By Dawn Burleigh

The Orange Leader

 

In a school district hit hard by the historical storm, Harvey, the Intro to Technology class of Little Cypress Junior High School proved themselves as winners when they were named one of two grand prize winners in the second annual Learning.com’s Code-a-Thon.

The 73 students worked towards the goal in the global competition to introduce coding to elementary and middle school students. Code-a-Thon 2017 registrations topped 650,000, an increase of 164 percent from the competition’s inaugural year in 2016. Students who participated in the company’s competition, developed their coding skills through a series of increasingly difficult challenges. Dixon Elementary and Little Cypress Junior High will each receive 20 laptops and a free year-long subscription to Learning.com’s award-winning digital literacy products, EasyTech and EasyCode.

“The 20 computers will help us when we move to robots,” Technology teacher Leah Martin said. “We are not in our classroom right now.”

Half the eight grade class participated in the competition. The other half will start the class in the next semester.

“The students had a blast with it,” martin said. “They created a game with code. They worked very hard and had a blast. They were learning through the skills they gained and as we move on, they will build on it.”

Dixon Elementary School of Dixon, Kentucky was also named grand prize winner.

Four 2017 Code-a-Thon runners up were also selected. They are:

Playa del Rey Elementary School, Los Angeles;

Winfield Middle School, Winfield, West Virginia;

Patsy Sommer Elementary School, Round Rock, Texas; and

Knox Gifted Academy, Chandler, Arizona.

“We are honored to congratulate the winners of this year’s Code-a-Thon,” said Learning.com CEO, Keith Oelrich. “During the week-long competition, it was amazing to see students and teachers around the globe complete the coding challenges and enthusiastically build coding skills that will prepare them for success in today’s digital economy.”

To participate in the 2017 Code-a-Thon, schools registered to receive free access to EasyTech and EasyCode. Between November 13-17, students coded their way through a series of challenges – each with increasing levels of difficulty – earning points for those successfully completed.