On City of New York’s “Computer Science for All”

Today I’m taking a look at the City of New York’s recent announcement of its plan to introduce computer science to all public schools in the next 10 years.

I’m always interested in the details of public announcements. Where is the money coming from? Where is it going? and how will it be measured? Here’s what I could find out about this announcement:

• $81 million dollars over ten years to introduce computer science to all public schools in the next 10 years (by 2025?)
• It will be a 50-50 public-private partnership with the first 2.5 years funded by three Foundations (the Solomon Wilson Family Foundation, Robin Hood Foundation and AOL Foundation). This makes the City’s contribution approx $40m or around $4m per annum. This also means the City of New York will essentially need business development managers to find the remaining funds.
• Computer science will not be a graduation requirement. It will be compulsory up until year 8 and then middle and high schools can offer the subject as an elective.

What I couldn’t figure out is how the money will be spent, and by who. There were a few leads – the first is that the City estimates it will need about 5,000 trained teachers. The second is that the National Science Foundation has said it plans to train 10,000 teachers to teach computer science. Although this May 2015 release talks about the NSF training approx 100 New York public school teachers. I’m hoping those 100 were a pilot for an ongoing program.

This announcement is part of a much larger education initiative to support literary and numeracy programs with the measured intention of increasing university participation rates. It also builds off two other initiatives: a computer science teacher training program (2013, mentioned above) and an Advanced Placement program (2014), that would see college level material offered in high schools.

The program is expected to face challenges in training enough teachers, supporting schools and students with infrastructure and also adapting the content and learning styles to accommodate a world where coding is taught in boot camps, micro courses and in project based learning. Critics of the program have said that this money would have been better spent increasing numeracy and literacy rates and that teaching computer science is a passing trend that will be quickly outdated.

My thoughts:

I’d love to see the breakdown of how the money is being spent. Not to critique it, but to gain ideas for what we could be doing locally. Other programs I’ve looked at spend their money on teacher training, so that would make sense. Infrastructure is another bucket that needs funding but is much more expensive as you have both capital and maintenance costs – mixed with your standard deployment costs.

Teacher training is a very real issue. It is something we will face here in Australia. I also believe that it is a known issue therefore can be factored into deployment plans. If there is a serious plan to rollout coding in schools then the teacher professional development side of things should not be underestimated as it plays a serious part in the program’s success.

On whether America’s obsession with STEM is dangerous

A couple of weeks ago I was sent Fareed Zakaria’s article “Why America’s obsession with STEM education is dangerous” (March, Washington Post). The article looked like a counter to the endless commentary on the need to increase the technical skills of students. This movement is largely USA driven but also reaches Europe, Australia and a bunch of what I would generalise as ‘Western education systems’.

The gist of the article is that a hardcore drive towards technical skills (i.e. the learn to code movement), at the expense of liberal arts education, would erode the very elements that made the USA a success – creativity, innovation and problem solving. Zakaria points to the USA’s low global rankings in maths and science but, instead of seeing that as an issue, says that it has always been this way and the USA has been successful regardless.

Personally I believe this is a misguided, clickbait-y, point of view. I have never heard anyone say that liberal arts degrees, and diverse interests, are not valuable. The line is always that technology is a tool to deliver your ideas. These ideas come through big thinking, innovation, creativity etc. It’s not that coding advocates want to do away with liberal arts degrees – its more that our students are coming through the elementary school system without even a basic exposure to tools that will benefit them immensely during their lives (and careers).

The article suggests that revised curriculums have a “narrow” STEM focus. I disagree with this as well. The revised curriculum in Australia proposes a strong focus on problem solving and logical thinking. It does this in the form of computational thinking  – and backs it up by exposing students to the programming and coding skills needed to deliver this creative thinking. There is a large gap between our generations comfort with technology and our ability to make things with it. This gap between confidence and competence is what we are working to reduce – hopefully creating a generation of students that are flexible thinkers, capable of finding jobs that deliver on their passions. In the 21st century its the students with the best skills set that will have the greatest chance of making the impact they want to see.

On the learn-to-code movement in 2015

Last December, Ryan Seashore, CEO and founder of CodeNow, put up his thoughts on the learn-to-code movement – where its at and where it needs to be. I like this article for several reasons. First, it attempts to put a time line around the host of initiatives – making it very clear how recent most of them are. Second, it adds structure to the movement and distinguishes between the different players.

