Coding wasn’t a brand new thing for me, but it’s new enough that I still have a lot to learn. Things have changed a LOT in the computer world since I took COBOL way back in 1989. I still love it and wonder what I was thinking when I let the beauty Lake Ontario lure me away from RIT and my planned computing major. One look at SUNY Oswego on the lake and that plan flew out the window. It was too late to get into the computer science department at Oswego, so I went with education. I thought I’d be a teacher in high school but my guidance counselor didn’t approve. What did he know? He probably knew a lot. But I digress.
Last spring I introduced Daisy the Dinosaur to my kindergarteners and they loved it!
This year I decided that I really need to make sure that all of my students get to participate in Hour of Code. My normal library classes are 40 minutes long, so fitting in the full hour means a little shifting of the schedule, but all of my classroom teachers have agreed to the changes we had to make, so it’s a go! I’ll definitely blog about it when it happens.
In the meantime, I’ve been spending time with the tutorials, which is what led me to question my career choices. Coding is just so much fun, I feel like working through the tutorials shouldn’t count as legitimate preparation work. I’ve had a LOT of trouble with my library computers this year,
so I really do have to make sure the tutorials will work on whatever platform happens to be working on a given day. Really. I HAVE to test these things. I’m not playing games. Honest!
While I’m have a lot of fun with the Hour of Code tutorials, I’m having less luck with some of the other suggested activities in this “Thing,” namely the Meme Maker. For the life of me I can’t swap out the image. I’ve fiddled with the html and the link a few different ways to no avail. I can do everything else, but the image link just insists on staying broken. I am not giving up for good, but I think I need to walk away for a day and revisit it with fresh eyes.
I’m really looking forward to Hour of Code week. It comes at a great time of year when the kids are getting amped up for the holidays, so having a wildly engaging activity and giving the teachers an extra 20 minutes of planning time is a win-win.
Once Upon a Page 
So cool that you’re doing hour of code with the kids. And that the classroom teachers are excited too! Hooray. Can’t wait to hear how it goes. I’ll take a look at meme maker, sounds like it’s broken!
Hmmm…. worked for me with a URL for a jpg image on flickr:
Results here: https://pollyalida.makes.org/thimble/MTQ1Njg2Nzg0/meme-maker
Had to login and save to get it to work.
I don’t have a flickr account. I was trying to use photobucket, so maybe that’s the problem. flickr is making me set up a new yahoo account, and I really don’t want to do that. 😦
Some of the image sites make it really hard to find image url’s. Instagram is a pain. And I just looked at photobucket, not obvious there either. Like your solution of using an photo hosted here on your blog.