How young children have fun learning to code by playing a simple game which allows them to use basic concepts to guide a fuzzy blue alien home is key to developing lifelong interests and abilities in computer science.
Meadowlark Elementary School technology teacher told kindergartners that their lesson was going to be special.
“Today, we are going to be playing a special game,” Sweckard said. “It will teach you how to think like a computer.”
The announcement was greeted with shouts of “BORING!” But as the children started playing the game, Kodable, they realized that it wasn’t so boring after all.
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“Wait a minute!” said Eli Schiffer. “This is fun!”
Sweckard will be sharing this realization with all her students during Hour of Code events over the next few weeks. The events were launched last week in conjunction with National Computer Science Education Week.
“As you heard, a lot of kids think computer science is boring,” Sweckard said. “But I hope that these events teach them that it can actually be a lot of fun to use your brain and solve problems – even when you’re just a little kindergartner.”
Hour of Code encourages students around the world to spend at least one hour learning how to write code for programming. “Computer science is for everyone,” Sweckard said. “Every industry today is tied to computers in some way. Understanding how a computer works really enables kids to understand how the world works. These skills will give our kids a better chance in the future, even if they decide to not go into computer science as a career.”
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