NEWS RELEASE
SUPERIOR NORTH CATHOLIC DISTRICT SCHOOL BOARD
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Dec. 1 to 10 marked the annual celebration of Canada Learning Code week. Superior North Catholic District School Board students and educators participated in a wide variety of coding activities hosted by the Technology Enabled Learning Teacher and Math Team. The launch of the new 2020 Ontario Mathematics Curriculum has sparked a system-wide collaboration between the two support teams to ensure that students and staff are learning coding in a safe and engaging environment.
Students in Kindergarten to Grade 2 had the chance to design a reindeer costume for their Beebots and code it to navigate around Christmas obstacles. Alternatively, students designed an interactive Christmas scene in Scratch Junior featuring codes for flashing lights on a Christmas tree, having a character put a gift under the tree and a recording of a Christmas message.
Students in Grade 3 to 6 had the chance to express their artistic side as part of a “Christmas Greeting Word Animation” project using Scratch and CS First (Google for Education). They used block-based coding to add effects like growing, bouncing, spinning, dancing, and music to make their words come alive. Alternatively, students could code their own “Heads Up” or “Headbanz” game using Micro:bits. Students took turns guessing Christmas words scrolling on the headband Micro:bit screen; tilting their head up and down to que a new word once they guessed correctly based on verbal clues.
Students in Grade 7 and 8 got to design an interactive Christmas card using text-based coding in the Lynx Coding platform. The card featured a Christmas greeting and animations of a Christmas scene that the recipient could interact with using coded buttons at the bottom of the card. Alternatively, students got to code a real-life compass with Micro:bits, calibrated to show the true North to find their way to Santa’s workshop in the North pole.
Submitted by Lena Stahl, Math Lead; Karly Baker, Math Lead; and Sarah Clowes, Technology Enabled Learning Teacher.