Coding begins in L-E preschool; more,
The youngest students in an area school district are about to tackle technology to prepare them for an unknown future.
This year, Liberty-Eylau Independent School District’s kindergarten through fourth grade students will spend 45 minutes each morning learning coding.
“We know that we’re trying to prepare kids for the future employment-wise and what’s out there in the world and we know that a lot of those jobs don’t exist yet,” said Superintendent Ronnie Thompson. He and the administrative staff began talking with principals and teachers last year about integrating cutting-edge technology in the classroom. Some embraced it then, he said, and implemented it for half of the school year, putting even the youngest children on the Chromebooks to learn coding.
“We had some teachers brave enough to put all those little bitty Pre-K 4s on Chromebooks at one time and had such great success with it,” said Stormy Cullum, the district’s technology integration specialist. “Even the young ones at the Pre-K 3 level can learn to use a password, which is part of that digital citizenship and a survival skill in today’s world.”
Cullum has been instrumental in the implementation of the program, as she is a Level 1 and 2 Google-certified educator, a Google-certified trainer and a Google-certified innovator, the highest level of Google certification. She was one of 50 people Google invited to train as an innovator three years ago in Austin. Now, she is fully vetted by Google and trains teachers not only at L-E, but in other districts throughout the Region VIII service area.
“They’re looking for people who want to share. That’s what it’s all about. Collaboration and sharing,” she said. “Let’s improve any way they can in education.”
Each student will use their Google Drive, a virtual digital platform where they can save documents, videos and other data. Cullum said the state is now encouraging districts to create electronic portfolios of students’ work and at L-E, this will be done through Google Drive. Parents will also have access to it to see their child’s progress.
“That’s the other great thing—is the stuff that we’re teaching our students through their Google Drive, they can access free at home through their smartphone. It’s not like we’re teaching them something at school that they cannot do on their own at home,” Cullum said.
Teachers will also utilize Google Classroom, where they can set up a lesson and push it to all the students’ Chromebooks. They can then do the lesson together or individually.
“We don’t have to stay on top of them. They want to play it,” said Tristin Willis, pre-K data technology lead teacher. “It’s very engaging and intriguing. But it also helps us cover left, right, up, down, colors, starting over and it’s OK to make mistakes and there’s a lot that we can do with that game.”
She added that the students also learn how to program hands-on robots like Kibo and Dot and Dash.
“The wonderful thing is these kids can go self-paced, so they have success no matter what,” Cullum said. “If they’ve got to work at a slower rate, that ‘s fine. If they work faster, that’s fine. Then again, it’s that problem solving and the success when they finally solve that problem.”
Teachers will also have large mobile touchscreen tablet boards in their classrooms that will be wirelessly connected to the Chromebooks. This way, Cullum said, teachers have more freedom and flexibility in what they can do with the lesson.
“One thing about the devices we’re using, is it keeps the children mobile,” she said. “So if they want to do inside learning, outside learning, wherever they have to go, that’s fine. If they have to lay down on their belly and work, that’s fine. Nothing wired. We give our kids freedom. It gives our teachers so much room for creativity.”
Willis said that as the students get older, many of the teachers will be able to implement more project-based learning.
“That gives the kids voice and choice. Now that they know the coding at that level, they have the voice and choice on what they want to show that they’ve learned and present what they’ve learned,” she said. “Once those kids have those skills, they will just use that. And the teachers can make sure they’re just covering the curriculum and the students are using those as learning tools to show what they’ve learned and understand.”
Cullum agreed, saying, “It’s the freedom to meet their learning styles instead of them meeting our teaching style. It takes time, but it’s lead teachers like this that help model the plan and show that it is successful in the trenches.”
“The wonderful thing is these kids can go self-paced, so they have success no matter what.” —Stormy Cullum