“Not everyone will become a coder, but everyone has the right to understand how it works…
…It’s like teaching kids biology: it doesn’t mean everyone will become a biologist.”[1]
I got interested in the topic of early development education after today’s presentation by Nick Colsey, VP Business Development, Sony Electronics. We all know that universities have a great impact on the society, however, psychologists argue that it is the early childhood learning and education that has the most influence on personal growth and motivation to learn (Flouri & Buchanan, 2004). Today, Nick Colsey introduced the “all-in-one coding, robotics and design kit (KOOV[2]) for the next generation of innovators”- the global IT leaders of the future. Today, many parents and governments have realized this issue resulting in introduction of coding classes in pre-school education and educational gaming designs (e.g. Minecraft).
Investigating the business opportunities and threats for KOOV, I realized that more and more software companies realize the fast-growing share of young coders accompanied by parents and governments who are willing to pay for accessible educational tools and frameworks.
I was not surprised to realize that KOOV is not alone on the market. Danish LEGO Group is one of the forerunners introducing its Mindstorms series back in 1998. The Lego Mindstorms series of kits contain software and hardware to create customizable, programmable robots. They include an intelligent brick computer that controls the system, a set of modular sensors and motors, and Lego parts from the Technic line to create the mechanical systems.
Number of other companies compete for the same audience – e.g. WowWee Group Limited from Hong-Kong offers small coders a colorful robot WowWee Elmoji using the combination of digital avatar Elmo and emojis to teach early coding skills to pre-readers. Company called Smartgurlz ApS went even further – they try to occupy the share of the market targeting small girls with their self-balancing Siggy Scooter dolls that engage and encourage girls to learn to code. And these examples are just a “top of the iceberg” in the growing industry offering coding tools for early starters[3].
And these are not only software producers – educational service providers also found this niche and actively filled it. For example, there are over 190 computing, coding and programing related summer camps for preschoolers only around Palo Alto[4].
Governments have also joined this movement. For example, England introduced mandate computer science classes for all children between the ages of 5 and 16 teaching topics ranging from algorithms to codes and programming languages. Finland plans to introduce computer programming into core elementary education learning syllabus. Finnish Ministry of Education relies on private sector cooperation in the initial stages of this project due to the varied skill levels of Finnish teachers in their ability to teach these skills. Other countries embracing this approach include Estonia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Greece, Ireland, Lithuania, Poland and Portugal[5]. Foreseeing the future demand, they push for greater attention on science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects at the elementary level of education.
And it is not only about predicting the future – scholars identify that coding develops early motoric, logic and problem-solving skills accompanied by persistency and ability to find creative solutions to overcome obstacles[6].
Pretty good combination for future global IT leaders, don’t you think?
References Flouri, E., & Buchanan, A. (2004). Early father’s and mother’s involvement and child’s later educational outcomes. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 74(2), 141-153.
Other web-references:
http://www.zdnet.com/article/building-a-digital-future-should-coding-be-mandatory-for-every-schoolchild/
http://www.techagekids.com/2017/01/coding-toys-for-kids-whats-new-for-2017.html
http://blogs.worldbank.org/edutech/learning-code-vs-coding-learn
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2012/mar/31/young-coders-rest-of-world
[1] https://www.sitra.fi/en/articles/future-will-be-built-those-who-know-how-code/
[2] http://www.techagekids.com/2017/01/coding-toys-for-kids-whats-new-for-2017.html
[3] http://www.workingmother.com/stem-toys-teach-kids-to-code#page-6
[4] https://www.activityhero.com/
[5] https://jaxenter.com/the-countries-introducing-coding-into-the-curriculum-120815.html
[6] https://www.weareteachers.com/skills-learn-coding/
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9 comments on ““Not everyone will become a coder, but everyone has the right to understand how it works…”
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Dear Natasha, thank you for the article!
I share your general opinion on the importance of teaching children the basics of coding and the thinking behind it. The basic knowledge of it is getting very important in the future!
But the ability to code is for itself without value for our societies, if the children in school or the students in university not also learn about critical thinking, humanities, ethics and politics. Coding is like a neutral tool, like a language with which you can build things and, by knowing the processes, understand programs, websites or probably even algorithms. But there the “thinking behind” and the “code behind” gets more problematic. If we think about the tech giants like Google and Facebook, there are only very few people that are able to “look behind”. While algorithms are getting more and more complex, and machine learning makes the transparency of an algorithm even harder, I would argue that a “basic coding education” cant change that: Only a few have the ability to look behind. The problem of “understanding” seems to me to stand in a relation to the development of open data. Only if there are no closed standards that no one but a few can get behind, real “understanding” can be made possible.
This footnote of mine should only be seen as an outlook. The general initiative to get people in contact with coding will definetly only do good in that regard. Programming education can be the foundation of this development, for sure.
León
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Hi Natasha!
Great post you got here. I am a fellow business major myself and seeing Nick’s slide on the KROOV just made me wish I was born a generation later! You are right, computer science and information technology is the future; it is only right the parents, educational institutions, and governments acknowledge that fact and prepare the necessary tools and infrastructure that supports such a learning environment.
On that note, I’d like to share with you an article as well that I chanced upon on Forbes.com. It’s title gives it away in fact – “That ‘Useless’ Liberal Arts Degree Has Become Tech’s Hottest Ticket”. Indeed, the humanities is still a crucial element in the education and development of the youth today. Critical thinking, social awareness, and social drive are key skills that I believe are crucial to one’s success and impact in the world, and I don’t think coding can teach that still.
