Importance Of Australian Schooling System To Not Equip Students In Coding

Can the Australian schooling system afford to not equip students in coding? Results are showing that despite 98% of students’ reporting having a computer at home, only half can be considered IT proficient. In a so called ‘digital age’, how can so many children not speak the language of computers? As educators should we move beyond how to use technology and instead focus on it’s creation through coding.

A time for change?

Looking back to the last two centuries, the challenges faced by the population pertained to understanding the physical world. The key ideas and understandings filtered into every classroom as a part of the school curriculum. Why? Because it prepared children with the knowledge and skills to be global learners for that time.

Many argue computer programs are good to use, but too difficult to learn. But in reality, so is a guitar, or bicycle, until you are taught how to use it.

Coding should be seen for what it is: another way to communicate, unbridling a liberating force that can literally enable better living through programming. Computer languages are analogous to the written versions of human languages but simpler, requiring expressions without uncertainty.

Much like natural dialects, coding uses both syntax and semantics. Coding is a lingua franca, built around character sets. On average, the English speaker has a vocabulary of more than 30,000 words, whereas coding language such as Java or C++ requires understandings of 50 key words and how they are used in the setting. Break it down, and it seems achievable. A grasp of sequence, selection and repetition, underpin even the most exotic sounding programming languages (Java, C++,

These are useful to everyone, every day.” Jamie Turner, Cofounder of Postcode.

These ideas represent something that is both wider, deeper and less transient than a particular app, programming language/environment/technique or development tool. Teaching code can exist without computers. The Computer Science Unplugged movement, led by Tim Bell and colleagues have developed resources that teach students concepts through fun, movement activities. This idea links with the transferrable skills. That is, computer language, is not just a way to get a computer to perform operations, but more a medium for expressing ideas about methodology.

We must remember when we give students the skills to read and write in English, with practice and failure, these same children have the possibility of becoming the next J.K Rowling. The same can be said for coding, give students the ability to read and write a code and students have the beginnings to become the next Mark Zuckerberg. At the very least, students’ exercise problem solving skills, with the ability to not just be consumers, but a generation of computer speaking, program developing