Weekly Address: Giving Every Student an Opportunity to Learn Through Computer Science For All
Source: White House
In this weeks address, the President discussed his plan to give all students across the country the chance to learn computer science (CS) in school. The President noted that our economy is rapidly shifting, and that educators and business leaders are increasingly recognizing that CS is a new basic skill necessary for economic opportunity. The President referenced his Computer Science for All Initiative, which provides $4 billion in funding for states and $100 million directly for districts in his upcoming budget; and invests more than $135 million beginning this year by the National Science Foundation and the Corporation for National and Community Service to support and train CS teachers. The President called on even more Governors, Mayors, education leaders, CEOs, philanthropists, creative media and technology professionals, and others to get involved in the efforts.
Read more: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/weekly-address
In the new economy, computer science isnt an optional skill its a basic skill, right along with the three Rs. Nine out of ten parents want it taught at their childrens schools. Yet right now, only about a quarter of our K through 12 schools offer computer science. Twenty-two states dont even allow it to count toward a diploma.
So Ive got a plan to help make sure all our kids get an opportunity to learn computer science, especially girls and minorities. Its called Computer Science For All. And it means just what it says giving every student in America an early start at learning the skills theyll need to get ahead in the new economy.
First, Im asking Congress to provide funding over the next three years so that our elementary, middle, and high schools can provide opportunities to learn computer science for all students.
Second, starting this year, were leveraging existing resources at the National Science Foundation and the Corporation for National and Community Service to train more great teachers for these courses.
And third, Ill be pulling together governors, mayors, business leaders, and tech entrepreneurs to join the growing bipartisan movement around this cause. Americans of all kinds from the Spanish teacher in Queens who added programming to her classes to the young woman in New Orleans who worked with her Police Chief to learn code and share more data with the community are getting involved to help young people learn these skills. And just today, states like Delaware and Hawaii, companies like Google and SalesForce, and organizations like Code.org have made commitments to help more of our kids learn these skills.
Thats what this is all about each of us doing our part to make sure all our young people can compete in a high-tech, global economy. Theyre the ones who will make sure America keeps growing, keeps innovating, and keeps leading the world in the years ahead. And theyre the reason Ive never been more confident about our future.
rest at link
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)Skeeter Barnes
(994 posts)train their H1B replacements?
AdHocSolver
(2,561 posts)...there will be such a large surplus of computer-literate people, that wages will be so low, and America won't need to import and exploit H1B replacements.
America, always prepared to take advantage of the LAST great innovative technology.
Bernardo de La Paz
(49,002 posts)All good, all useful, but not to be confused.
It is true that knowledge and understanding of any one is useful for the others.
The usual sequence is training (usage), programming, and then computer science.
But as a software engineer with a degree in Math & Computer Science and experience tutoring and teaching several subjects, I endorse the initiative to expose school children to computer science concepts at earlier ages than many people would imagine possible.
Remember, almost all children are born smart and some are dumbed down. Let's keep them smart.
BumRushDaShow
(129,013 posts)And thanks for posting!
Back in 1984, they were starting to set up some computer classes in some Philadelphia high schools (I was subbing then and had to actually install the computer lab with Apple IIes at one because the math teachers at the school didn't want to do it and the business teacher whose classroom would host the machines - originally the "typing room" because it had plugs at each desk for electric typewriters, didn't know how or what to do).
It's going to be hard to implement without some major school infrastructure upgrades, given that so many urban schools are substandard (some here located in buildings that are 90+ years old that have presented difficulties retrofitting and/or maintaining the environments to support it, with leaky roofs, peeling paint, and lack of security from theft - and it was like that 30+ years ago when I was getting it set up). Almost all but a handful, have no air-conditioning.
Let's hope for a comprehensive plan to address the facilities along with the curriculum so that this effort can have a better chance at success. On the plus side, at least many of the infants today are starting to be exposed to cell phones and tablets early in life, so they actually start handling the tech by 8 months out of the womb... The critical piece is to re-diect this exposure to something other than "entertainment" as they grow up with it.
davidthegnome
(2,983 posts)Those teaching though, must have the knowledge required to do so. Hands on experience would be a good start, workshops, training programs for educators. From my (very brief, very limited) education in computer science, it can get somewhat tedious and very frustrating for people who don't know what they're doing. Understanding not just how to do something, but the end result, the uses to which different programs and concepts can be put, would be pretty significant.
I wish there was more initiative regarding such education for adults - that didn't cost thousands of dollars that most of us can't afford. I've always been fascinated by computer science, but the technical details of it seemed, at a glance... confounding, baffling, like trying to read a dictionary in a language you don't understand, with writing you've never seen.
It has to be taken very step by step, broken down into small pieces. A lot of techies I know get frustrated with people who can't comprehend their advanced language and understanding of things that, to them, seem simple and straight forward. This is, in part, why some thirteen year old kid on 4chan can accomplish a bit of hacking that would confound the average person. A better understanding, overall, I think, would go a long way. Of course, computer programming and computer training would be useful as well, at least some understand of how it's done, why.. what uses it can be put to.
hunter
(38,313 posts)For kids (and adults possessing the appropriate sense of wonder.):
https://scratch.mit.edu
Scratch is a visual programming tool. The interesting thing about Scratch is that behind the puzzle blocks there is actual structured code, so you are learning a good structured programming style while playing.
For "college lecture" inclined adults there is coursework:
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/intro-programming
For hands-on hardware experiments, I like the Raspberry Pi:
https://www.raspberrypi.org
Alas, I'm certain there are many ways existing U.S. schools (public, charter, and private) can make Computer Science suck, and burn through a lot of money doing it, simultaneously underpaying teachers and treating them like crap.
It's my personal opinion that Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, Oracle, and many of the darker corners of Google, blow chunks. Too bad that's where the money is, right?
Big Money often kills dreamers.
MattSh
(3,714 posts)when the mantra was it doesn't matter if textile and steel making jobs get outsourced, they all can become programmers!
Which is patently stupid, because some of the programmers I was working with at the time shouldn't have been programmers. And you want me to believe that textile workers and steel mill workers should be? What a effing joke...
AdHocSolver
(2,561 posts)TPTB want all education to be by computer because you cannot discuss ideas with a computer, or win an argument with a computer.
Whoever learns by means of a computer program cannot successfully question or challenge the content of what they are being taught. Whoever controls the computer and its contents is in total control.
The computer is totally authoritarian and in control.