How did you become a teacher in Computer Science?
I became a teacher originally because I was avoiding getting in debt to pay for dental school. I was offered to take a couple methods courses to get a science and social studies K-8 teaching certificate. I have taught science, social studies, reading, and math courses over my 29 year journey in education. I got my Masters in Public Administration and I also went back to receive an Associates in Computer Education. That is what led me into taking over the computer courses at Woodworth.
How do you utilize CodeMonkey?
I use CodeMonkey courses as the main platform for our Computer Discoveries Course so that students can get an intro into coding by using the Coding Adventure Courses to learn the CoffeeScript language. As students get comfortable with the syntax of CoffeeScript we then introduce Python with the ultimate goal to get students programming comfortably in both CoffeeScript and Python code.
Do you have an interesting story to tell us?
Well the only thing that comes to mind is one of my girls that panicked on the second day of coding and let the class know she would never be able to learn coding. She finished the class completing all portions with three stars. Which is why I put a Don’t Panic sign from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on the top center of the board 😉 It also goes to show how well CodeMonkey supports the teachers, students, and parents.
Advice for teachers?
Kids love technology so if you have fun and make it fun they will learn. Also, don’t panic because coding is all about debugging mistakes so mistakes are good 😉
What else can you tell us about your CodeMonkey experience?
I have very much enjoyed my experience working with CodeMonkey. You have a wonderful platform for learning. You support all of the at stake individuals with many different forms of support from video to tutorials to even one on one contact. I and my students and parents have been very pleased with CodeMonkey 🙂
