Research has shown us that we MUST teach relevant learning skills to our students. We always talk about the "Four C's" that consist of Creativity, Communication, Collaboration and Critical Thinking, but I believe we are cheating our children out of one of the most beneficial "C's" of 21st Century Learning: CODING!
In this world that we live in, more and more devices are being generated, which means we need people to program these devices to work and run the way we, as people, want them to. Who is going to code all of these devices and get them up and running? Our children. Right now, there are about 1,000,000 jobs in coding world-wide that are unfilled. These are high-end jobs, where beginning salaries are in the upper five digits. So, this is about money? Um, NO! This is about our children's future!
We now have refrigerators that can scan what is inside and send you a picture and cell phones that can record video better than any expensive camcorder. Our technological advances have really exploded over the past ten years, with new tools and applications appearing each and every day. Students that are in our schools today do not know a world without Google or the Internet, which should be a clue to us as to how connected we really have become! Coding is they key to all of our futures. We need people to code apps that will solve issues that we face, revolutionize the way we do things, and ultimately, make our lives easier and better. So where do we find these gifted people? They are already all around us. They just need to be given the opportunity to learn what coding is, and what it can do.
There seems to be a stigma about coding, that it is "hard" or that it is only for those "really smart" kids. Coding is truly about using logic and problem-solving in order to get a device or object to complete a particular task or function. Coding is not some secret language, it actually is a very easy list of commands. The hardest part about coding is figuring out the correct configuration of these commands, which requires a lot of trial and error events. Wow. Sounds like a lot of creativity and critical thinking skills to me!
Teaching a person to code is like teaching a person to fish. The possibilities are endless, and you are teaching skills that will truly better someone's life. These kids who can code turn into to thinkers, dreamers, and creators, which are the individuals who, will in fact, change the world.
Want more information on how YOU can teach code at your school? Click on the links below to learn more!
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