Computer Science Education Week (Dec 8th-14th) is right around the corner, and that means it’s time to bring a little programming into your classroom!
What is the Hour of Code? The Hour of Code is a global movement reaching tens of millions of students in 180+ countries. Anyone, anywhere can organize an Hour of Code event. One-hour tutorials are available in over 30 languages. No experience needed. The Hour of Code is a one-hour introduction to computer science, designed to demystify code and show that anybody can learn the basics. Watch this video and more info on this page: http://hourofcode.com/us/resources/how-to
Interested in having your students participate:
- Go to this website and sign up to Host an event: http://hourofcode.com/us The hour can be anytime during that week.
- Send students to this website and have them watch the new video to explain Hour of Code. Then they can click on Try it. Students can sign up with their google accounts, so it’s very easy.
This website is self-guided so students can go at their own pace and choose their level. Teachers don’t need to know how to code. There are several websites to teach coding. If you’d like to explore, check out my Coding Livebinder.
Why teach coding? This article has good facts:
Coding is more important now than ever before. With computer related jobs growing at a rate estimated to be 2x faster than other types of jobs, coding is becoming an important literacy for students to have and a more integral part of education and curricula. The handy infographic below takes a look at some of the interesting statistics about coding and computer science jobs.
The goal of teaching coding is not to make every student into an app developer, just like teaching writing or art does not make every student a journalist or a painter. Coding empowers students to think logically and critically, to collaborate, and to create meaningful learning.
Coding: The Job of The Future
- It is estimated that by 2020, computer related employment will increase by 22%
- This will mean about 1.4 million jobs in computer science
- The strongest demand will be for software developers
- Computer programming jobs are growing at a rate estimated to be 2x faster than other types of jobs
- Less than 2.4% of graduates graduate with a computer science degree
- If current job trends continue, US citizens will only fill 30% of our country’s computer science jobs
- Beginning in September 2014, England is implementing a compulsory computer coding in schools at all grade levels
- A new bill has been introduced in the US which would qualify computer coding as a foreign language, and allocate grants for schools to teach coding as early as kindergarten
- According to one CEO, an employee who understands how to code is worth $500,000 to $1M towards a company’s acquisition price