In Computer Weekly 25-31 March in the article Teaching Kids to Code we get this expert view point:- Alex Hudson, chief technology officer at Qinec, says: “Year of Code has come in for something of a battering. But it’s important to remember that the curriculum surrounding it is a big improvement and encourages kids to think about computing outside of traditional office skills and instead look more at the engineering side. “It’s difficult to relate computing to a subject such as maths, for example, where you can say a certain teaching approach works, because unlike maths, computer science is at the centre of a whole galaxy of different related disciplines. And that, for me, is what the Year of Code programme overlooks. The curriculum appears to advocate a one-size-fits-all approach to learning, and in my experience that simply isn’t the case.” In Hudson’s view, the best way to teach kids coding is to activate their motivation. “Some children enjoy the logical step-by-step procedural process of just writing code, but others need to be shown how you create things with code to get excited. There is no wrong or right way to teach coding, but there does need to be flexibility and a balance between different learning styles to ensure that all children – not just some – are engaged,” he says. “Children are driven by their own motivations – understand that and you’re on the right track to teaching the next generation.” This is said by someone who has no understanding of education, learning or school subjects. Just like the Secretary of Education - not a clue. You cant teach maths or English a certain way. Maths, just like English and several other subjects, are at the centre of the known universe. These two subjects are often the primary skill a coder has. Both require logic and understanding. Computers and computer programming require an interface, often with humans. The input and outputs have to be clear, well written like a good essay or the logic in solving a geometric problem. There is no more one-size-fits all for teaching maths or English than would be in the approach a teacher would make in programming. In all learning the learner has to be motivated and that approach is as different to every member of a classes there are children in the school. Some level of programming, like some level of learning a foreign language can be taught to all children. Few go onto to be confident, let alone fluent. So much depends upon being able to provide the building blocks that allow the student to achieve and build upon - much like a well planned science lab with lots of staged experiments. It is all in the planning and the skill of the teacher. Programming is additive. Those who grasp what they can do may spend every waking moment to finish off their programme - in the past it was responsible for dropping the academic grades of many students who wasted all their time writing games and entering code on terminals, but never having been taught to type; which might have saved them a third of the time. Pat Nice, chief executive of open source and cloud provider Reconnix, says it is almost a sense of re-educating the educators and encouraging a different and experimental approach through the idea of coding as art: “By combining formal and informal methods the curriculum ought to approach coding, and ICT, more like an art class. Positioning coders as artists, and programming as painting, students can be taught the skills and given the encouragement to produce individual work, enabling them to see the personal benefit and reward. We must encourage Britain’s young people to innovate and aspire to coding careers, with the same aspiration that people pursue the dream of becoming a footballer.” From someone who is seems has not worked as a programmer. Original programming takes a long time. Projects seldom start and finish in a day - many takes years and undertaken by a team. Learning to be competent in a computer language takes time, to be good, longer than the time allocated on the time table for a GCSE subject. Most programming is modifying, adding features to and debugging code written by someone long gone or moved on - generally pretty boring and only these days modestly paid. Even if contactable the original programer disown their previous work as long forgotten. Few create the flare of an ace soccer star and those that do often produce code that no one can easily get into; not even themselves - unless they also have the discipline of good coding practices and fight against quick fix management who want the solution out now and not wait for the Mona Lisa with the consequence that it is also very easy to screw it up later. And we are back to the problems of the programme Year of Code.
Posted on: Tue, 25 Mar 2014 12:24:44 +0000