Student Blogging Challenge Week 9: Coding

So far in the Student Blogging Challenge, we’ve done a lot of creating and communicating with our blogs. This week, we’re looking at the more technical side of blogging and computers: coding!

I’ll be introducing you to my colleague who is an inspirational young coder and we’ll also be celebrating Computer Science Education Week (December 3-8).

Let's have some fun with coding for week nine of the Student Blogging Challenge

Week Eight Recap

Trophy image -- great workThere were lots of great tasks submitted last week!

Let’s take a look at just some of the fantastic work we spotted last week:

Survey Results

Remember last week we ran a poll to see which holidays our STUBC participants celebrate? We had 1015 responses!

Here are the most popular responses: What do you celebrate?

Other responses included birthdays, Eid, 4th of July, Chinese New Year, Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashanah, and Vaisakhi.

Tip: I made the chart above by entering the survey data into a free online tool called BEAM. It’s handy!

 

Meet Alex!

I invited a young coder who works for Edublogs to tell you about himself.

  • Alex is a 17-year-old school student in the United States.
  • He became vision impaired during 9th grade and lost most of his sight within 6 months.
  • Alex would LOVE you to comment on this post.

Over to Alex…

My name is Alex and I work as an accessibility developer and system administrator for Incsub which is the company behind Edublogs.

I started here at Incsub in May 2017 just days after I turned sixteen years old. I go to school in the day and work in the night. Although this job can be demanding, I always love the challenge it offers me day by day.

Alex’s role with the company

One of my main roles is to ensure all servers are running properly and respond when automation fails. Basically, I make sure we stay online.

I have helped with building infrastructure components and hosting. This means I built the parts that make our servers work to host our sites and helped with moving networks of websites to our servers.

My other working time is spent ensuring all Incsub sites (including Edublogs, CampusPress, and WPMU DEV) stay completely accessible to visually impaired users who rely on screen reading technology. A screen reader reads aloud the screen for people who can’t see or have other limitations.

Alex’s blindness

Although some would see visual impairment as something you can’t live with, I assure you it’s very possible.

When I first started at Incsub I was hired to provide live chat support for WPMU DEV (a WordPress company that’s part of Incsub). That would later translate into becoming an accessibility developer. (Developer is another word for coder or programmer).

I study our company sites weekly to ensure they are accessible to everyone. The sad news is most sites are not. Just because I cannot see very much, I cannot use a lot of websites.

Now I get to work every day to ensure all sites are accessible within Incsub as everyone deserves the same opportunity for accessing the web.

How Alex learned to code

Learning to code wasn’t all that challenging. I first started learning basic HTML in the 7th grade. It just took off from there.

I found WordPress, signed up for web hosting, and started learning the ways of web development.

It wasn’t until I started to code for accessibility development here that I really learned more of the advanced coding languages. I have taught myself HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, React JS, PHP, and Shell.

Moving on from accessibility development, I ran into system administration (upkeeping and configuring servers). I started learning with a company called Linux Academy. It’s an online program that allows you to learn Linux concepts, Cloud basics, Docker, and a whole host of other subjects.

I’m still very much in the practice stages but getting better every day. It’s cool what you can do with servers and don’t let your disability stand in your way.

A coding career

It is very important to me that the younger audiences get involved with coding. Without the younger generation, the sharing of information starts to drop. We need to keep this open sharing idea around. That way, everyone can learn from each other. It is truly the sharing of information that makes everyone smarter.

Getting the young involved in technology should increase the chance of them finding a really good paying job in the future, after graduation.

Leave a comment!

What are you curious about? Do you have any other questions for Alex? He’s very happy for you to leave a comment on Mrs. Morris’s week 9 post.

Below is a picture of Alex at work at a big WordCamp event last year (that’s a WordPress conference. WordPress is the software that powers 30% of the web including Edublogs and CampusPress). Alex is wearing the yellow and black hoodie.

Alex and his dadLeo and someone I forgot the name ofMy favourite WP developer and friend Andrea Fercia

Rian Rietveld@RianRietveld

Thanks all the people who were at the table of the contributor day!
Especially @jdelia and Katherine White for testing Gutenberg for a full day.
And a big shoutout to Alex Stine, a 16 yr old web dev that helps with coding and testing with NVDA.

 See Alex’s responses!

What Is Coding?

Coding is basically a set of words that tell your blog, a website, an app, a game, or other software what to do. Without coding, a computer or device won’t do anything.

