By JESSICA HARDING
Staff Writer
HOLMDEL — At St. Benedict’s School, 444 students recently celebrated Computer Science Education Week by devoting an hour to coding.
The Hour of Code event on Dec. 7 was brought into the K-8 school by Principal Candace Wallace.
“When I taught at public schools, we used to participate in this event,” she said. “I wanted to bring it here because I think it needs to be in our schools because of how technologically advanced our world is becoming.”
The Hour of Code is a global project that over 200,000 educators partake in. President Barack Obama, Mark Zuckerberg and celebrities, such as Ashton Kutcher, endorse the program.
According to Wallace, not many people are familiar with block coding so this event helped to teach students at all age levels how to start. She particularly liked the opportunities it presented.
“I was always very passionate about engineering. As a young girl, I did not have many opportunities so I am glad to see the young women and men embrace this event.”
Computer Tech Coordinator and former computer programmer, Anita Mangan, was given the idea for the event and “ran away with it,” according to Wallace.
“First, the children sat down in the library and watched a short film about how to code,” Mangan began. “Then they went into the gym and sat down and started coding. All the activities we gave them were age-appropriate tasks they could complete on iPads, Chromebooks and Bee Bots for the younger children.”
Some coding activities the students participated in were creating games with themes of “Frozen” and “The Amazing World of Gumball.”
Fourth grader Abigail Cangelosi had such enthusiasm for the event.
“It is really cool!” she said. “We get to experiment with tons of new stuff with coding. I was able to create a dinosaur game.”
Cangelosi’s fellow classmate, Anthony Minervini, was also having a great time.
“My best friend John and I made a zombie invasion game; it is so fun to play,” he said.
The faculty and staff wanted the event to prepare students for a future of potential jobs that may require coding.
Wallace was delighted to see how well the event was going.
“A fourth-grade student even came up to me and told me, ‘You know what Mrs. Wallace? This was a really good idea,’” she said.
Director of Marketing and Event Management Lori Ulrich described how significant this event was.
“Learning about technology and the exposure to coding is significant,” she said. “It opens up so many doors for potential career paths and can allow other areas, such as graphics and design, to be explored.”
Each staff member wore a coding T-shirt to the event and worked as a team to make it the success that it was.