Communications of the ACM
Csedweek Gains Momentum
Computer Science Education Week is aiming to sign up 100 million students to participate in its Hour of Code next week.
Credit: Code.org
Computer Science Education Week (CSEdWeek), which gets underway on Monday (Dec. 8), will celebrate the birthday of computing pioneer Grace Murray Hopper on Tuesday, and aims to have as many as 100 million students worldwide participate in its Hour of Code activity. This is a significant ambition for an essentially grassroots movement, but those facilitating the Week suggest it is both achievable and important in terms of developing a broader understanding of computer science and encouraging schools to teach, and young people to embrace, the subject.
CSEdWeek was established in 2009 by ACM, which in 2010 set up Computing in the Core, a non-partisan advocacy coalition including the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA), Microsoft, Google, and the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT). In 2013, Code.org, a non-profit dedicated to growing K-12 computer science education, partnered with ACM and merged with the coalition, which this year is sponsoring and supporting Code.org as the producer of CSEdWeek.
Cameron Wilson, chief operating officer and vice president of government affairs at Code.org and a member of the team working on both CSEdWeek and the Hour of Code, says, "Our goal is to create a place where communities can celebrate computer science as a field and as a subject that students should learn. Our vision is that computer science should be part of the core curriculum in every school."
While CSEdWeek has been running for some years, it was last year’s introduction of the Hour of Code, which provides the opportunity for every student to try computer science for an hour, that put the event on the map, not only in the U.S., but also in other geographies. Wilson explains, "Hour of Code became the centerpiece of activity. It brought in more partners, countries, schools, teachers, students, and other participants than ever before, and the number of local events shot up from hundreds around the U.S. to hundreds of thousands around the world."
There is no exact measure of how many different local Hour of Code events took place last year or will take place during this year’s CSEdWeek, but Code.org keeps tabs on participation and notes that about 20 million global participants took part in coding during last year’s Hour of Code. This number is expected to reach 100 million during this year’s event. Says Wilson, "The number of participants in Hour of Code is a measure of our success. The Hour also helps students find interest in computer science they might not otherwise find, and promotes a broad understanding of the subject."
To support the Hour of Code, the CSEdWeek website hosts many resources that can be used by teachers, code clubs, community groups, and others with an interest in coding. One aspect of the site that is expected to prove particularly popular among elementary school students this year is Code.org’s signature tutorial, featuring Disney’s "Frozen" heroines Anna and Elsa.
In addition to practical coding, there will be plenty of inspiration for new coders during CSEdWeek at events including open house access to university computer science departments, presentations to school boards, and joint celebrations between schools. The CSTA has 18,000 members worldwide and 64 regional hubs across the US and Canada, many of which will hold local events to promote computer science.
A major CSTA event during CSEdWeek will be "We are the Faces of Computing," a competition in which students submit short videos highlighting diverse and creative ways in which they work together in computer science. Entries were expected from all over the world, and they will be judged during CSEdWeek. Says CSTA acting executive director Lissa Clayborn, "Activities like this are important because computer science is not as widely taught in the U.S. as most people think, yet it is vital to our understanding of how the world works, and to computational thinking and problem-solving."
As well as non-profit organizations and academic institutions, a significant number of commercial firms will take part in CSEdWeek, perhaps sponsoring the Week or encouraging students to join their own computer science education programs, but always with an awareness of the lack of skills available to the workplace. CSEdWeek founding partners include Google and Microsoft; major promotional partners include Amazon, Apple, Electronic Arts, Juniper Networks, LinkedIn, SalesForce.com, and Zappos, among others. Says Clayborn, "We work with a number of commercial partners that have education programs. They support our activities and understand the need."
The grassroots movement pushing Hour of Code into new schools and communities, and hosting events during CSEdWeek, is certainly making progress in developing awareness and encouraging the study of computer science, but there is still much to do if the yawning gap between skills and computer science workers is to be narrowed. Wilson cites statistics from business research association The Conference Board showing nearly 600,000 computing-related job ads open in November 2014, twice as many openings as for the next most-requested occupational category, architecture and engineering. He says, "The education system needs to change and expose students to coding and provide a pathway to understanding computer science."
Telle Whitney, president and CEO of the Anita Borg Institute, a non-profit working with women in computing and a founding partner of CSEdWeek, observes that in the U.S., "only 18% of computer science graduates are women. We need to bring more women into the field to create technology, so the pipeline is really important. CSEdWeek is a great platform to help young people understand computer science, and Hour of Code has taken hold with parents and teachers. It exposes young people to computing with a positive impact and was radically successful last year."
Looking beyond CSEdWeek, Code.org’s Wilson says, "My next goal is to make sure schools and teachers follow up on Hour of Code and put good computer science curriculums in their classrooms."
Sarah Underwood is a technology writer based in Teddington, U.K.
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