- Coding allows students to create content, not just consume it.
- Coding empowers students and give them tools to express themselves in really cool ways.
- Coding teaches storytelling with games and animations.
- Coding is a place for students to take risks and fail safely.
- Coding is inclusive and builds self-confidence
- Coding supports many principles of mathematics
- Coding teaches problem solving and critical/analytical thinking skills
- Coding is a new type of literacy and will be a large part of future jobs.
- Coding develops teamwork and collaborative skills
- Coding can help humanity
Bonus: Coding gives you superpowers!
Brian, thanks for creating this list! I’d love to know more about each of the points. I guess I continue to wonder how much we need to teach coding vs. how much we need to offer coding as a choice to support learning. Maybe we can’t really differentiate between these two. I’m not sure, but I’d love to hear more of your thoughts.
Aviva
I will be upfront and admit my bias towards Sylvia’s Sketchnotes 🙂
I started coding with my students this year and found myself nodding to every single point on these lists. It has been (in my limited, new to teaching experience) some of the most engaging work they’ve done. And, again with my limited experience, I would offer Aviva that the two aren’t mutually exclusive: teaching them coding offers a choice to support learning. It is just one more tool in their toolbox, one more entry point; some may choose to use it, others may not.
I do agree it is another tool. But unlike (fill in tool name e.g.: iMovie) – there is an added layer of computational thinking required to demonstrate the learning.
Think about having to complete a giant puzzle to show off your work. There is way more to it than just making slides.
Do you think that we will see coding introduced into our elementary curriculum here in Canada in the foreseeable future? I am curious about Britain’s progress with their curriculum initiatives with coding. I have seen it as an extremely effective option for my students who dislike Language as it has taken them from feeling unsuccessful to achieving great accomplishments.
Shaun
An interesting conversation with no easy answers! I do seeing coding as a very effective tool for students who decide to use it. And I wish the choice would be there for more students. You could easily say that coding is an area that can be explored in more depth becoming a subject on its own. Similar to saying a student can study film making as a branch of using iMovie. Maybe the question is at what age do students start to explore coding as a separate subject area? Is it enough in elementary for it to be a tool for curriculum? In my opinion, those questions are important but not pivotal at this point. Why not pivotal? Because coding is not accessible to all students at this point. How do we make it more accessible is probably the question that we need to answer in the short term. Agree?