Mesa College Students Participate in Largest Learning Event in Nation’s History

Hoping to spark student interest in computer programming, San Diego Mesa College will participate with an icy Disney twist in the global Hour of Code event this year, the largest learning event in the nation's history. The event is open to the public.

Prof. Richard Cassoni and the Mesa College Computer and Information Sciences (CISC) Department are sponsoring an Hour of Code Day event as part of Computer Science Education Week (December 8-14).  The event happens Monday December 8, 2014 from noon until 7pm on the campus of San Diego Mesa College, in rooms K101 and K105. Exercises are built to take an hour or less to complete.

At Mesa’s Hour of Code, students will be exposed to programming using drag and drop “code chunks” to make Disney "Frozen" characters. Anna and Elsa build KEWL snowflakes, here in an example.  Students will then be able to see the underlying code that built the shapes.  NO PROGRAMMING EXPERIENCE is required.  Students will also have an opportunity to program and play with LinkBot robots.

Prizes will be given out throughout the event, sponsored by Epsilon Systems; and all participants will receive an “I CODED Today” button. At the conclusion of the event, a few lucky students will win Starbucks cards and one, a Samsung Tablet.

The Hour of Code is a global movement sponsored by the nonprofit Code.org. Their website encourages students to learn more about technology with additional resources and workshops.  During CSE Week, Code.org and several other websites are hosting free Hour of Code workshops that are aimed at all ages. It is Code.org’s mission to bring the opportunity to learn computer science to all students nationwide.