Code Literacy - Horizon Report for Higher Education

The 2017 Horizon Report for Higher Education addresses the subject of Coding as a Literacy as a key short-term trend in K-12 education. Short term trends are described as technology adoptions that are trending within a one to the two-year time frame. The report states that computer science is currently one of the fastest growing industries and that coding literacy is quickly becoming a critical skill across many different career fields, to include many non-technical fields. The report states that many education programs around the world are including basic coding in their curriculum (Freeman, Adams, Cummins, 2017). I found this article interesting because I regularly volunteer for several programs in and around Texas that provide coding camps for children. One program called Youth Code Jam focuses on teaching computer science concepts to children with mild learning disabilities like autism but is also open to anyone who wishes to attend. As a parent of two school-aged children and as a regular volunteer, I do not believe that our public education system is focusing enough effort on teaching code to children. I believe this is due to several forces that negatively impact adopting coding literacy as a priority in the school curriculum. Teachers need to be educated in coding themselves, the cost of resources to teach coding needs to be addressed, and the availability of resources to teach coding is also a challenge.

I believe that there are current technologies that can successfully address each of these issues. To start with the issue of cost, we often use Raspberry Pi mini-computers as platforms for many of our Youth Code Jam events. Raspberry Pi’s are small single board computers with video and audio output, USB and network interfaces, and Wi-Fi capability. The computers are very inexpensive and make great platforms to teach coding literacy on. There are many different projects and applications that students can attempt and learn from. In my daughter’s public school, I am trying to start a program where each student is given a Raspberry Pi as a personal coding platform. The Pi is small enough that they can carry it in their backpack and take it to classes with them. Each class then just needs monitors, keyboards, and Wi-Fi access for the students to use the Pi to access the internet and learn to code. This leads to the second solution of availability. There are several amazing resources online that teach coding at a beginner level. The Horizon report has a link to Common Sense Education that lists the 29 highest rated online resources for learning code. Sites like Code.org and Code Academy provide lessons in many popular programming languages where students can work through lessons at their own pace and be graded on their progress (Code, 2017). These online resources address the last issue of teacher education. I believe that allowing teachers to use these online resources as part of a formal curriculum would alleviate some of the burden of them becoming proficient at coding before they can properly educate their students (Learn, 2017). With online resources like Code Academy, the teachers can learn alongside their students and can rely on the lessons that have already been created for the site instead of having to build lesson plans for a subject that they are still learning themselves.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/97/Raspberry_Pi_3_B%2B_%2839906369025%29.png/300px-Raspberry_Pi_3_B%2B_%2839906369025%29.png

 

References:

Freeman, A., Adams Becker, S., Cummins, M., Davis, A., and Hall Giesinger, C. (2017). NMC/CoSN

Horizon Report: 2017 K–12 Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.

Code.org: Anybody can Learn. (2017). Retrieved July 18, 2018, from http://code.org

Learn to code - for free. (2017). Retrieved July 18, 2018, from http://codeacademy.com

First Post

Hi, this is the first post for my blog for the class Futuring and Innovation (CS875-1803C-01) at Colorado Technical University.  I'm working towards getting a Doctor of Computer Science degree and I'm currently in the third quarter of my first year. I'm excited for the challenges that this course and this degree have to offer!

Throughout my career, I have tried to be in a state of constant improvement and learning. I believe that it is an essential part of being a computer scientist to always have the attitude of a student. With technology changing daily, it is imperative that computer scientists stay up to date with current innovations, so they can apply them in their work.

I started my career as a Russian linguist for the US Air Force. Once I realized that I truly did not want to do that job for a living, I transferred to be a communications specialist, which lead me to being a Systems Administrator at the headquarters for the Air Intelligence Agency. This job allowed me to find a rather small and select office to work in, that was working with offensive and defensive cyber weapons. In 2005 I completed my enlistment and was hired on as a contractor with Northrop Grumman to work in the same office. I worked my way up the ranks and was recruited by MITRE to be lead systems engineer for offensive cyber development operations. MITRE provides full education benefits for their employees. I have already received my bachelor’s in computer science and my master’s in information assurance and network defense. I signed up for my doctorate a week after I was hired by MITRE!

I'm very excited to complete this degree. A doctorate in computer science will allow me to move up within my company, and with my government sponsors. I was really excited to start Futuring and Innovation and I believe this will be one of my favorite classes in my degree. I would like to focus this blog on interesting information that I find that could be used to further my understanding of my research topic. I'm currently working with various DoD organizations to implement agile development methodologies into cyber weapon development. Most government regulations are built around a traditional waterfall development approach, and I am working to change that. The challenge is to find a way to incorporate stringent government oversight into a development method that was designed to remove unnecessary oversight, review, and documentation from the development process. So far it has been an uphill battle, but I am making progress. At this time, I've published two papers on this subject and I've developed a strategy that has been accepted for use on one of our programs. With luck, I can use the information I learn in this class to help with my work and use the lessons I'm learning at work to help guide some of the research I conduct for this class!

I'm also an avid tinkerer, and I will always jump on an opportunity to automate something! I have a house full of Raspberry Pi's that open my garage doors and turn on my lights! I fly drones whenever I can, and I make terrible Python code in rube goldberg-esque attempts to solve simple problems with Arduino boards! I'm excited at the possibility of finding some like-minded students that will geek out with me! Thanks for reading!

~ Ben