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W5 & Microsoft Dreamspace - 2020 Hour of Code ‘unplugged’!
W5 & Microsoft teamed up this year to offer an unplugged Hour of Code to P6 and P7 classes in the north of Ireland during Computer Science Week which ran from 9 - 17th December.
This morning our P6/7 children took the opportunity to access this unplugged coding session in an hour-long activity where they were challenged to think computationally, break down problems, develop structured solutions and design new ideas – acting like coders and developing computer science skills whilst having fun!
During the hour of engaging activities, the children focused on the following concepts:
- Coding
- Algorithms
- Bugs and debugging
- Sequencing and loops
- Decomposition
- Pattern recognition and
- Abstraction.
The session was fun filled, pitched in a way to ensure accessibility and engagement and linked the activities to the Global Goals for Sustainable Development. The children also received a certificate to recognise their great efforts during the hour.
To illustrate how our children got on, I’ll leave you with the words of Tommy Morgan, one of the Science Communicators at W5 who delivered the session:
“Dear Mr Conroy,
Thanks so much for such a brilliant session. Your pupils are fantastic! They should all be very, very proud of themselves!
I hope they learned something and are able to take some of this type of computational thinking away with them after today.
They are the first group I have had that had an understanding of algorithms and codes, so it was brilliant to finish off this Week of Coding with such a great class.”
A glowing tribute indeed – well done P6 &7!
St Oliver Plunkett School Primary School and Nursery Unit, 9 Laragh Road, Beragh, Omagh BT79 0TH