On December 8th, 2015, Will Rogers took part in a global initiative to get students K-12 involved in computer science, called "The Hour of Code." Every single Will Rogers student spent at least one hour of their school day coding on December 8th. "Coding" is a type of computer science that involves learning how to write programs, so learning how to code is basically learning to speak the language of computers! Our 5th, 1st, and Kindergarten classes even had special visitors from Ventura High School's AP Computer Science Class to help with the event. The eight high school students helped our elementary students through the free one-hour tutorials on CODE.org. In other grade levels students built and programmed LEGO robots, programmed Dash and Dot Robots, or completed the free one-hour online tutorials on CODE.org which highlighted characters from Frozen, Minecraft or Star Wars. Many students didn't want to stop when the hour was over! 

Will Rogers is a strong believer in CODE.org's mission to expose children of all ages, gender, and ethic backgrounds to computer science to prepare them for 21st century careers. In addition to this hour of code event, Will Rogers has a robotics and computer science program in place for K-5 which includes lessons during the school day at least five times per year using one or more of the following: Cubelets, Dash and Dot Robots, LEGO WeDo Robotics, CODE.org, plus iPad apps such as Lightbot, the Foos, Scratch Jr., and more.

Will Rogers also offers computer science during its After School Programs, including CODE.org full length courses and a LEGO Engineering Club.  

2015-12-08 10.00.15 from Mandi de Witte on Vimeo.