I’m not a massive coding geek like some people I know.
I can hold my own and do what I need to do when I’m working with a number of languages, but coding skills are something that I would really like to work on.
The New York Times has published a series about coding. Calling the rising number of coding students “Computer Science’s Sputnik Moment,” there are a few interesting articles to mull over in the series. But one of them struck me more deeply than the others. That is the article by Jeanette Wing who is the head of the Computer Science Department at Carnegie Mellon. The article is entitled Software as Self – Expression.
In it she says:
“Today’s students have grown-up tech savvy. They live in a world of exploring the Web and of personalizing their devices. Cyberspace is the anytime, anywhere laboratory where you can design and run your own experiments by writing just a little software. It’s affordable by anyone with access to the Internet. And each piece of software is an individual’s expression of creativity, much like poetry or music. Computer science can be fun and empowering.”
and
“When people talk about the smart grid, smart vehicles, and smart buildings — what makes them “smart”? Computer science. When people talk about personalized medicine and personalized learning, how do you think personalization is possible? Computer science”
Software as self expression. Coding as an art form.
While we’ve heard this before, after all, something similar is WordPress‘ motto: “Code is Poetry,” I think professor Wing does a particularly good job of putting this thought out there in this article.
John Davitt and I once had a conversation about “struggleware.” This is software that allows people (forces people) to experiment, to think, to solve problems in order to make things. There is getting to be more and more good examples of software floating around that does this.
- Scratch
- Alice
- Lego Mindstorms
- Minecraft
- The Powder Toy
- Waterbear
- Garageband
- Aviary
on and on.
I would even throw software like WordPress on to this list. WordPress is free and open source. It can be hacked open and customized in countless ways, allowing people to make something they are interested in. This is the creativity, the self expression, the art form that coding skills give you access to. While I don’t believe everyone needs to be a high level programmer, I think everyone needs at least a basic understanding of how to work with, control, and create using technology.
I can’t draw or paint. I don’t know how to sing and I don’t play an instrument. But I can write some code. Even having a few skills gives me a chance to express myself.
How many kids out there are the same way?
I have to 100% agree with you.
When my Jr. High Admin began his journey with blogging, I convinced him to go with WordPress and the first thing we did was learn to TWEAK a template to make it his own.
I believe self-expression is a powerful tool we need to put in the hands of our students…and if it is as simple as teaching how to tweak a font, add a customized header, or add in a widget — we need to do so….
And we also need to encourage educators to do the same……to not be content with a template anyone can have…but to tweak it to make your own.
When I taught Jr High, and we were working in PowerPoint, my students were NOT allowed to use the Pre-Made templates. Instead, we worked with Paint Shop Pro to customize their backgrounds.
What I found out later is that my JH students stood out with their presentations in HS because their PP looked different, unique, and not one that everyone had.
It is the little things, the tweaks, that show you not only go the extra step, but you want to go the extra step to be a bit different.
Learning programming, or editing CSS or PHP, or a template, is so empowering, yet so simple.
I hope this post encourages others to take a chance…and tweak.
Jen
Good to see you writing about this. One thing I see is the increase in DIY physical computing, not in schools per se, but in the DIY culture. See Wired Mag’s March focus – http://www.wired.com/magazine/19-04.
You’ve got Lego Mindstorms on your list, but I’d like to add a few…
* TurtleArt – http://turtleart.org – Scratch-like in that it’s screen based, but creations can be ported to physical art
* Picocrickets – http://picocricket.com – Lego-based kits for creating and programming interactive objects and toys
* Arduino – http://arduino.cc – A bit more advanced, but is being used in just about every area of our homes and lives.
Coupled with these sites you’ve got some powerful learning, creativity and innovation waiting to happen…
- Adafruit – http://www.adafruit.com
- SparkFun – http://www.sparkfun.com
- Instructables – http://www.instructables.com
My fear is that we speak of coding, that it implies for the screen only. My hope is that in education we have students use computer to augment the physical world, not just the online virtual worlds with things that solve problems, frustrations and make it a better more interesting experience for others.