St Peter’s College joins global schools in the Hour of Code initiative
SUNNINGHILL – The Hour of Code is an event that takes place across the world to introduce learners to coding and computer science.
In a bid to match a standard required by today’s digital and information age, Grade 8 and 9 learners at St Peter’s College in Sunninghill participated in the Hour of Code global initiative.
Physical and life science teacher at the school, Nicole Candy said that the Hour of Code global initiative is aimed at triggering interest and introducing learners to coding and computer science at high school level.
“The programme is currently running in 180 countries and individual schools register their participation on a website and then host an event. During the Hour of Code, learners can participate in a one-hour coding lesson in their field of interest. The activities vary from how code can be used to develop games, how the Google logo can be coded and how facial recognition software is coded,” she said.
“No prior experience is required and the tutorials are varied so all levels of coding ability, from beginners up, are catered for. The learners then receive a certificate of completion for completing a full challenge and the school’s name and location are shown on the Hour of Code’s participation map.”
Candy added that despite the fact that learners were participating in the programme for the first time, the response from learners was very encouraging.
“This is the first year that St Peter’s College has participated in the programme. We had originally planned to only have our Grade 8s participating but the lesson was such a success that we included our Grade 9s and both grades participated for two hours. The Hour of Code was included in our project-based learning (PBL) programme this year.
“PBL is in its second year of implementation at the school and students in grades 8 and 9 have one PBL lesson a day where they can work on their projects. The projects are designed to be cross-curricular and encourage students to develop their own interests and skills beyond the prescribed curriculum.”
Details: For more information on the Hour of Code, visit their website www.hourofcode.com/za
