A new language
By Phyllis Moore
Published in News on October 15, 2015 1:46 PM
The Optimist Club of Goldsboro was recently approved to launch a pilot program in computer coding for students in Wayne County Public Schools.
The before-school club was introduced last month at Wayne School of Engineering to determine its feasibility. The hope is to one day expand it districtwide, officials said.
"We're going to run the pilot for six to eight weeks and see how it goes," said Tamara Ishee, the district's assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction. "The dream would be to have it at every middle and high school in the county.
"My real dream is that this becomes a course in elementary schools because this is a language we all need to know."
The purpose of the club is to provide students with the opportunities, experience and resources to pursue their interests in computer science prior to graduating from high school.
Charlie Wood, lead manager/liaison for the Optimist Coding Club, and Banks Peacock, a retired computer science professor and club instructor, believe in the premise.
They approached the district with the proposal in August, setting it up on an application basis for interested students. Students can use computers that are provided or bring their own.
Initially, students are learning how to use Scratch 2.0, a free programming language used to create interactive stories, games and animals.
"It's pretty free form," said Banks of the program developed by MIT. "We're letting students actually teach themselves a program. It's a visual program language where the students just kind of build parts from menus."
"It's a good beginning for kids," added Wood.
The club had potential for 25 students since the meeting room has 25 stations. The first week, nine showed up. Last week they had 12.
"We would like to work with the school system to get this started at all locations," Wood said. "It's going to take time but more public school districts are going toward a computer science curriculum. Since Wayne County doesn't have anything like this, we thought, Banks and I thought, it would be a good idea to get a coding club and expand that later on to something a little more formal."
The agenda is loose, structured but not stringent.
Banks stands at the board in front of the classroom and jots down some pointers, gives a few instructions, "and then we turn them loose," he says.
"This is not a class," he said of the club, adding, "This has got a lot of possibilities.
"The Scratch program, you can save it and anybody in the world can look at your project. It's a cool little project. They can use it at home on their computer."
"I like how I can look at other people's stuff and if I see something I will edit it where I like it," said Andon Culbreth, a sixth grader who brought his own laptop. "Whenever I grow up, I want to make games. The reason why I wanted to join (the club) was so I would know how to do that."
At this session, the group is learning how to do animation, starting with their name.
Ninth-grader Thomas Nevins said he has long had a fascination with how games and computer codes work.
"I know it's a little more complicated, but I wanted to figure out how to do that," he said "I like how now I know how to do the basics -- make somebody walk or a character walk or jump."
Nile Harvey, a freshman at the school, signed up because he thought it could be a good learning experience.
"I already program a lot and I want to meet other programmers and help them," he said.
He also has aspirations for a future in the field.
"I want to go into computer development, what they call penetration testers, or pen testers, which tests security for companies," he said. "A lot of people in my family program, too. My uncle works for Red Hat."
Charlotte Taricani, a seventh-grader, was also excited about the club.
"I go to my dad's work and he does the lighting for the Paramount Theatre," she said. "It looks really interesting but I was really confused about it.
"I like animation and video games so I thought this was interesting."
After the pilot program is complete, Banks and Wood will meet with district officials to review the results and determine the future of the Coding Club, they said.