Here’s how Seashore broke them down:

Awareness: the purpose of these orgs is to raise awareness of the need for increased computer science/coding education. The main player here is Code.org, with Made with Code also referenced. Success is measured in terms of publicity, social media and uptake of campaigns such as Hour of Code and Computer Science Education Week. [JW note: I’m pretty sure Code.org would argue that, through their teacher support materials, they moving well down the chain into the exposure and immersion categories, but in general, they play an important role in raising awareness of this issue]

Exposure: main goal of these orgs is to give students a taste of coding as a discipline. The idea is to give students exposure so they can then decide if its an area of interest they might want to pursue in college. Players: CodeNow, Black Girls Code, CoderDojo, Technovation, Rails Girls etc. Success is measured by the number and diversity of students that attend the programs.

Immersion: a subset of the exposure groups – here the aim is to bridge the gap between the first 5-30 hours and full blown curriculum. Programs include SMASH, Girls Who Code, TEALS, ScriptED, UrbanTXT. Once again, success is measured by number and diversity of attendees.

Vocational: generally for-profit. Think General Assembly, Dev Bootcamp, Hack Bright Academy etc. These guys have grown fast and can offer specialisations like UI design, front end coding, app creation, data science etc.

Online: these are online courses, often free, from CodeAcademy, Khan Academy, CodeSchool and MOOCs facilitated through Coursera and Udacity. These can range from hour long tutorials through to 8-12 week courses. Here Seashore comments on the frequently quoted 5% completion rate and the huge amount of self-discipline needed to actually finish the courses.

The ‘where to from here’ section of Seashore’s article touched on a few things: a) the creation of a national association to coordinate the linkages between all the above organisations – to help them move up the education ladder, b) setting public goals for education, c) pushing the public to challenge the government to make coding mandatory in schools, and d) pushing tech companies to do more than just donate money – they can play an active role in educating students and taking interns.

My thoughts:

• Not-for-profits: Seashore starts his article saying that not-for-profits are stepping into this space because the tech industry has diversity issues and sectors of society (women, African American, Hispanic) are not being included in this incredibly progressive, well paying industry sector. This is true for Australia as well – the tech sector has low representation from women, Indigenous Australians and other groups. However our base uptake is so low that, in general, Australians as a whole are missing out on this opportunity. Not-for-profits are stepping in, not for diversity reasons, but because they can move faster (and arguably have less responsibility) than official government education. Very few of the organisations above have a physical presence in Australia – which relegates them all to the ‘self driven’ online category.
• Educational progression: Seashore’s article warns of offering false hopes. Imagine for example that enthusiastic volunteers (from organisations or companies) come into a school, run an amazing workshop on coding, generate a healthy amount of interest in technology but then leave an under supported teacher to figure out the next steps. It would make sense for each outreach activity to have a ‘next steps’ component to their activities.
• Localisation: in Australia we are starting to see a few organisations emerge in for-profit category of tech education – General Assembly, CoderFactory and Code Rangers (relatively new) are some that come to mind. Code Rangers is interesting because it is playing in the traditionally not-for-profit space of youth education but is tapping the structured, and paid, after school networks. Essentially providing a quality alternative to after school care for young students.

On the Digital Technologies Curriculum review process

I thought I’d put up a piece on further developments in the ongoing discussion on the role of the Digital Technologies (K-10) curriculum in Australia. This curriculum would deliver on calls for mandatory technology education, coding in particular, from foundation to Year 10. Last October I put up a piece on the then recent review of the Australian curriculum. This review suggested, amongst other things, that technology should be taught as an elective from Year 9 and older (roughly the same as we have now). The tech industry, and tech education advocates, saw this as a worrying sign.

However, things took a positive turn in December, when the Commonwealth Government (Department of Education) announced it would refer the Review’s recommendations to the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA). ACARA is the joint Commonwealth/State Government education group that led the original consultations and designed the Digital Technologies curriculum. ACARA has been asked to report to the Education Council at its first meeting in 2015.

