Yesterday, we held an ‘Hour of Code’ event at the Brown School in Somerville, MA. If you haven’t heard of the ‘Hour of Code’, it is an event sponsored by a nonprofit called Code.org to get everyone spending an hour learning to write code.
Why? The idea isn't to turn everyone in the nation into computer programmers. The idea is to motivate people—especially students—to take the time to understand what computer science is and how it is increasingly influencing commerce, politics, medicine, education, design, science and society.
See, the United States is facing a growing shortage of skilled programmers. A relatively few high schools teach the subject and very few kids actually take classes in computer science, even in college. The numbers are even worse when it comes to the participation of girls and women and blacks and Latinos.
90% of K-12 schools in the U.S. do not teach computer science.
In many countries (including China, the United Kingdom and Australia), computer science is—or soon will be—required. Kids in these countries take coding classes in elementary school. They get it—and so should we—if we want to continue to be the smartest and most prosperous country in the world.
The key takeaway is that the ‘Hour of Code’ isn’t enough. After the excitement of this event fades, we need to go back to the hard work of improving our STEM education and getting computer science into the classroom, starting in elementary school. Code.org has a great document which describes how to accomplish this.
Some cities have already started moving forward on this and Massachusetts just released a new plan on improving STEM education in our state:
- Last week, Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott announced a $1 million investment to expand computer science instruction in New York City schools beginning in the fall of 2014.
- Chicago is laying the groundwork to become the first urban school district in the country to add the subject to its elementary core.
OK, enough of the serious stuff! It was plain old fun, to see our kids, parents, working together with technology. There was energy in the air—kids collaborating with each other, robots moving across screens, lots of smiling faces, and the joy of accomplishment!
I have always worked in this field and have loved computers since high school. I felt genuinely good watching it all, and a bit proud too. Many thanks to the volunteers, families and our principal—Kathleen Seward—for her leadership and sponsorship of the event.
If you want to learn more about this topic and learn computer science beyond this ‘Hour of Code’ event, try some of these other tutorials.
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