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The Hour of Code, commonly abbreviated as HOC, is a weeklong program that has been featured on Scratch annually since 2013.
Purpose
The Hour of Code is designed to introduce people to coding, as well as get them familiarized with coding. This is done by hosting hour-long activities which are supposedly engaging and/or educational. The goals of the Hour of Code are to inspire students, create Computer Science classes, prepare teachers for teaching Computer Science, etc.[1]
Achievement
The Hour of Code has changed the school curriculum in over 30 US districts, and has also changed policies in over 16 US states.[1] Almost 22 billion lines of code have been written during Hour of Code, and over 735 million people have been introduced to programming.[2] A petition on their website finds that almost 2 million people state that they believe "Every student in every school should have to learn computer science."[3]
Participation
There are two ways to participate in Hour of Code: online and local. Several events are listed on the Hour of Code website, with one of them being Scratch. Hour of Code on Scratch consists of three activities, with tutorials being in the Scratch Editor. They are: "Animate Your Name", "Hide and Seek", and "Dance, Dance, Dance". More information can be found here. Once a project is made, it can be added to the appropriate Hour of Code studio. Those include: Animate Your Name,[4] Hide and Seek,[5] and Dance, Dance, Dance.[6] The second way to participate is to attend a local Hour of Code event.[7] Local events may or may not be connected to Scratch.[citation needed]
Cartoon Network and the Scratch Team teamed up in the 2015 Hour of Code. The Scratch Hour of Code featured the Cartoon Network TV show We Bare Bears. Scratchers could participate by creating a We Bare Bears project and submitting it to the studio.
The Hour of Code studios are managed and owned by the Scratch Team.
Effects
Hour of Code usually occurs starting on the second Tuesday of December and ends on the third Tuesday of the month. In the past couple of years, it has increased the number of Scratchers registered.[8] Due to the influx of traffic, the Scratch Team creates an announcement warning of possible server slowness or other hiccups. Even on the forums, spambots are common and the 120 Second Rule was extended to 600 seconds.[9]
International Hour of Code
On October 10, 2015, Scratch added participation to Hora do Codigo Brasi (Brazilian Hour of Code) by creating a studio called Rio 2016 and encouraging users to create projects about the upcoming Rio 2016 Olympic Games.
A little while after that Scratch Celebrated the Europe Code Week and people could remix and create their own project that had people (sprites) dancing in a Europe scene and post a link to their project in the Ode to Code Dance - Europe Code Week studio.
Cartoon Network
Cartoon Network is a TV channel that airs animated TV shows aimed at children such as Adventure Time, The Amazing World of Gumball, Steven Universe, and Teen Titans Go. Cartoon Network and the Scratch Team teamed up in the 2015 Hour of Code. The Scratch Hour of Code featured the Cartoon Network TV show We Bare Bears. Scratchers could participate by creating a We Bare Bears project and submitting it to the studio.
