Coding! Learning to code has become increasingly prevalent in school curricula. From after-school clubs to dedicated class periods, coding and computer science curriculum are popping up in schools worldwide. There are many benefits of coding for students in Special Education. Coding builds important life skills such as organization, higher order thinking, self-esteem, socialization and teamwork. These skills are intrinsically hard for many children with disabilities such as Attention Deficit Disorder, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, and Autism. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention these disabilities can affect 1 in 68 school aged children. Many students in our classrooms suffer from low self esteem. Coding builds confidence in one’s ability to learn and create, as well as pride from actually creating something. Many learn-to-code platforms are accessible and easy to get started for everyone. Below are some coding programs to implement in your classroom. This summer I will be offering a session that is entirely dedicated to coding resources to use in your room. If you have any questions about implementing coding in your classroom contact me.

This was in a recent email from Code.org founder, Hadi Partovi.

Wow- I am not sure where the time went. We are through a marking period already. I am pretty far behind in my blogging as I haven’t created one in 2 months. Ok this blog is focused on a very exciting event that occurs globally, reaching tens of millions of students in 180+ countries. Why shouldn’t students at Lancaster Lebanon IU13 be in that group as well! This movement is called THE HOUR OF CODE. What is the Hour of Code you might say, this is a time during with week of Dec 4-10, where you have your students participate in some form of computer coding. But know, you can do the Hour of Code all year round. There are so many tools you could use to do this for students of preschool to high school level. Check out this short video to get you and your students excited Watch: Hour of Code I am going to share with you several tools you can try to incorporate the Hour of Code in your classroom. Likewise, if you check out the SPOTLIGHT section over on your right, you can try to win either an OSMO Coding Aubie game or OSMO Coding Jam game. There are three opportunities to win.