Matthew McNaughton ’16, Emily Roach ’16, and Leslie Chae ’16, participated in the Williams Elementary Outreach iTeam, a pilot program of CLiA. They worked with students at Brayton Elementary in North Adams for “The Hour of Code,” to introduce young students to what coding is and get them excited. The students had limited educational experiences with computers and computer science.
According to Leslie Chae, “CLiA has been working to get more educational technology integrated into the elementary schools and I believe that this session really proved that the kids are not only willing but excited to learn more. With the Angry Birds and Minesweeper games on the site, the kids used the iPads that the school provides to “code” character movement and actions using building blocks. By the end of the hour, the students were using concepts such as for and while loops to carry out these goals.”
Due to the success of the Hour of Code program, CLiA has begun to provide more educational technology in the classrooms, through internet researching sessions and Friday afternoon coding sessions, also assisted by Williams CS students.
