Coding: learning to program from childhood
The importance of learning to program from an early age implies the spread of coding from primary school onwards
For coding means, in computer science, drafting a program, that is a sequence of instructions, executed by a computer, allowing you to create the most popular digital tools currently. The computer code and then the programming for many experts can not be considered just the stuff of engineers but a matter for all those born in this millennium, like English. In Estonia, it is already in elementary school for a couple of years. The point would be to teach kids some elements for programming at the end of the school kids should be able to use a computer but not to produce small programs like games or short sequences, the lines of what is already happening in many schools foreign, especially Anglo-Saxon. “Learning to program not only serves to create future programmers, which also need” explains Alessandro Bogliolo, professor at the University of Urbino and ambassador to Italy of CodeWeek, staged last October. “The quantum leap – continues Bogliolo – you do when you start to think that the coding should become a subject of study.” And it is becoming a bit ‘all over the world. Barack Obama a few months had urged American students: “Do not buy a new video game, Make one. Do not download the latest app, draw it. ” In Italy, one of the guidelines of the government project on “Good School” it is also mentioned education in computational thinking and coding in the Italian school. Signals that these issues have reached the institutions, under the thrust of a movement from below. Are now many courses, workshops and appointments in our country. The key concept is computational thinking, which also occurs in the government document. This means, according Bogoglio, think in an algorithmic or find a solution and develop it. The coding gives kids a mindset that will allow them to deal with complex problems when they are older. So learn to program opens the mind. For this you can start at an early age.
For the school year 2014/2015, the aim of the Ministry of Education is to enable each student to sign at least one class online coding / programming.
It said that the objectives for the school year 2014/2015 should at least be a lesson for each student, the question that arises wired.it is as follows: Teachers are ready for this kind of task? And then: what are their skills and how much has changed in the years that have been taught to use Word and package PowerPoint presentations?
There would then be a need for a more pervasive spread of digital culture among educators, as the best way to teach computer science is the versatility, updating school curricula and the revolution of the physical spaces.
According wired they exist groups that are also responsible for updating, as the National Association of teachers of computer science, with different experiences, however, outside the world of education, and as Coderdojo and Codemotion Kids. Horizon therefore virtuous initiatives that will materialize only in Italy thanks to the application and the implementation of the good intentions of the proponents of the spread of digital knowledge since childhood of our children.