I started writing this post on the bus ride back from Kananaskis, Alberta where I just spent a few days at the Tim Hortons Camp with the students at our school. This was such an amazing experience - the kids had so much fun and the vast majority of them had never seen the mountains before. I am currently sitting on a bus with about 30 students as I write this post, so I hope they are behaving!
I believe coding is important for students to learn as it provides them with 'hard' skills that can be important down the road when they are seeking employment. By equipping our students with computer-related skills, it makes them more likely to be able to adapt to the shift in our workforce to higher use of technology. Computer coding is just one example but can provide some foundational skills that relate to increased competency with technology. It also teaches our students the need to continue to develop and evolve a variety of skills. Ultimately, one of our goals as teachers is to equip our students with the knowledge and skills they need to be successful once they have finished in the school system and are ready to seek employment. The more well-rounded that our students can be, the more employable they will be.
It's Me, Mario!
I decided that I wanted to complete one of the Hour of Code activities as I felt like these were more straightforward and could guide me through a specific task. I was trying to determine which specific activity I wanted to do and then I saw the title "Mario's Secret Adventure." Given that I dressed up as Mario for Halloween and am in my costume, I figured that this was a necessary choice. The coding activity started off pretty simple as it just showed you how to create code to make Mario move forward to collect a coin. It slowly built upon this and you were able to create actions for turning left or right, jumping, and also creating sounds associated with these actions.
The wonderful thing about this website and coding approach is that it takes you through the entire process of creating a game using code in a simple step-by-step approach. I didn't realize that creating an activity such as a Mario video game would be so simple, but I guess there's a reason it's been around forever! As I progressed along through this specific activity, I was able to create actions for different things including when there were collisions. The ability to create results that come from actions within the game was a fairly easy process and something that continued to be built on.
Throughout the steps in creating this game, it allows you to increasingly add details and results that may come from those. The If-else conditions pictured below allowed me to ensure that if Mario loses all his lives, he will die!
The link below shows me playing my version of the game I created, while I noticed some errors that needed fixing. You may have noticed that when I pressed play on this game, my Mario turned into Ariana Grande, the ground turned to magma, and the ocean turned red. This was one of the final neat steps that you could add to make your game unique from the traditional Mario and I enjoyed it. Within the first minute of the video I jumped into the lava, and oops, game over! You may also notice towards the end of the video that my character lost all it's lives and didn't die so I had to fix this error. I ended up making the adjustment and played a couple of times, but overall the process of creating the game was the fun part.
One of the greatest benefits of this activity is that I realized it is something that I could complete with students. Especially with older grades (7 & 8), they could easily engage in this activity independently and learn some valuable skills related to coding and the use of digital technology. Although I mentioned before that I believe in the value of coding, this was a real-life illustration of the value in learning a new skill while engaging in a fun activity. I definitely plan to use this website in my future as a teacher!