Library Shelfie Day

This fun mini holiday takes place the fourth Wednesday in January.

#libraryshelfie

Hour of Code

We live in a world surrounded by technology. And we know that whatever field our students choose to go into as adults, their ability to succeed will increasingly depend on understanding how technology works.

But only a tiny fraction of us are learning how technology works. Only 47% of all high schools teach computer science.

That’s why our entire school is joining in on the largest learning event in history: The Hour of Code, during Computer Science Education Week (December 6-12). More than 100 million students worldwide have already tried an Hour of Code. Our Hour of Code is making a statement that IRS is ready to teach these foundational 21st-century skills.

This is a chance to change the future of education in Mascoma Valley Regional School District.

We kicked off our school's Hour of Code with a guest speaker who visited us virtually. Richard Littauer is a community facilitator and open source strategist with SustainOSS. His talk focused on the opportunities coding has given him in life. Doing what he loves, he has built success for himself, he has been able to travel the world and pursue his hobbies, and he has even turned his hobbies into code!

With all of his successes, we wondered about his failures as well. He said that he has had many of those and that "failure is a great place to start because, what do you have to lose?" He encouraged students to start by focusing on something they are passionate about and think about how to turn that into code. Or, maybe even something they aren't so passionate about, and half-jokingly suggested they create a program to do their math homework for them!

You can tune into Richard's Podcast Sustain, which brings together practitioners, sustainers, funders, researchers and maintainers of the open source ecosystem. https://podcast.sustainoss.org/

The students enjoyed the talk and had a lot of thoughtful questions for him. Hopefully they are inspired to get creative and get coding!

With the Hour of Code underway at IRS, the students are encouraged to create a "Dance Party" on Code.org. Those that do will be entered into a raffle for a free poster!

See http://hourofcode.com/us/en for details, and help spread the word.