Articles supporting children and coding

Articles supporting children and coding

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  1 Articles supporting childrenand coding Angela Woolsey Fairfax County Times August 26, 2016 LEGOs symposium trains teachers in robotics and other STEM skills Aimed specifically at educators and schools, LEGO Education provides products and curriculum designed to teach students science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) skills. “The LEGO group’s mission is really to inspire and help develop the builders of tomorrow,” LEGO Education director of marketing Ken Yanhs said. “We’ve been doing in-classroom demonstrations, community demonstrations [and] workshops for people to understand that it’s not just a toy. It’s actually an incredibly powerful learning tool.” http://www.fairfaxtimes.com/articles/legos-symposium-trains-teachers-in-robotics-and- other-stem-skills/article_c430f638-6bd8-11e6-8ee2-2396cab0335a.html Victor Winter vwinter@unomaha.edu Wiki Science 2014 Bricklayer: An Authentic Introduction to the Functional Programming Language SML vwinter@unomaha.edu Bricklayer is an API, written in SML, that provides a set of abstractions for creating LEGO® artifacts which can be viewed using LEGO Digital Designer. The goal of Bricklayer is to create a problem space (i.e., a set of LEGO artifacts) that is accessible and engaging to programmers (especially novice programmers) while providing an authentic introduction to the functional programming language SML. http://wiki.science.ru.nl/tfpie/images/5/5e/Tfpie2014_submission_1.pdf Issie Lapowsky WIRED March 20, 2015 So, Arkansas Is Leading the Learn to Code Movement Arkansas may be one of the last states that comes to mind when you think of major hubs of tech talent. And yet, last month, it became the first to pass a truly comprehensive lawrequiring all public and charter high schools to offer computer science courses to students, beating better known tech centers like California and New York to the punch. http://www.wired.com/2015/03/arkansas-computer-science/ Eric Westervelt NPR All Tech Considered February 17, 2014 A Push to Boost Computer Science Learning Even At An Early Age "Ninety percent of schools just don't even teach it. So if you're a parent and your school doesn't even offer this class, your kids aren't going to have the preparation they need for the 21st century," says Hadi Partovi, co-founder of the nonprofit Code.org. http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2014/02/17/271151462/a-push-to-boost-computer- science-learning-even-at-an-early-age
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  2 Dan Crow February 7,2014 The Guardian Why every child should learn to code Will every job involve programming? No. But it is crucial we equip future generations to think about the world in a new way. This is not primarily about equipping the next generation to work as software engineers, it is about promoting computational thinking. Computational thinking is how software engineers solve problems. It combines mathematics, logic and algorithms, and teaches you a new way to think about the world. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/07/year-of-code-dan-crow-songkick Rebecca Lindegren Opensource.com April 15, 2013 Teaching children how to code Today's children tend to be passive consumers of software and web pages created for a profit by private companies. Currently only 1 in 10 U.S. schools teach children to code, according to nationwide research by programming advocate Code.org. If school-age children want to learn how to code themselves, it is usually by their own initiative and on their own time. Recent evidence suggests that a lack of students studying coding now could become a serious economic problem in the near future. http://opensource.com/education/13/4/teaching-kids-code Josie Gurney-Read November 11, 2013 Digital literacy 'as important as reading and writing' Mark Surman, Executive Director of the Mozilla Foundation, argues that skills such as these are as important as learning to read and write. “Becoming literate in how the technical world works is equivalent to reading, writing and maths. We need to look at this fourth literacy as mainstream,” he says. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationopinion/10436444/Digital-literacy-as-important- as-reading-and-writing.html Stuart Dredge September 22, 2014 Kids coding at school: 'When you learn computing, you're thinking about thinking' The Guardian Stuart Dredge discusses the new mandated curriculum in Great Britain to teach computer programming to children 6-16. He addresses the challenges the faculty have in learning new subject areas and he talks about the educational value for children to be learning coding. He says, “Also, think about other subjects. When you learn physics, you think about physics. But when you learn computing, you’re thinking about thinking. About how thinking works. You have to try to imagine how this computer is going to do something for you. There are lots of transferable skills.” http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/sep/22/computing-bcs-uk-computing-curriculum Christopher Mims
