Tomorrow's workers need to know more tech than merely checking their Facebook feed
Armed with rope, pictures and elephant headbands, it looks like this group of nine-year-olds is setting up a huge game of hopscotch. But they're really laying out the biggest thing to hit British schools in a century. As the students direct each other through the grid they've built, they're learning the basic fundamentals of computer coding, in the process moving beyond how to use computers to how computers work. Kids learn coding in class to help problem solving Google announces project to get kids coding Schools need better computer science education, group says "We're actually enabling them and empowering them with skills and capability so that they can choose how they solve problems using technology," says Peter Gaynord, a teacher at Histon and Impington Junior School near Cambridge, England. This class is far from unique. In fact, every single school in England — all 16,000 primary schools and 3,500 secondary schools — have been put firmly on a high-tech path. A new national curriculum, implemented last year, has made computer science a mandatory subject for all students, starting from the tender age of five and continuing through to the end of high school. It's arguably nothing short of an education revolution. And it stands in stark contrast to the Canadian landscape, where computer programming classes are only offered as high school electives. That is, if they're offered at all. "I'm really surprised that administrators and teachers and parents are not saying, 'But what about our kids here?'" says Chris Stephenson, an Oshawa, Ont.-raised computer science education advocate who now works for Google in Oregon. "The silence is deafening."
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