This is not to say that these set of skills are competing with the set of skills that coding can give you. In fact, I would argue that they greatly complement each other. Coding (and logic, problem solving, etc.) is an excellent tool that enables one to more effectively pursue their passions and desires; however, one can only get a better idea of these passions with the help of the humanities.
I am with you in the formation of our bright and talented future global IT leaders. I hope that they would use their skills for the greater good of society.
Cheers!
Jared Sarmiento (MS&A 238A)
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link to the Forbes.com article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeanders/2015/07/29/liberal-arts-degree-tech/#73858773745d
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Dear Natasha.
Thanks so much for bringing this subject up!
I am a technology journalist based in Argentina. In Latin America in general there is still a concern about young people interested in Social Sciences and not enough IT Students. For example, in Argentina, there are too many Psychologists and not enough engineers.
I had the opportunity to Interview Bob Metcalfe, the Inventor of Ethernet and a University Professor at University of Austin, Texas about this topic. He believes that the system that reproduces this gap tends to be inside the current educational system and the solution he proposes is with MOOCS. Your article striked me as another great solution for this issue, tackling the problem before it begins.
Here I share the video-interview I made of Mister Bob Metcalfe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJGMWI8yzl4
Warmly,
Meli
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Hi Natasha! You make a brilliant point about the integral nature of coding to our present and future world, and the need to train students in such skills early on. I saw an episode of the tv show Shark Tank where this was discussed further, and a group of people came up with fun and imaginative ways to introduce coding to young kids. You can read more about it out here:
http://heavy.com/news/2017/02/bitsbox-shark-tank-coding-kids-products-episodes-new-season-8/
However, I’d like to add to this by saying that while coding is an essential skill, it must not take the place of (but should supplement) and investment in humanities and liberal arts knowledge. For example, Stanford recently launched a program called CS + “X” which allows undergrads to pick two disciplines that challenge them differently, for example CS and English. In a world of digitization, and machine intelligence, I feel that have strong critical thinking skills, humanistic knowledge and experience (and other soft skills developed by the humanities) is equally essential to make meaningful progress!
Thanks for sharing this insightful blog post!
Adeesh
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Hi Natasha,
Thanks for the insightful information on a significant importance of coding. There is another aspect of inclusiveness that allows incremental diversity in computer science. As per code.org, which envisions every student in every school should have better access to learn computer science, just like biology, chemistry or algebra, recently published statistics on diversity of US students in their computer science courses. For the second year in a row, underrepresented minorities make up 48% of students while 45% from female student in their courses.
I believe these efforts have enabled them to create a path for high school students to college and university graduates that make a good workforce for software industry.
Regards,
Hira
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I agree with Natasha that no body can become coder but everybody has right to understand it. But as the world is becoming more globalised. The coding it self become a need rather than want. Therefore, we should focus on how to make people aware about it how is it important. We have to this people friendly so that they can understand on how do use it.
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Dear Natasha, thank you for a very interesting overview of how governments and schools are approaching the rapidly rising demand of new skills in an digital economy. You, as well as other blogpost authors and commentators, are focusing thereby mainly on the curriculum of schools and on tools for kids/ students. In the comments to your post I see a lively debate about coding vs. humanities. It is an interesting and important discussion.
However, I would like to add another layer to the debate by looking at current workforce and as such people that officially have finished their education (a vast majority without ever being educated in coding/ computer science). In their study from 2013 Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osbourne from Oxford University came to the conclusion that 47 percent of the US employment could relatively soon be automated. In the study that has been (wrongly) quoted very often in the past few years, Frey and Osbourne do not predict that half of the jobs in the US will be wiped out rather than that the labor market will be highly affected by the ongoing digitalisation. Which means the current workforce also needs to be schooled to cater to the needs of the future economy.
It seems though, that this task is even more challenging than adjusting the school system for todays youth. Governments and schools are in charge to educate kids so they learn the necessary skills for their future work life. But who is in charge when it comes to provide the right skills to the workforce? Businesses, governments the workers themselves? I think this is a question that needs to be added when talking about education, skills and the labor market.
Cited study:
C B Frey and M A Osborn, Oxford University (2013), “THE FUTURE OF EMPLOYMENT: HOW SUSCEPTIBLE ARE JOBS TO COMPUTERISATION?”, http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/academic/The_Future_of_Employment.pdf
Thank you Natasha for a really insightful post! Like you and Jared, I wish I was born later to be able to play with all the wonderful educational toys. I’ve had the privilege to follow the developments in the Finninsh Ministry of Education introducing coding to the primary school syllabus quite closely, and while I am really excited about kids learning to code I have concerns about the practical implementation.
Last weekend I was part of a team of seven people building an icercream delivery app (including a web interface, integrated credit card payments and the backend for delivery) without anyone writing a single line of code. The process made me realize that understanding the structures and logic, the hardware, and even the zeros and ones are much more valuable for someone not looking to turn programming into a profession than any specific language. Therefore, I hope that coding education will not be seen as learning a language as Leon feared, but focused on how computers/machines work like biology is concerend with how humans work.
On this note, I am really worried about the level of expertise that the teachers in Finland have on this topic, because I know from experience how difficult it can be to unlearn a basic understanding of a topic developed at an early age. When I was in third grade my woodwork teacher explained to me that electricity is essentially electrons running through the circuit board. Understanding resistors and voltage later on in physics became almost impossible, because in my mind that would have required the electrons running around the circuit board to be psychic!