Jackson-Milton Elementary School is piloting an exciting new student club for the 2016-17 school year. “Coder Club” is an initiative to get JM 5th and 6th grade students interested in computer programming and application design. Supervised by Mr. Ryan Rotuna – the district IT Director – the group meets after school one day every month.

So far, the students have completed “Minecraft” and “Angry Birds” themed coding projects that utilize a system of visual building blocks to educate on the concepts and usage of programming language. They have also completed a project to create a working model of our solar system complete with proper scale planet orbits and rotations. This was a cross-curricular endeavor coinciding with 5th and 6th grade science standards. In addition to these projects, all 28 Coder Club members have completed an “Hour of Code” and received a certificate of achievement (Google “hour of code” for more information).

Mr. Rotuna stated, “I was sparked to start the JMES Coder Club after attending a session at the Ohio Educational Technology Conference entitled ‘Girl Coders’. Girl Coders is a group of female students from the Kent School District that meet and work on coding projects much like our new student coders. They are more established and are even working with IT students from Kent State University. I am looking at bringing in some speakers in the future and have considered reaching out to these young ladies. I am very impressed with the strides that our JM kids have made as well as their ‘innate ability’ with coding. Mrs. Fisk has been very supportive of the club and I look forward to expanding it next school year.”