Exposure – even a brief encounter – to something new can be just the trigger required to spark a lifetime of interest. A dark night spent looking at the stars of the Milky Way with an uncle, an afternoon working on a busted motor with dad, or time spent in grandma’s kitchen baking a cake can leave lasting impressions on children. Exposure to a variety of experiences early in life is key both to discovering lifelong passions, as well as possible vocational pursuits.
This week, Dec. 9-15, is Computer Science Education Week. To help demystify the field of computer science for schoolchildren, dozens of elementary and secondary schools across the region are taking part in the Hour of Code, a national program that provides an hour-long primer on computer programming for schoolchildren. It is sponsored in part by national technology companies – the same companies who hope to hire competent programmers – such as Facebook, Microsoft, Apple and Amazon. Teachers who have taken a tutorial prior to the event will help students through a one-hour training session. In a digital landscape that seems to change drastically with each new product offering, the Hour of Code is significant since it focuses on the foundations of the digital world – the 1s and 0s and various languages that have been developed to create software.
While some of the estimated 10 million kids who will take these tutorials throughout the country this week will no doubt go on to become computer programmers, the vast majority of them won’t. But just as the purpose of going to college isn’t only to land a good job, but also to become better-educated and enlightened citizens of the world, the point of every students learning the fundamentals of computing will help each of them understand their world better.
No generation has grown up as accustomed to computers as today’s kids. Whereas children of a few decades ago were lucky if they had a big, bulky computer that rolled from classroom to classroom, for more than 10 years most Maine students have had individualized access to laptops and notebooks, and, more recently, tablets such as iPads. In their private lives, most children are using some sort of cell phone, tablet, laptop or desktop daily. It’s just a part of their new, connected reality.
If all students are told to be prepared for the 21st century, in which technology reigns supreme, then programs such as the Hour of Code, which aims to teach foundational concepts, is a small, yet important, step in their development as productive citizens. And having that kind of basic understanding of how their devices work allows the next generation to not only keep up with the rapid changes, but also to possibly have the desire to innovate later on as members of the industry.
It can be argued whether children need digital devices to grasp the core concepts that their parents and grandparents learned quite well with paper and pencil. But one thing is certain, knowledge of how computers work in today’s world is just as important as reading, writing and arithmetic. Most every job employs some sort of digital device, from the UPS guy dropping off your Christmas packages to the factory worker in China who manufactured them. As knowing the alphabet is required for learning how to read, learning the basics of computer programming is essential to a deeper understanding of technology.
As most good things can be done to an unhealthy degree, the digital world is fraught with perils. And anything that helps children demystify the aura of their digital devices is a good thing, as well, since they might be less enamored with their games and social media websites when they realize the tantalizing visuals are just a combination of 1s and 0s. That might be an even greater lesson learned during the Hour of Code.
–John Balentine, managing editor
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