THAT’S CODE FOR ‘FUTURE’
Instructor Nat Cooper helps out students at a recent YMCA coding youth camp hosted by Microsoft in downtown Vancouver. Computer coding is becoming a bigger part of education in the province.
We all love our computers. Smartphones, laptops, bank machines, cash registers, GPS systems — you name it, we’re using computers every day and all the time.
But only a select few of us understand how a computer works, perhaps those who studied computer science or who have become expert at building websites or who have made their fortunes creating social media.
B.C.’s Ministry of Education wants to change that. Starting this fall, students in B.C. will be introduced to computer coding in school, as part of the new curriculum. It will be an optional part of the Grade 9 applied skills curriculum for this year, but districts will be required to offer a coding module by the 2018-19 school year.
So, what exactly is coding? It’s how we tell a computer what to do. Not in the same way we tell it how to turn on or which video we want to watch on YouTube or to tell us what route to take to get to a party. Coding is behind the scenes: It’s the use of a language, or code, that tells computer programs how to operate.
There are several different languages and learning a specific one isn’t as important as learning how these languages work, experts say. It all comes down to “computational thinking,” which includes problem solving, critical thinking and logic.
“Coding is a hands-on way of teaching students how to analyze a problem, determine the steps to fix it, and then create code so a machine can carry out those steps. It’s more than working with computers — it’s an approach and a way of problem solving,” said Mike Bernier, B.C.’s minister of education.
At the Vancouver offices of SAP, an international software development company, that type of problem solving is taking place all day, every day.
“(Coders) take things that don’t exist and create things that run countries, that produce products, that keep your pacemaker running,” said Kirsten Sutton, managing director of SAP Labs Canada.
“You name it. It’s incredible what you can do with software — it can do anything.”
In the technical field, there are more jobs than people qualified to fill them. In the future, every job will have a technical aspect, Sutton said.
She said the sooner the “spark is lit” in terms of interest about technology, the better.
“Kids are exposed to technology so young and the sooner they get interested in picking it apart and figuring out how it works, the more likely they are to build a passion around it,” Sutton said.
Postmedia News spoke to some teenagers taking a coding session as part of a digital media YMCA summer day camp.
They had gathered at Microsoft’s new downtown Vancouver office in “The Garage,” a big training space, for an event hosted by Ladies Learning Code, a not-for-profit organization that builds digital literacy skills for women and youth.
The kids were huddled over their computers, each putting together a website using HTML and CSS.
Lara Komati, 12, said she had tried coding by herself at home, but found it frustrating. But with a little bit of training at the camp, she said it was “amusing, interesting and fun.”
“I wish I did it at school. It teaches kids how to use computers better,” Komati said.
Cooper Owen, 14, was making a website about himself. He said he had never tried it before, at home or at school, but he said it was fun and he thinks in the future it will be mandatory for everyone to have a personal website.
“We use technology a lot in dayto-day life and seeing how it’s made is interesting,” Owen said. “When (the teacher) explains it, it’s really easy. I hope to do some more because it’s fun to make something yourself.”
Kazvin Chan, 13, said he would consider computer coding as a career, maybe, in the future.
“I’ve never done this before at school, but that would be really fun. We just use the computer for research,” Chan said.
They’re about to get their chance to try coding at school.
“As we phase coding into the new curriculum, every student will soon have the opportunity to experience basic coding,” Bernier said. “This gives young people a headstart and helps open up a path to the tech sector and other careers through post-secondary education and the workplace.”
Melissa Sariffodeen, CEO of Ladies Learning Code, said learning code is important for many reasons.
“I think it’s the skill of the future. Technology is everywhere around us, so it’s really important, I think, that the next generation knows how to build the technology that they use,” Sariffodeen said.
“(It’s for) the same reason that we teach math and science to everyone.
“It’s not so that we have a bunch of mathematicians and scientists, it’s so that kids understand the way the world around them works.
“I think in this digital age, that’s really, really critical.”
The technology changes every few months, but it is the processes and way of thinking that are important for kids to learn, she said.
“We need kids to know logic and how the languages work, not the actual languages because those are going to change,” Sariffodeen said.
When Bernier announced the introduction of coding to the curriculum earlier this year, Sariffodeen said her organization was inundated with phone calls from teachers wanting to learn more about code.
Because of that, it will be offering professional development for teachers in B.C. this fall.
When the announcement was made, there was concern that B.C.’s teachers may lack the training to properly teach coding and districts may lack the money to upgrade aging computer labs and Internet bandwidth in order to give students the right technological tools.
The education ministry has since announced $2 million for teacher training specifically for the coding curriculum, $2 mil- lion to help school districts purchase equipment and resources to support coding instruction, and $2 million to help teachers bring the new curriculum to life in their classrooms.
Sariffodeen said a recent report showed there would be a shortage of 182,000 trained people for jobs that would require skills like computer coding by 2019 in Canada.
SAP provides a program for Grade 7 girls in partnership with the University of B.C., and is also a partner in the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) program at Templeton secondary with the B.C. Institute of Technology.
SAP’s Sutton said the Templeton program is very useful because it not only teaches the technical skills, but also things like empathy, collaboration, creativity, and public speaking, which are essential for coders.
“The actual coding part is only a small part of what it takes to be successful working in a software company,” Sutton said.
“Software is not done in isolation — you don’t program by yourself at a desk with your headphones on all day.
“It’s very collaborative and it’s not just an analytical process — it’s an extremely creative process.”
It’s really important, I think, that the next generation knows how to build the technology that they use.