Virtual Code Club ends, another begins

I did twelve weeks of virtual code club. Each week I posted materials in our Google Classroom and sent out an email to parents as well. I occasionally hosted virtual office hours (about every other week) and I also tried to comment on all of the projects the students shared online.

I don’t know how many students participated beyond the few that came to the office hours or that shared projects online. Very few students posted comments in our Classroom and no parent ever responded to my emails after the first one. It is hard to believe no one had any questions, but it is easy to believe that with all of the other virtual classwork students were doing, no one had the bandwidth to add code club on top of it all.

Last virtual code club week post

For the final week, I thought about making another video of myself to say thanks for coming along with me on our virtual code club, but I made this Scratch project instead:

And challenged them to make a “Thank you card” Scratch project, too.

I posted Code Club certificates for them and closed the book on this experiment. In reflection, I learned that putting out weekly projects with no feedback as to how they are received is hard. I don’t like it. There is no way to change it on the fly to make it work for each student. I really don’t know what I need to change to engage more students, and yet I don’t think it was me that caused low attendance.  It was an optional part of virtual life during emergency remote learning during a pandemic.

So I put out project ideas that I thought they would like and that I liked, too. In the end, there are more Scratchers out there, creating projects that interest them. They may not have the foundational skills I was hoping to instill, but they are part of the Scratch Community and will find it for themselves or perhaps seek out more opportunities and working on more passion projects.

A code club member and Scratcher following his own interests.

Another new Scratcher working on their own passion project.

I’m starting my summer virtual code club through the public library today. I’m hoping some kids come so I can get some feedback and learn to be better at being a virtual code club coach.