There are still a few more areas to address. Fran Foo’s December article on this matter specifically asked for comment from NSW and WA governments as to whether they would commit to supporting this industry call for mandatory tech education (and the Digital Technologies curriculum). The NSW response was “NSW is committed to its current practice where technologies learning commences in early stage 1 (kindergarten) with the Science and Technology syllabus and continues into years 7 & 8“. A quick glance at the NSW Board of Studies website shows that NSW has just launched an updated Science K-10 (incorporating Science and Technologies K-6) syllabus in 2015. The article then quotes the NSW Board of Studies as saying “Should the Technologies Curriculum be endorsed by education ministers and BOSTES (Board of Studies, Teaching and Education Standards) decide to  adopt it, consultation with stakeholders including the advocates of coding and algorithmic thinking will ensue”.

My thoughts:

I guess we wait and see. I can absolutely see how a review could decide that the Digital Technologies would be a challenge to implement – by default it features content (coding) that is not particularly strong in Australia. This is all the more reason that it should be taught. The curriculum review focused on whether the content of the Digital Technologies curriculum was achievable from an educators point of view – was it written in a style that people could deliver. This one I’ll leave to educators. Another point was whether teachers would be supported to deliver the content – this was/is a concern for those delivering the technology subject in the UK, so it will be interesting to see how that plays out. Finally I can see why State Government education groups would be cautious about radical overhauls of education systems. Education is vital and not something that is easy to switch up – so naturally they would want to follow due process.

On the plus side, at least the conversation is continuing.

On Camp/Interactive (C/I) (Bronx, USA)

C/I (Camp/Interactive) is a Bronx based tech education program focused on supporting high-school students from underserved backgrounds. Its mission is “inspire and equip underserved students with the skills in computing, leadership, and professionalism needed to thrive in the Internet economy and beyond“. Starting in 2001 as a four week summer program (two weeks outdoor leadership training, two weeks intensive technology training) the program expanded in 2006 with a Bronx based learning centre and later added internships.

The program has three main components (from C/I website):

• Code/Interactive: students attend computer science education sessions at least twice a week at their schools with a C/I Teacher to work on self-directed computer science education modules in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Participating schools gain a robust curriculum, technology, teaching materials, access to other program elements (summits, camps and internships). [C/I’s website shows it is working with roughly 12 schools in the Bronx area.]
• Camp/Interactive: Young Entrepreneur Summits give C/I’s top students an opportunity to develop their technology skills in a unique environment. Each Y.E.S. program hosts panels of minority tech entrepreneurs to share their expertise with C/I students, equipping them with the tech and leadership skills needed to be successful in today’s fastest growing industry.
• Careers/Interactive: Successful students from C/I’s year-long programs apply for paid summer internships at top tech companies. Interns utilise their coding, prototyping, and leadership skills to gain hands-on work experience and training for a future career. Past internship hosts include GroupMe, RetailMeNot, GILT, AirBnB, Business Insider, The New York Times, FourSquare, General Assembly, CK-12, and Gust.

C/I lists its results as:

• Increase in college attendance rates: C/I students are five times as likely as their peers to go to college
• Break the poverty cycle: C/I provides graduates with skills that can double their household income
• Opportunities to join the workforce: 60% of C/I interns are offered full time employment

My thoughts:

There are many things I like about what I’m reading. The first is thoughtful links between the program elements. Offering in-school resources, coupled with more intensive camps/office visits for keen students and ending with the opportunity of a paid internship. I like that the program uses its own year long education program as a filter for companies looking to support interns – only students that complete the years worth of extra curricular study are offered internship positions. This both recognises/ensures the quality of the teaching, but also addresses employer side concerns about the quality/motivation of the students they are taking in. I imagine that if employers were also participating as mentors and hosting office visits then they would also have a chance to meet the students before taking them onboard as interns.

I also like that the program has an official signup process for schools. In Australia we face a challenge that often programs are introduced by a single motivated teacher, and are reliant on that one teachers’ passion and time to keep the program running. Ideally these programs would be taken in by the school and supported at the highest level – then actively promoted to teachers and parents alike as something the school is doing to improve its educational capacity. This is particularly important in the computer science realm where content moves fast, students learn fast and finding skilled educators can be tricky.

