PACE — Quick: Do you know anything about computer coding? S.S. Dixon Primary School kindergartners soon will.
Students will learn more about the set of instructions that computers follow to complete tasks. A week of activities and lessons coincides with the Hour of Code, "the global phenomenon to get students interested in computer science," said Debby Lewis, teacher's assistant for technology.
The school — which held a coding rally Thursday to introduce the campaign — worked with the nonprofit Code.org to put on the rally. Code.org promotes women, underrepresented minorities, and all children learning computer science.
Spencer Lunsford, instructional technology specialist with the Santa Rosa County School District, emceed the rally. He said coding is "the new foreign language."
A robot simulation and a dance during the rally symbolized aspects of coding.
Michelle Peters, an electrical engineering senior at the University of West Florida, used two students, one representing a computer and the other a robot. Peters told kindergartener Madison Beal, portraying the computer, to direct the robot, portayed by kindergartener Easton Uhrina, to pick up a picture placed behind a curtain on the cafeteria stage. Beal used commands like "take a step" and "jump" to send Uhrina across the front of the audience of students, up the stairs, and behind the curtain to pick up the picture.
Jasper Stone, with Code.org, taught students looping by way of dance. Looping is converting a series of the same command into a single command, he said. In the dance, the first line on the screen showed three commands to clap. Stone said this could be shortened to "Clap three times."
Students also will learn about circuit boards and QR codes. QR codes are printed symbols, typically black on white, which smartphones can scan. They direct people to the code's target, often a web page.
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: Kindergartners learn about computer coding