Yesterday I drove down to a meeting at Bletchley Park. It was hosted by @jasongorman who had invited other primary ICT coordinators, independent school secondary ICT teachers, consultants, learning technologists, as well as representatives from Google, the BBCAcademy, Thoughtworks, and other companies too.
It was an interesting meeting. The aim of it was to see why so few people are leaving education without the ability to understand code, why so few people move into the software programming profession.
Amongst the many presentations, @ianaddision spoke about how the primary phase is already using software and hardware (paid for and free) to introduce the idea of coding in the primary classroom - Beebots, Roamers, Logo, 2DIY (with ActionScript), Scratch, and Kodu were all mentioned. Interestingly, this seemed to surprise many of the delegates who didn't realise just what went on in the primary phase. In fact for the rest of the day most of the talk was how secondary, higher and further education could include more programming / coding into their curriculums. When I spoke to Jason at the end of the day, about the fact most of the discussion was secondary and tertiary based, he commented that primary looked to addressing the issue already, and wasn't the major concern.
There were some jaw dropping moments during the day too. For example, I learnt that the secondary exam structure is so rigid in some of its course requirements, and that creativity - like in the primary phase - is simply not possible. Who would have thought that some exam boards course requirements include "creating a mail merge document", "creating a 6-slide presentation" (apparently including horrific elements such as sounds, animations and coloured backgrounds are the only way to score maximum marks), and "creating a pubisher document" (so, no MS monopoly there then!). More worrying was learning that this particular course was created 3 years ago, and is likely to remain in place for the next seven years before it is reviewed and updated.
During the afternoon the Director of @Raspberry_Pi spoke about the Raspberry Pi machine. A tiny device, it reminded me so much of the computers around when I was at school. A box that you plug a monitor, or a television set in to it, keyboard and mouse and away you go. Priced at $25 for the "Model A", and $35 for the "Model B" versions (references to the BBC Micro?) it's perfect for a child to buy, plug in at home and use. After talking with Eben Upton, director of the company, the OS will be linux based, and is loaded onto an SD card. What are the chances of being able to put other programming languages on additional SD cards - BASIC, Logo, etc) and then being able to write programmes using it?
Imagine children having a lesson in school where they learn a new procedure or routine, then are able to go home, plug in their Raspberry Pi, and "play" with that new knowledge and create a game / app / routine (yes "play". It's how I picked up the basics of coding that I know, trying things out on a BBC micro, or a ZXSpectrum at home). Who knows, they might even sit down with their family and learn together.
What was clear by the end of the day is that there needs to be a change as to how "Computer Science", "ICT", or whatever you want to call it, is taught. Dedicated lessons? Software designers visiting schools? After school clubs? Lots of ideas, but... where to start?
I hope to be able to be part of the process that helps decide that. I think teaching programming to children IS important. I've begun already. I encourage the children at school to fiddle with the ActionScript in 2DIY games;
Flying Hermes (elements run away from the user, and the main character can 'fly')
Mario in the Clouds (try teleporting from the left green tube to the right green tube)
For a history of videogames topic, the children made use of a "Make Pong" cribsheet to then create their own versions of the game (short video of them working). PingPong and Mario Pong + music examples
Oh, and during lunchtime I went on a tour around Bletchley Park. I saw a working recreation of Colossus, the Tunney Machine, learnt just how clever some of the codebreakers working there during the war were (imagine receiving a brand new code, cracking it, working out how it was created, and even being able to draw a plan of how the machine that created the code must have looked in just 6 weeks). I also went into the National Museum of Computing and revisited some of my childhood friends; the ZX81, the Spectrum, a classroom full of BBC micros, and even an archive full of the old computer magazines I used to read and copy the code from to create my own games. A long, but enjoyable day.