Finally, I like the program structure. It has clear opportunities to engage as volunteers, participants and financial sponsors. It appears measurable and it looks possible to track outcomes due to the high engagement with the students involved.

On Robots and Education

I thought I’d start the new year with a post about the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. More specifically, a post about Ozobot – the winner of the 2015 Kids at Play Interactive Award for Best Robot.

Ozobot is a golf ball sized robot that responds to lines drawn on paper or a tablet. The robot follows the lines and does different things depending on the line’s colour – e.g. spin in a circle or speed up. Ozobot is aimed at ages 7-13 (approx years 2-7 in Australia). They are currently programmed using a proprietory language but will soon progress to Google’s Blockly (a visual programming language). The robots run for about $50 a piece including some apps and support resources.

Robots as education tools
There is a strong push to use robots as tools that teach coding. Robots are very physical, you can touch them, play with them and see a tangible outcome from your code. However, unlike many of the free online courses – robots cost money – approx $50-$400 a unit. Two prominent organisations driving robots as education tools in Australia are Robocup Jnr and FiRST Lego League (FLL) – both based off Lego’s Mindstorm platform. For upper primary/lower middle school – FLL is about $350 to enter.

Other robots include:

• Sphero and Ollie by Connected Play ($80)
• Dash and Dot by Wonder Workshop ($260, ages 5+)
• Kibo by Kinderlab ($220-$400, ages 4-7)
• Bee-Bot by TTS Group ($50-$100, for pre schoolers/ages 3+)

I guess the questions teachers and parents have to weigh up are – which robot do they choose with? What are the benefits of tacticle learning tools like robots vs purely visual tools like those on Code.org. Age plays a clear role in this – most of the robots are cute, have names and seem targeted at ages 5-10 (pre-school and primary school) – this is of course before they hit the more advanced robots used in the Lego competitions.

On EU Code Week

So… October 11-17 was EU Code Week. The week that European educators focused on raising the profile of computer science initiatives across the EU. EurActiv has published a series of special reports focusing on coding, education and the economy. They are collated in this nifty PDF – worth the read.

Again we see similar themes. The opening address links the concepts of digital natives – familiar with technology but under served by current education systems, the pervasiveness of technology across different industry sectors – not just the tech sector, a recognised gap between unemployment and the demands of the growing tech sector and technology as a potential economic solution for growth and job creation. Example: “The EU’s app-developer workforce will grow from one million in 2013 to 2.6 million in 2019. Additional support and marketing staff will take that figure to 4.8 million by 2018.”

The special report touches on the role of public-private partnerships in championing awareness-raising campaigns and spreading best practice. It mentions a “Coding Industry Coalition” (nb. Google hasn’t heard of it outside of EurActiv’s report) of global businesses that has formed in response to this demand. The idea is that European Union policy makers have little to no control over national based education programs. Therefore industry must step in to demonstrate the usefulness of coding in schools.

The report also mentions the “EU Coding Initiative” – the first localised coding platform in Europe. The initiative provides teaching and educational resources, awareness raising initiatives and online tutorials (beginner-expert). The European website was built off the successful Code.org site and features many of the same tutorials and videos. The About section has a little more information:

“The aim of the campaign is to promote coding through a mixture of online and offline, real-life activities, with a view to establishing coding as a key competence within every education system in Europe. The eu.code.org website, developed in conjunction with Code.org, will provide resources in a number of languages, catering to everyone from the youngest coders, to pedagogical resources and lesson plans for teachers, to industry training and certification for professionals. The European Coding Initiative will play a central role in a number of Europe-wide advocacy and awareness-raising campaigns, including Europe Code Week, Computer Science Education Week, the Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs and the European activities of the Hour of Code campaign.”

On Malcolm Turnbull and Tech Education

Last month, the Hon. Malcolm Turnbull, Minister for Communications and hero of the tech world, spoke at what looks like a Westpac associated event. The topic: “The Importance of Tech Education in Our Schools” (24 October, 2014).

