a farmer to a field, giving commands such as “move forward,” “repeat four times,” and “turn left” that the given character executes.

In addition to that, the students are starting to learn binary code, which is basically that 0s and 1s language “spoken” by the computer.

After the students finish this, they are going to pick one of the many computer programming (or coding) languages, learn it, and develop a project on it. This project can be a lot of things. A tic-tac-toe game; a stick figure that comes in the screen and says hi; and much more!

The good thing about this enrichment class is that students actually get to learn something that they can use in real life. Also, the “Hour of Code” website is open for anyone with the will to learn how to code at www.code.org!

–March, 2, 2014–