You Too Can Be a Mighty Coder and Coder Coach!

Sometimes we feel overwhelmed when a new type of program pops up that we feel we have no particular skills in. But, as youth librarians, we can't afford to only program in our skill and interest areas. That would only serve a portion of our community's kids. However, we youth librarians are famous for researching and dfiguring out how-to's to make sure kids have opportunities to discover and learn while having fun at our libraries.

Coding is an area that more and more libraries are offering popular programs for kids. And many of the people planning and hosting the programs would never claim any special coding geek-itutde. If you are feeling a bit of hesitation, try these great resources to help you feel mighty and wow your patrons!

Does Coding Feel Like the Scary Monster Under Your Bed?
In this blog post from IFLS' Keeping Up with Kids blog, Kathy Larson from Bloomer shares her experience of going from fear to fearlesslessness thanks to an amazing website.

A Spoonful of Sugar Helps the Coding Go Down
This slidedeck from the fall WLA 2016 conference by the WI Dept of Public Ed library team, has great info and resources as well as tips to help you feel mighty.

Wiscode Literati
Begun as an IMLS funded project by an iLead team in 2015, this site has a bunch of helpful ready-to-go programs to make you mighty.

Sowing Seeds Librarian
Emily Zorea at Brewer Public Library, Richland Center has blogged extensively about what she has learned and tried in coding. She gives readers confidence that you too can do coding programs! This post gathers her notes on the UW-Madison iSchool CE course on coding. You can also read about other programs she has tried by following her "coding" tag on the blog.

What great resources or programs on coding have YOU tried?