In most regards the speech was on-point. It addressed:

• The Digital Technologies curriculum review – stating that the review’s intent was to simplify Australia’s curriculum and that coding could emerge through another strand, such as mathematics. This incorporation of coding into the mathematics curriculum was mentioned three times in the speech. Turnbull also mentioned the need to distinguish between the recommendations of Phil Callil, the subject matter expert, and the review as a whole. This was to remind people that Callil determined that key ICT skills taught as part of the digital technologies syllabus, such as coding and computational thinking, should be taught from Foundation to Year 10.
• The role of technology in changing our economy – the need to create new jobs as old jobs disappear and the need for Australia to remain internationally competitive. Particularly if Australia wishes to remain a high cost centre with a strong social support network. He referenced Dr Ian Chubb’s recognition that about half of all US economic growth in the last 50 years came from scientific and technological advances.
• The difference between passively consuming technology and actively making it – quote:

“…Instead of teaching students how to be passive consumers of technology…, our educators should be teaching students how to create, how to code.”

• ICT education participation rates – commencements in tertiary ICT courses have also fallen sharply, with a 53 per cent decline between 2001 and 2011, while completions declined by 58 per cent over the same period. And that while female participation in the workforce is almost 50%, female participation in STEM careers sits at 25%.

Mr Turnbull said that we need to ensure that:

• We are equipping students with the skills for employment in an increasingly competitive globalised economy
• We are improving the pathways for students to study IT from Foundation through to secondary school and onto university
• There is an increase in the percentage of school-aged girls participating in ICT and women employed in the ICT sector
• Teachers are supported to undertake professional learning in key areas of IT competency.

The speech referenced two ideas:

• First, the $500,000 set aside for the Geelong based P-Tech. Modelled on IBM’s work in the US – this P-Tech would increase industry engagement in the school system
• Second, we closely monitor the impact of the UK introducing a Digital Technologies curriculum.

My thoughts:

Most of the speech’s content is exactly what people are looking for. Recognition that technology will play an increasingly important role in our future, that jobs are changing and the economy needs to change with it. One thing that stood out was the constant referencing of mathematics as the solution to embedding logic and computational thinking in the K-6 curriculum. Not sure if everyone will agree that’s the solution… but if it is going to live anywhere under the current structure that’s not a terrible place. It was interesting to see Turnbull specifically name-check the Canberra based Australian Mathematics Trust (see quote below).

The speech was a little light on solutions. The current initiatives put forward by the Commonwealth Government include: a) review the curriculum, b) $3.5 million to embed ‘coding across the curriculum’ and c) the P-Tech. It’s tough to see how these initiatives will have the desired effect – especially given the emphasis put on the incredible pace that technology is influencing the world.

Full quote on Australian Mathematics Trust:

Teaching students how to code – to use computers to create rather than just consume – from Foundation through to Year 8 could be appropriately incorporated into the mathematics syllabus, for example.

A leader in this area is the Australian Mathematics Trust based in Canberra. I commend you to the work they are doing in informatics, a mathematics discipline, where students learn the basic algorithms, data structures and computational techniques that underlie information and communication, and demonstrate their learning through computer programming tasks.

On the Australian Government’s $3.5m coding in schools announcement

The Australian Government’s curriculum review recently suggested that technologies subjects were best placed as an elective for students in Year 9 and above. A day later the same government announced a $12 million fund to improve science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects in primary and secondary schools. Of particular note is the second item – a specific $3.5m allocation to introduce coding across different year levels in Australian schools.

The $12 million is broken down like this:

• $7.4m to develop and implement Mathematics by inquiry
• $3.5m towards introduction to computer coding across the curriculum
• $0.5m towards establishing a P-TECH styled education facility
• $0.6m to extend national science and mathematics summer schools to include more girls, disadvantaged and Indigenous school students, including those from regional and remote areas.

This funding is a subset of a larger $400m project called the the Industry, Innovation and Competitiveness Agenda (the Agenda). Under this Agenda, the Government has four key ambitions, including:

1. a lower cost, business friendly environment with less regulation, lower taxes and more competitive markets;
2. a more skilled labour force;
3. better economic infrastructure; and
4. industry policy that fosters innovation and entrepreneurship.

The $3.5m coding in schools funding description currently reads:

Building on these maths education programmes, the Government will provide a further $3.5 million to encourage the introduction of computer coding across different year levels in Australian schools. ‘Coding across the curriculum’ will contribute to addressing Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry feedback which consistently emphasises a looming acute shortage of computer programming skills. It is anticipated that a consortia of organisations with appropriate professional capacity and technical expertise will be contracted through tender processes to deliver these programmes.

