No Fear Coding: Computational Thinking Across the K-5 Curriculum

by Heidi Williams

Coding and computational thinking are among the skills that will serve students well in the future. Coding goes beyond websites and software; it is an essential component in finding solutions to everyday problems. Computational thinking has many applications beyond the computer lab or math class. It teaches reasoning, creativity and expression, and is an innovative way to demonstrate content knowledge and see mathematical processes in action. No-Fear Coding shows K-5 educators how to bring coding into their curriculum by embedding computational thinking skills into activities for every content area. At the same time, embedding these skills helps students prepare for coding in the middle grades as they build their knowledge. To help teachers easily and effectively introduce coding, the book classroom-tested lessons and activities designed for skills progression; ready-to-implement coding exercises that can be incorporated across the curriculum; alignment to ISTE and Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) standards; and case studies and explorations of technology tools and resources to teach coding.

Genres: Nonfiction

168 pages, Paperback

Published June 15, 2017

Reviews

[Niki · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was largely disappointed by "No Fear Coding". I struggle to understand what big ideas the reader is supposed to glean from this text - not because it is too complicated, but because it didn't actually share a lot of concrete, useable information. It claimed to, but it fell short. Also, the number of grammatical errors, as well as a few times when the text references an image or other artifact that had not been included, was distracting.

Heidi Williams does attempt to guide educators to understand what computational thinking is and the connection to coding. She also shares a number of general ideas for projects and while they could have been more detailed in nature, they did help spark some related ideas of where I could incorporate coding/computational thinking into my activities.

Another educator (who has read the text) had suggested to read the text backward (chapters, not word-by word!). He claimed this helped him form a more clear understanding of what Williams was trying to convey. While I didn't do that, I plan to revisit the first few sections now that I have read the text in its entirety, to see if that helps me get a deeper understanding of the "big take aways" from the text.

[Richard Wren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heidi Williams’ No Fear Coding is an easy read that advocates the use of coding in the classroom and how it supports 21st century learning skills. The reader does not have to be familiar with coding terminology or the high-tech trends to understand this book. Williams had an audience in mind when writing this book and it was definitely for general education teachers. She focuses on K-5 classrooms but with so many teachers and students unfamiliar with coding, I can see implications up to high school. She provides examples of programs that support coding and then provides teacher resources, lesson plans, and stories of what a practical application of this technology looks like in the classroom. Williams introduces these programs to her readers and easily makes the case how all teachers can incorporate coding into their curriculum. As an upper elementary school teacher, No Fear Coding has me excited to tryout coding in my classroom and it’s simple to start thanks to Williams’ introductory lessons in her book.

[Katie Lechowski · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good for an educator who is knew to Computer Science.