Hour of Code Captivates at STEM Magnet School
Jack Abrams STEM Magnet School students are continuing to break new ground in the program’s first year of operations. The youngsters recently participated in a worldwide initiative billed as the Hour of Code.
While the goal of Computer Science Education Week was to expose one million students to computer programming, actual participation vastly exceeded the hopes of organizers. Over a seven day period, 15 million students from 170 countries wrote an hour of computer code according to code.org, a non-profit organization that supported the initiative.
Before Computer Science Education Week had even kicked-off, 4.5 million students had registered for the Hour of Code project, including dozens from Jack Abrams School. “Over the course of the week, students across the United States wrote 500 million lines of code,” according to the Code.org website “By contrast, it took Google almost seven years to recruit student developers to write just 50 million lines for its Summer of Code program. Microsoft Windows runs on an estimated 50 million lines of code.”
“During the week, students spent an hour on the www.hourofcode.org website learning how to program,” said Rae Montesano, the Jack Abrams STEM Magnet School coach. “The website has many tutorials for all age levels. Some of our students went to the computer lab, some used iPads in their classrooms and still others used their Google Chromebooks.”
The Hour of Code project received support from President Barack Obama, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Google, Apple and other technology leaders. Folks can still view the tutorials related to the project and try their hand at programming by visiting www.code.org.
Each participating Jack Abrams STEM Magnet School student will receive a certificate from Code.org in recognition of their efforts.