Westbrook Middle School (WMS) celebrated all things computing last week with a school-wide Hour of Code, part a global endeavor to get kids to try coding for one hour. The event took place Dec. 5 during Computer Science Education Week.

Each grade was ushered separately into the cafeteria, where students were offered a menu, not of lunch items, but of coding activities. Options included a beginner-level Harry Potter task, in which the goal was to levitate a feather; an intermediate “dance party” for programming figures to move to a variety of songs; and an advanced Google logo program for creating a unique animated logo.

The school this year moved computer science from an elective to a semester-long core class.

“This year, with the kick-off of [the] computer science [core class], we…wanted to make it a big deal and really get the kids excited,” said WMS Principal Taylor Wrye. “Because it’s only a half-year course, half the kids haven’t taken a computer science course yet, so we’re trying to make it as exciting as possible.”

The cafeteria hummed with collaborative discussions and activity as students worked on their chosen tasks.

Wrye and computer science teacher Dana Runkle are similarly minded about the importance of teaching computer skills.

“It’s important on so many different levels,” Runkle said. “Even if they don’t go on to become programmers or proud computer geeks like myself, it’s problem-solving and attention to detail, persistence, redoing things until you get it right.”

Despite having added a second access point for the Internet, connectivity was an issue, and various kids approached adults to ask to borrow a different Chromebook from the computer cart.

Runkle illustrated her focus on problem-solving by making an announcement to the room, telling the students that if some computers were connecting and others weren’t, kids could collaborate and work together on one machine.

“A lot of it’s just basic life skills and it’s just another way to teach them things that they’re already learning in math by redoing math problems until they get it right,” she said. “Or science—doing the labs...is a way of building those problem-solving skills and computational thinking, which is going to help, regardless of what they do in their future. It’s just going to build better thinkers.”

Seventh grader Nicol Espinoza, who is currently taking computer science, tinkered with the Google logo activity. She said she is enjoying the computer class with her teacher, Runkle.

“Right now in computer class we’re making a website, and mine is about learning languages because I speak Spanish and English and I’m learning French, “Espinoza said. “We’re about to start learning how to change the colors of the letters and making it pretty, like the background, giving it color. You learn how to make paragraphs and how to make the letters bigger or smaller, how to add pictures and stuff like that.”

Espinoza is considering becoming an animator, so computer coding is for her a valuable tool.

“I used to draw little comics in my notebook when I was younger,” she said. “I also like reading. That’s why I kind of like animating because it’s like showing your own little story and making it move.”

Trevor Jones, another 7th grader, worked on a music activity, making various instruments play. As a tuba player, he has a particular interest in music. He’s also enjoying the computer science course.

“It’s fun. You learn a lot, like the binary coding language,” Jones said. “I have a little bit of an interest, but not enough to do it on my own, so this is a good opportunity.”

What Jones likes best about computer science is problem solving.

“If your code’s not working, you fix something so that it does work,” he said.

Worth the Effort

A bit of schedule rearranging was required to offer computer science as a mandatory course, but it came with “a very minimum cost to all the other subjects,” said Wrye. “We had to squeeze in an extra period.”

“We have a certain allotment of time per day and yes, we want to get as much in as we possibly can and there’s never enough time in the school day. But we are fortunate to have a rotating schedule where we were able to offer computer science to all of our students,” he said.

There’s a demand for skilled computer professionals in Connecticut, Wrye said.

“I went to a conference, and one of the really interesting things is Hartford is one of the top 5, 10 markets for computer science jobs because of the insurance industry,” he said. “And because we’re located between New York and Boston, we don’t have enough people that have these skills.

“This is a skill that most of the kids are going to need when they get into the workforce,” Wrye said.

Tiffini Hovey, a technical support assistant in the district’s Technology Department, was there to lend a hand and show her support.

“I think it’s great that they’re doing this and I wanted to come see what the kids create. They get very excited about it. It’s fun to watch that,” she said.

This year the district provided all students in grade 5 and above with Chromebooks, she explained. The kids not only use them in school, but are able to take them home. The laptops are replaced with new ones when they enter high school.

“And then when they leave here, they have the option to keep it. We just release them from the system and it’s their Chromebook,” she said.

The youngest students “have been doing great,” Hovey said. “They’re very responsible with them. Especially with the younger kids, we weren’t sure how that would work out. Because it’s a huge responsibility, especially coming into 5th grade [and] having a locker, changing classes.

“We have a couple of carts around the school in case somebody forgets it, doesn’t charge it,” she added. “If they’re having a problem connecting, there’s others available to them to do their work so they’re never without a computer.”

Wrye is proud of his district’s commitment to giving students a solid basis in computing.

“Exposing it to them now is really important because a lot of the people that are in those jobs now aren’t exposed to it until they get to college,” he said. “So to have those extra four, eight years before they get into college is really beneficial. [We’re] hopefully providing the kids with real world college and career ready skills.”