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  3 Aug 5, 2014 Moreon Computer Programming: Train Kids Early Wall Street Journal D Mims discusses the challenges we face in the United States to have enough qualified teachers to teach computer programming to children. In Great Britain which launched a required program teaching all 6-16 year olds computer programming is doing so with the use of the free online learning platform Codecademy. He describes other models for teaching programming when there aren’t enough classroom teachers to do so. “Other online education startups employ a variety of other strategies: Treehouse and Code School pair video instruction with quizzes and test programs, for example, and Thinkful matches students with mentors for one-on-one tutoring.” These might be ways we provide guidance and instruction in our library setting. http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/08/05/more-on-computer-programming-train-kids-early/ Sophie Curtis November 4, 2013 Teaching our children to code: a quiet revolution The Telegraph In Great Britain, a revolutionary educational program is being launched whereby all children from the age of 6-16 will be required to learn computer programming, “which until now has consisted almost entirely of lessons in how to use Microsoft Office programs.” England is leading the world in this transformation and, bizarrely, no one seems to know about it. The 2014 curriculum was announced back in July by education secretary Michael Gove, who said: "For the first time children will be learning to programme computers. It will raise standards across the board – and allow our children to compete in the global race." Jessica Salter November 23 2013 Coding for kids: schoolchildren learn computer programming The Telegraph Primary school children are staying on after class to learn the building blocks of computer programming This article details the afterschool code clubs that are forming across Britain. Code Club: Code Club is a nationwide network of free volunteer-led after-school coding clubs for children aged 9-11. We create projects for our volunteers to teach at afterschool coding clubs or at non-school venues such as libraries. The projects we make teach children how to program by showing them how to make computer games, animations and websites. Our volunteers go to their local club for an hour a week and teach one project a week. codeclub.org.uk Young Rewired State: Young Rewired State is a worldwide community of digital makers aged 18 and under. We introduce them to like-minded peers and expert mentors at free events, where they use open data to build apps, websites and algorithms to solve real world challenges. youngrewiredstate.org Scratch: With Scratch, you can program your own interactive stories, games, and animations — and share your creations with others in the online community. Scratch helps young people learn to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively — essential skills for life in
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  4 the 21st century.Scratch is a project of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab. It is provided free of charge. scratch.mit.edu http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/10468460/Coding-for-kids-schoolchildren-learn- computer-programming.html Radhika Sanghani November 24, 2013 The Telegraph Facebook invests thousands to help school girls In an attempt to attract more females into the male dominated field of engineering, Simon Milner, Facebook's director of policy, spoke about Facebook's £100,000 investment and said: "This is our biggest commitment into this area, other than hackathons and things like that. Being part of this launch is part of our contribution to stimulating young people. We're doing our bit to get more young people, especially girls, into engineering.” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/10424734/Facebook-invests-thousands-to-help- school-girls-code.html Tasneem Raja June 16, 2014 Mother Jones Is Coding the New Literacy: Why America’s schools need to train a generation of hackers Computer scientists have been warning for decades that understanding code will one day be as essential as reading and writing. If they're right, understanding the importance of computational thinking can't be limited to the elite, not if we want some semblance of a democratic society. Self- taught auteurs will always be part of the equation, but to produce tech-savvy citizens "at scale," to borrow an industry term, the heavy lifting will happen in public school classrooms. Increasingly, to have a good shot at a good job, you'll need to be code literate. http://www.motherjones.com/media/2014/06/computer-science-programming-code-diversity- sexism-education Sonali Kohli May 14, 2015 Quartz America is failing its children by not teaching code in every high school There are many reasons why American schools are poor at teaching coding—so many that the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA) published a 75-page report (pdf) enumerating the. The biggest is that the public school system is decentralized. Most public schools follow national teaching guidelines—the Common Core—and complete standardized tests based on those, but US states and local bodies make classroom-level decisions. http://qz.com/340551/america-is-failing-its-children-by-not-teaching-code-in-every-high-school/