Everyone Should Learn to Code and Start in School
YouTubers on smart televisions have substituted famous children’s cartoon shows. They are more intrigued by online games and puzzles than by board games or physical activities. They are not faithful to anything specifically on private devices — their decisions are a cycle of downloading, installing, playing, and uninstalling.
In this evolving world, educators and tech thinkers think that kids need to be exposed to computational thinking, the thinking processes engaged in formulating issues and solutions in ways that machines can efficiently perform. It is also about creating abilities to cope with any open-ended issue across fields, be it math, science or humanities, and being prepared for future employment.
The World Economic Forum’s ‘The Future of Jobs Report’ predicts that 65% of students entering today’s main school will eventually end up working in totally new kinds of jobs that do not yet exist.
US magazine Wired, which focuses on emerging technologies, states that as part of the national curriculum for computing courses, a straightforward version of Scratch, a block-based visual programming language created by MIT, is commonly taught to 5 and 6-year-olds in UK primary schools.
In India, as part of their computer science course, both CBSE and ICSE boards have implemented programming, but the course is optional for most colleges. While class 6, 7, and 8 CBSE students are initiated into coding courses of Visual Basic and HTML, in classes 9 and 10, ICSE learners learn the basics of Java and C language.
Indian parents are warming up to the concept of their kids obtaining programming abilities. Today, several companies allow this through unconventional techniques. ZugZwang trains 4-5-year-old learners in wooden puzzles such as Hanoi Towers before launching them into LightBot, a puzzle game that secretly teaches programming logic as you play. The focus is on improving the fluid intelligence of a child or the capacity to handle issues that you have never encountered.
Next Education has a block-based programming coding game, Koda, developed by MIT. Koda allows kids to design their own games, helping them learn how to code and create a computer mindset.
According to Ramesh Loganathan, professor of exercise, co-innovations at IIIT-Hyderabad, the institute performs a computational thinking program for schoolchildren during summers where they deliberately avoid teaching any programming, since learning programming is like studying a language that can be picked up at any time of life. “We’re helping them detect patterns, comprehend and fix issues,” he claims.
