#CSEverywhere is the theme of CSEdWeek 2021 - the week when classrooms all over the world, and in particular the United States, incorporate some computer programming into the curriculum. Minecraft has already launched its new Hour of Code - TimeCraft in which you travel through time to fix mysterious mishaps.

Although you can engage with Hour of Code activities at any time, the week that coincides with Grace Hopper's birthday, December 9th, and which since 2009 has been designated Computer Science Education Week is seen as the time to choose. This is when teachers around the world will be expected to schedule some activity that gives pupils a chance to interact with computers and discover the power of code.

Since the Hour of Code burst onto the scene in 2013 over 1.3Billion hour-long coding activities have been delivered and it has graduated from providing a very basic introduction to coding to more sophisticated activities. Last year's theme for Hour of Code was using Artificial Intelligence to help society. This year the Hour of Code activities will align with the theme #CSEverywhere, which highlights the impact that computer science is making everywhere and the relationship that computer science has to different subjects, industries, career paths, and our everyday lives.

The first to unveil its new Hour of Code activity, Minecraft has launched TimeCraft, a free lesson in Minecraft: Education Edition in which players travel back in time to save the future in this  Players can choose their own adventure and connect with great innovators and inventions in science, architecture, music, engineering, and more, even going into space with the Apollo 11 Mission.

TimeCraft is suitable for children as young as seven years old and includes in-game hints to guide players through coding tasks if they are playing on their own and not as part of a class or lesson. Some examples of what players can expect to do include coding a solution to prevent Giant Pandas from interfering with the construction of the Great Wall in China during the rule of the Zhao dynasty, or sourcing a trumpet for a jazz musician in the 1920s New York.

From the point of view of teachers the learning objectives are:

• Understand the importance and benefits of computer science in all aspects of life.
• Analyze and solve problems using algorithmic thinking and problem decomposition.
• Practice computer science concepts such as sequences, events, loops and debugging.
• Create coding solutions to successfully complete a task or solve a problem.
• Recognize the expanded career connections offered through computer science. 

To plan ahead for the Hour of Code, there's a catalog of hundreds of activities from all the partners who have joined with Code.org. With some available in 45 different languages, they can be filtered by age range and by Beginner or Comfortable to allow for the fact that many school students are now fairly competent coders and rather than need an introduction to coding just want the opportunity to hone their programming and algorithmic skills.

More Information

Hour of Code

Computer Science Education Week

Timecraft - Minecraft's 2021 Hour of Code

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