Special Guest for Coding Quest

Dan McKiel of the Learning Partnership with Blackville 
School grade 4 students Emma Madore and Roman Stewart

Grade four students had a special coding guest last week, and he had a lot of tips and tricks for them.

Dan McKiel of the Learning Partnership visited the students on February 23 to see their progress and help them in their "Coding Quest."

The students have been engaged in computer coding activities since last fall. The activities help students improve on writing step by step instructions, computer literacy and navigation, as well as developing higher thinking skills that involve creativity.

McKiel travels to schools and work with teachers and students. During his visit, he showed the students various elements of Scratch, an MIT coding website for kids.

After a presentation of "tricks" about how to create one's own game with code, students, working in pairs, chose a game and McKiel provided step by step instructions and what kind of code was required.

Students had opportunities to add their own instructions (numbers, colours, sounds) into the code.

Some students were able to finish a product. One group created and completed a code for Pong. To see more photos from the grade four coding activity, click here.

Photos by Jules Keenan