I don’t remember the last time I was this frustrated!

I decided to play on the coding website Code.org for an ‘hour’ of code. An HOUR became several. I choose a keyboard exercise because I actually play the piano so I thought I would have some type of advantage. The first few levels I was able to navigate through ok, although I did run into a hiccup. Have a look as I walk you through my first hiccup.

I am very proud that I was able to work through this challenge as well as my next, which required a few more steps and involved more layers. Let’s have a look!

I get to my last level and this is where I spent majority of my time. I could not understand the ‘if, do, else’ block. I got very close and my project sounded the same as the one I was supposed to match but the program kept telling me “it doesn’t sound right”. I could not find the problem nor the solution. One very frustrating thing for me is that there is no pause button so once I pressed the play button I had to listen to the entire project from beginning to end. This was frustrating because I could tell very early on there was a mistake but I had to listen to the entire thing. The second thing I found extremely frustrating was the ‘Hints’ section. It would give me a few hints but I did not understand the hint. I could change a couple of things but I was not able to successful match/ solve the tune. I never did figure out the final level, level 9.

I realized after that I actually started at a grade 6 level, I thought I had started with a kindergarten level, oops. I need to go back and work myself up to understanding the ‘if, do, else’ .

I decided to try again the next day but I was still not able to successfully complete the project and I do not understand what I am doing wrong. The sample tune sounds the same as the one I have created and the “tips” section keeps giving me the same tip help, which is absolutely no help to me. This was a very frustrating experience and I am not anxious to return and retry. I felt I was left on my own to figure things out and I was not able to figure it out. How does one actually learn and understand this?

I feel like such a failure! I tried again another day with a different puzzle to solve and I did not enjoy the experience at all. I made sure to choose something under grade 6 so my new attempt was a grade 2+. I think I only made it to level 6 before I was so frustrated. I do not seem to understand what the computer is requiring and I certainly did not have the patience to sit and invest more time in understanding it. I am really not sure how kids can find this interesting or fun because for me it was so painful and frustrating!