Technology has taken over our world from the cellphones we use in our daily lives to the Chromebooks in our classroom and will constantly be growing as you read this story.  With the phones in front of our faces we see what’s on the screen but do we know exactly how that stuff gets on it?

The answer is coding.

Coding is the steps of how any form of technology is run. Coding is how the tweet in twitter posts, how flappy bird flaps, and the way a microwave heats food.

Many think it sounds complicated, but basically it is typing directions for a computer to do and then that computer will do it for you.

Northview students became coders for a day with the program “Hour of Code” taking place in iMedia and computer graphics teacher Tami Blue’s classroom.

Hour of Code is a national event going to millions of classrooms around the world. Any age can participate and activities range from getting Elsa from Frozen to ice skate all the way to creating your own video game. Students are recommended to work for at least an hour, but could work for however long they wanted.

Freshmen all the way up to seniors signed up to participate and stopped in during their free periods throughout the day. They were welcomed with food, drinks and stickers saying they participated. Mrs. Blue’s students tutored students who coded and recruited people to participate along the way.

On the website students would login and choose an activity ranging from easy to hard. The Elsa ice skating activity required students to make Elsa ice skate in the correct direction. Students would place blocks telling her to turn right, forward, back, etc. Tutorials were given and every level would increase in complexity. The student would press go and whatever directions they gave Elsa, she would then ice skate to them.

Students were surprised at how easy it was to give directions and how the computer does it for them. The purpose of the website is to show that everyone can code no matter how much they know about computers. Coding is now being put into subjects at school to take and one day may even come to Northview.

“It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be and I thought it was really fun. It inspired me to be creative,” junior Sammi Klinger said.

Over the day 300 hours were coded from NV students. “I think it went really well and people were surprised it wasn’t hard. Students tweeted out their customized games they made during the day,” Mrs. Blue said.

If you didn’t get a chance to code you can always go on the website at hourofcode.com and learn more about it.

Mrs. Blue said there will definitely be another Hour of Code at NV in the future.

– Trent Croci, Staff Writer