Kalona Elementary Hour of Code students (L-R): Chase Rundall, Jeremiah Rempel, Ella Gelement, and Behla Schmidt; photo by Joe Cerwinske

One of the fastest growing vocations in the world is computer programming, and the Mid-Prairie School District is giving their students a head start in the field with their Hour of Code program. According to Learning Design Coach Frank Slabaugh, the school starts students off in kindergarten with basic coding skills using images. As the students go through the grades and become more advanced, the curriculum expands. Slabaugh says they have students use a website called code.org, which has courses of varying degrees of difficulty, and the students work on coding at least once a week for around an hour.

Slabaugh and fellow Learning Design Coach Glenda Seward have been in charge of the Hour of Code program. Seward explained how the program got off the ground at Mid-Prairie, “Nationally, they’re trying to get more and more people involved in coding. There are many, many, many more jobs than there are programmers coming out of college programs, and so getting people interested younger was the idea.” In addition to the Hour of Code, there are coding clubs at Wellman Elementary, Kalona Elementary, and the middle school, as well as a computer science course next year at the high school. For more information about the Hour of Code program, listen to the In Touch with Southeast Iowa interview with Slabaugh, Seward, and four students in the program at Kalona Elementary at KCIIRadio.com.

The students use code.org to learn the basics of coding; photo by Joe Cerwinske