Superior North Catholic District School Board celebrated Canada Learning Code week December 1 -11, 2020. Students and educators took advantage of the many opportunities to participate in live coding workshops with Google's CS First coding platform and Lynx coding with Lisa Anne Floyd. The interactive workshops for students and teachers were designed to support educators and students learning together. All eight schools across the school board participated to explore how coding can support student learning across the Ontario curriculum.
Google Canada sponsored the CS First learning with EdTech Team Canada for Superior North Catholic District School Board students and educators. Students also had an amazing opportunity to learn from Tooglers (Teaching Googlers). Through the live meeting with Togglers, students have a better understanding of why learning to code is important and what careers are available in the computer science field. Students loved the virtual tour of Google's Waterloo headquarters and said they would love to visit it in person in the future.
Students shared their learning and excitement for the CS First program as they created a dance video by completing the Music and Sound coding challenge. CS First is mapped to the Ontario curriculum's expectations for Language, The Arts and Math, including the new Math curriculum, 2020. The program supports educators integrating coding into their balanced numeracy block while meeting the new coding expectations in the Math curriculum.
Lynx coding is a text-based coding platform that allows students to create and design programs, harnessing their creativity. The Lynx project will enhance student understanding of mathematical ideas through coding in Lynx and see cross-strand curriculum connections, as well as connections to the mathematical processes and social-emotional learning strand. All mathematical strands can be covered through coding, coding can be thought of as a math manipulative, where students are learning math concepts through code.
Rima Mounayer, Superintendent of Education at SNCDSB, also got in on the coding fun by joining the Lynx Project session with students, educators, and coding expert Lisa Anne Floyd.