This year, Computer Science Education Week is more popular and ambitious in scope than ever before. December 8-14, students across the country, and internationally, will be introduced to the basic concepts of computer science. Many will be using Hour of Code tutorials, including a lesson inspired by the movie Frozen. ECEP states are planning big and are yielding impressive results. Please read on for details and links.

Massachusetts

More than 1,000 Hour of Code activities are planned for schools across the state. ECEP supplied teachers in some 30 schools with brochures, buttons, and posters. Go to http://caite.cs.umass.edu/educators/CSEdWeek.html to see a list of supported schools. ECEP collaborator Mass TLC will be using Storify to capture all the happenings in the state. And Massachusetts Academy of Math and Science in Worcester created the winning high school video for CSTA’s Faces of Computing Video Contest (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8lz2nuZ01I&feature=youtu.be).

Georgia

More than 1,200 events have been registered through Code.org. The Technology Association of Georgia (TAG) in cooperation with other groups in Georgia are promoting a “Georgia Day of Code” on December 10.  For more information see http://www.tagedonline.org/georgia-day-of-code/.

California

Over 6,100 events have been registered through Code.org. NBC Bay Area has dedicated several stories to Hour of Code (see http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Class-Action-Gearing-Up-for-the-Hour-of-Code-284942781.html and http://www.pressheretv.com/hour-of-code/).  ECEP State Coordinator and ACCESS Executive Director Julie Flapan penned a compelling opinion piece in the state capitol newspaper (http://sacb.ee/22gb).

South Carolina

800 events have been registered through Code.org. IT-ology (http://it-ology.org) is hosting an Hour of Code workshop every day of Computer Science Education Week, on-site at IT-ology in Columbia.