Here are some videos that explain coding further.

This is a great one-minute video for younger students to explains coding.

Older students might enjoy this one-minute video.

This 4-minute video is also a great explanation for older students with a few more details.

Computer Science Week

Computer Science Education Week runs annually worldwide. This year, it’s being held from 3-8 December.

Many schools, teachers, and students participate in Hour of Code during Computer Science Education Week.

Why is computer science worth celebrating and promoting?

This video shows us how computer science is improving so many areas of our life.

What is Hour of Code?

Hour of Code is designed to introduce young people worldwide to the basics of coding and computer science through one-hour coding activities.

While these activities are promoted during Computer Science Education Week, they can be done at any time throughout the year.

Coding And Blogging

In the early days of the internet, if you wanted a blog or website, you had to know how to code it yourself.

Nowadays, most of the hard work is done for us and anyone can claim a website in minutes. For example, you can go to edublogs.org and sign up for a free blog. You don’t need to make your blog. All you need to worry about is the design and content.

Despite that fact that you don’t have to know how to code to be a part of the online community, there are many reasons why having some basic understandings of coding is helpful.

Being comfortable with coding can help you:

  • Customize aspects of your blog (like adding/editing embed code).
  • Troubleshoot (when something doesn’t look right, you can check the code for obvious errors).
  • Learn important skills like logical thinking, creativity, and communication.
  • Consider a wide range of career paths and explore coding in more depth.

Week Nine Tasks

This week there are three tasks to choose from. We strongly encourage you to complete the first task and leave a comment for Alex. He’d love to hear from you!

All tasks are suitable for student bloggers and I’ve offered ideas on how they can be adapted for classes.

Let's have some fun with coding for week nine of the Student Blogging Challenge

Task 1: Leave A Comment For Alex

Go back and re-read the blurb above about Alex.

Alex certainly has an inspiring story to share. Despite being blind and a school student, he’s an outstanding self-taught coder and a highly valued member of staff at Edublogs.

Leave a comment on Mrs. Morris’s week 9 post. Scroll down to find the commenting box at the bottom of this post.

Maybe you want to know about learning to code, using a computer as a blind person, managing school and a job, or anything else!

Don’t forget:

  • Introduce yourself briefly — maybe say your age and where you’re from
  • Read over your comment before you submit it and fix up any errors
  • Check back to see if Alex has replied

 See Alex’s responses!

Task 2: Try An Hour Of Code Activity

For this task, try an Hour of Code activity and write a blog post about it.

The Hour of Code website is jam-packed with activities that you can try!

A good place to start is the ‘student-guided tutorials‘. Don’t worry if you haven’t tried coding before, you’ll be walked through what to do. It’s fun!

Be sure to filter your search results to find a suitable activity.

  • You’ll see the ages listed on the bar at the top from pre-readers up to Grades 9+.
  • Along the left-hand side, you can also filter activities based on what technology you have and what topics you’d like to explore.

Screenshot Hour of Code website

When you’ve tried out an activity, write a blog post about it. Make sure you include the link to the activity (a screenshot would be awesome too!). Review the activity. Tell your readers what you learned and whether you recommend it to others.

Task 3: Try Some Code On Your Blog

While you’re creating a post, you’ll notice that there is a visual editor and text editor.

Switch between text and visual when you're writing a post

Switching between the two is easy but we mostly write our blog posts using the visual editor. It’s based on a ‘what you see is what you get’ framework (just like programs like Microsoft Word or Google Docs).

Unlike the visual editor, the text editor requires you to add any formatting such as italics, bold, links, and spacing manually using HTML (although there are some shortcut buttons you can use).

HTML is a computer language that stands for Hypertext Markup Language. It’s the standard language for creating web pages.

This activity involves trying some HTML by writing the code in the text editor. You can also use HTML in comments. When you’ve had a go at trying HTML, write a blog post about it and tell everyone how you went. Was it easy/hard? Did you learn anything new?

The instructions below show you how to use bold, italics, and add a link.

Remember, coding is about troubleshooting. So if something doesn’t work, take a closer look at your code. Maybe you’ve added a space or missed a symbol.

Too easy? More advanced coders can look up the HTML for different functions like headings, lists (bullet points), color, horizontal rule (line), and more. There are a LOT of guides to learning HTML online. You might even make your own cheat sheet and publish it for others!

Submit Your Post URL 

If you want a commenter and other participants to visit your blog, remember to fill in the Google Form below.

Examples of post URLS for STUBC

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