New Year, New Opportunities

Happy 2018!

First, some housekeeping.  I used this online random selection tool to choose the winner for our Hour of Code.  So congratulations to Andrea Heller on being the winner of the $10 Dunkin gift card!  Next year, I'd love to see some more of you try this out, especially as our children get better and better at coding from all the fun gadgets on the market.  Also, try the random picker sites for randomly selecting volunteers in your classes.

It's that time of year when everyone is looking back on 2017 and looking forward to what's in store for 2018.  So let's do just that. 

First, I'd love to share a list (I love lists) from one of my favorite resources for educators: Common Sense Media's Best EdTech of 2017.  It's organized by subject matter and grade level and free/paid/platform, etc, so it's great for finding a new tool. 

Second, let's discuss and reflect on portfolios for students.  We could write a book on the definition and purpose of portfolios, but I want to talk specifically about portfolios for students as they move through K-12.  First let me pose some questions to you:

• If you were (or are) implementing portfolios in your class and you wanted them to continue until graduation, what tool would you use?
• What would this portfolio contain?
• How would you connect what students are learning in your class to other subject areas?
• Who would select the best elements to include in the portfolio?

As you reflect on these ideas, you may already have assignments or methods in mind.  If you work at the secondary level, your students may already be able to share some ways in which to make it work or in which they see the cross-curricular nature of their education (my words, not theirs).  As students enter high school and they start to choose career pathways, how would the elements of their portfolio reflect the skills and knowledge base of the pathway they chose?

I want to delve more into this topic for future posts, but I would love to hear and learn more from anyone in the district who is already using portfolios of any kind!  I would also love to discuss this topic if you have experiences from children in other districts.  My son is in 2nd grade and he brings home a million papers!  I feel like I'm creating a portfolio when I choose what to keep.  Does anyone else have this experience?

WR's Hour of Code

This week is National Computer Science Week.  As part of this, Code.org hosts the Hour of Code, where they encourage everyone to learn a little bit of code.

So, with that in mind, I thought we could celebrate #throwbackthursday a little early and throw all the way back to 1999, when I took a high school coding class at Bishop Neumann High School.  In the class, we learned msdos and html (those were simpler times).  Html has evolved and become more complex, with xhtml and html5...blah blah blah.

Anyway, basic HTML is not that complicated.  You just need to start the code by using the <> blocks and then tell it to end by using </> blocks.  For example, <html> begins the block and </html> ends the block.

Then there are basic other commands, such as:

<head> and </head> create a header

<body> and </body> (Everything you want to appear on the page must be between these blocks.)

<br> which inserts a line break

<p> which inserts a paragraph (or two line) break

<a href=””> and </a>which inserts a link

<center> and </center> which places the text in the center

<hr> puts a horizontal line across the page

<body bgcolor=””> changes the background color of the page

<body text=””> changes the text color of the page

You can also use hex values to determine a color, which is identifying colors by a combination of six digits.  Here are some hex values.

There are many other commands and you can find some of them here.

So for example, if I wanted something to look like this:

Welcome to Warrior Run Hour of Code!

Are you learning about the basics of html today?

Visit the blog for more information.

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The code would look like this.

You can use a site like practiceboard to write code and check the output of the code.

I also recommend the following sites to learn more about coding in general, including HTML.

• Code.org
• Codecademy
• Tynker
• Code Combat
• Khan Academy

So here’s the fun part.  Below is a small amount of text and I want you to use the code and the practiceboard website to type out the code.  If you email me the code and it is correct, you will be entered into a drawing for a $10 gift card to Dunkin Donuts.  Everyone knows that teachers run on Dunkin.  :)

Try this:

I learned how to code with HTML!

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Please enter me into the drawing for the Dunkin’ gift card.  Thanks!

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That’s it!  The due date is December 15, 2017.  Email me the link to your practiceboard. Good luck!