On December 11th and 17th,
one hundred Colonie High School students did not leave the school
after the final bell rang. Instead, they entered one of the several
computer labs to participate in a fun, and educational experience known,
internationally, as the Hour of Code. Each participating student could choose a
specific program to learn and practice basic computer code, which would
progressively move him or her through different levels of difficulty. According
to participate Michelle Luo, the program was "fun, like playing a
game." Although each student arrived at different levels of coding
experience, they all left more knowledgeable and interested in the quickly
growing field of Computer Science.
Colonie
Central High School hosted one of the 77,433 worldwide Hour of Code events on
December 11 and December 17, 2014. The original dates of the event were
December 10th and 11th, 2014, but because of winter
weather conditions, the December 10th event was postponed to
December 17th. However, the South Colonie School District did not
contain this program to the high school. In order to provide the young students
with an early exposure to the rapidly growing future of Computer Science,
several elementary classrooms participated as well.
According
to Colonie High School's executive principal, Christopher Robilotti, the 205
students who registered exceeded the expected number of participates, yet he
was disappointed that only 100 showed up, although the rescheduling could have
caused the problem. Still, Christopher Robilotti and Michelle Famoso, a Colonie
Physics teacher, have contacted each other to begin brainstorming ideas to
increase to participation next year. One possible idea is to incorporate the
program into the science, technology, engineering, or math classes with the
intention of allowing even the students who cannot stay after school with the
same opportunity.
Among the
100 students who actually participated were Colonie High School seniors, Mark
Lipina and Michelle Luo. Mark Lipina, who also participated in the 2013 Hour of
Code, was able to advance his coding ability to more technical levels. For
Michelle Luo, this was her first coding experience, therefore she stated that
her program, "Wasn't really coding. It was more like playing a game,"
but she still found it interesting.
Computer coding has fascinated Mark Lipina as much to desire that
Colonie Central High School offer official coding classes to prepare students
for the demands they will find in many technical careers. Michelle Luo is glad
she had the exposure to the interesting field of computer coding, but says that
because she, "already has a different career to go into," she will
most likely not pursue a career in Computer Science. 