This past Friday myself and the rest of my cohort were given a lesson in coding (via a program called Scratch) by the head SD 57 librarian. In this lesson, I was introduced to the idea of teaching learners to code at a young age. Although this idea sounded a little crazy to me at first, it soon became apparent (through the course of this presentation) that it was in fact possible if students were given enough time and lab time. Through playing around in the program, I followed along with the demonstration that was being given on screen and did my best to keep up (this was difficult at times, to say the least).

I was impressed by the simplicity of the program as it did look simple enough to teach a grade 5 class. This being said, the program had the potential to be used to a higher degree, even having the capacity to create 3D images if the used was experienced enough. In terms of its usefulness for learning, I would say that scratch it is great at demonstrating to students the interconnectedness of computer code and the processes necessary to make simple programs work. The next step for a student that was really interested in coding would be to learn that code that makes up the individual “blocks” as they are called in scratch. As a student that was already proficient in scratch would have a good understanding of how these blocks would work in relation to one another, they would only need to learn the individual meanings of code and the true language of coding.

One limitation that I could see with this program is the limited amount of computer lab time that is available to many teachers (particularly in the elementary years). I feel that it would be really difficult to get students to a level of proficiency in scratch where they did not need constant help as the sessions in the computer lab would be too infrequent to allow for a quick progression with the program.

Another limitation I see is that this program requires a significant amount of time from the day in order to be useful. Given this fact, I believe that a teacher would really want to focus on this program for it to be truly successful. If this program were to be done off and on I would say it would be a waste of class time as students would likely forget what they learned within i short amount of time.

I am not sure if I will incorporate this program into my classroom teaching. Although I do see its value I also see its drawbacks and this gives me a certain amount of pause in attempting it. Some students might benefit from something like this but I feel that the majority of students would be better served by other methods of learning. Perhaps my opinion will change in the future, but for now, this is where I stand. How knows, I might change my mind.