Communications of the ACM
Adding Coding to the Curriculum
Credit: Getting Smart
Students worldwide are increasingly familiarizing themselves with coding fundamentals, and proponents say such knowledge feeds into individual students' future career prospects as well as into their countries' economic competitiveness and the technology sector's ability to find qualified employees. Not only does early coding education demystify an intimidating subject, it also contradicts stereotypes of computer scientists as dull, and it demonstrates creativity by showing students it can help them cultivate problem-solving skills and enable them to participate in a world transformed by technology.
Code.org's Roxanne Emadi observes children now routinely use advanced technology, but few are learning how to create it. "Even if it's something simple, like a kid programming a maze or programming a robot, when you can see your work brought to life, that's where light bulbs go off," she says.
Britain's nonprofit Raspberry Pi Foundation promotes computer study in schools by offering lesson plans and other resources to educators, and the foundation's Clive Beale says the advantage of this approach is to give students hands-on computer programming experience. "Instead of passively using a tablet or a laptop, it's the first time they've made a computer do something," he notes. A key factor in the recent expansion of coding interest is the availability of programming resources online.
From The New York Times
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