My thoughts:

Need more information. The $12m funding announcement came a day after the Government released its review effectively suggesting that specific tech subjects are mainly relevant for students Years 9 and above. The review also suggested that computer science learning objectives were best delivered when folded into other subjects. This announcement of a specific fund for coding ‘across different year levels’ doesn’t align with the curriculum announcement. Another thing I’m not clear on is the duration – $3.5m per annum is very different to $3.5 over four years.

Coding in schools is currently a niche interest – mainly existing as weekend, lunchtime or after school programs outside the school structure. This helps retain their independence and keeps the administration lean. Organisations like Code Club have just started expanding – these organisations are powered by international resources, enthusiastic local volunteers/teachers and, where available, private sector funding. CoderDojo operates in the same area but has more of an industry mentorship/weekend activity approach.

I’m keen to know if the allocated funding is intended to scale existing extra curricular activities or whether it is intended for something embedded in the school structure.

On the UK’s Digital Curriculum

Are teachers ready for the coding revolution? (BBC News, January 2014) is an article about the changes to the English digital technologies curriculum. However the article is not the most interesting part of this post – as always – the money is in the comments section. I did a quick read of about 100 of the comments (of 240) and have pulled together a summary below. For the most part the comments were negative, criticising the UK government’s ability to roll out an education program, questioning its necessity, questioning teachers capability in delivering the curriculum, debating England’s role in the global technology value chain…

Here’s the summary:

On teachers:

The comments focused on teachers not having the skills or confidence to deliver programming in the classroom. Some thought that a poorly taught subject would do more harm than good – further discouraging people from pursuing technology as a career path or skills set. They suggested that teachers are already overworked and don’t have time to master a new set of tools (such as Scratch). The point was raised that students would rapidly overtake their teachers and the teachers would be left struggling without support.

On programming as part of the curriculum:

These comments asked why should programming be taught in primary school – they suggested primary school was for reading, writing, science, sports, socialisation. Teaching programming would create a generation of anti-social nerds. They suggested that there is a myth that a) programming is necessary to be in the tech space and b) coding is being oversold as an economic solution – that in reality it is a boring, frustrating, tedious process. Others argued that teaching coding languages was pointless however there was some benefit to teaching computational thinking and logic. Another point said that what really needs to be taught is entrepreneurship and business skills – then the students would learn to apply their tech knowledge through doing. And the ever present – why do I need to learn to code if I am not planning on working in technology?

On the economy:

There was a lot of discussion about whether anyone actually needs coding skills in 21st century England. That this is a skills set that should be outsourced to cheaper locations in the world (specifically mentioning India and Eastern Europe). Some commented that there were already enough skilled workers in England but that employers were looking for cheap labour overseas so talent was left languishing in unemployment queues. Others said that salaries were too low to attract high quality students into those careers. Another comment was that you don’t actually spend time coding if you are working in tech.

On the Government’s plans:

High levels of cynicism that the program would be over promised and under delivered, leaving teachers high and dry without resources.

My thoughts:

Tough crowd. However the comments do raise interesting points for any government looking to tackle technology in the curriculum. The biggest question I saw was about whether every student needs to learn to code? The typical answer is ‘not really’ – not everyone is going to head into the tech space. A more nuanced answer is ‘yes’, because students need to be exposed to this line of thinking – alongside the traditional maths, writing, science – so that they are not locked out of future job prospects. A key difference between the the 1980s (the last time governments had a tech push) and now is the omni presence of technology in our lives. Technology is no longer a nerd thing, everyone is using a smartphone and doing business/life over the internet. You don’t have to have a career in this space but you do need to know how it works.

The question of employability has been raised before. How can we say we are experiencing a STEM crisis if there is currently a skilled pool of programmers unable to find jobs (be it the US, Australia or the UK). At the moment the only answer I have found is that this relates to whether these candidates have continued to develop their skills/certificates and also do they have the soft skills and diverse backgrounds needed for the roles – but this needs more research and insight.

Either way, the above comments give an indication of the types of questions a government would need to address before rolling out a program of this nature.