Why should people learn how to code?
Digital Natives of Aruba
We research and develop innovative digital solutions that have the capacity to drive value for Aruba.
In a world driven by innovation in Information Communication Technology such as apps and social networks, our own personal career opportunities have opened up into an infinitely diverse digital universe. Through the program of Code Club, Digital Natives of Aruba Foundation (DNA) believes coding is more than just the skill of communicating with computers, it’s more about critical thinking and solving problems. These are skills that can open up a multitude of career paths. The Code Club movement, will expose children to the various job opportunities in the field of innovation.?
?No longer do we require the physical resources to build monumental structures, the resources flow down from our brains, out through our fingertips and into our own creations. Many future jobs are expected to rely on coding skills, it is little surprise to see that education ministries across the world are beginning to push schools to start teaching children how to code from a young age. In the report “Digital Education at School in Europe” by the EU Commission (2019), approximately half of all EU countries have in some form embedded coding in their educational system. In an article by the Guardian ‘Rise of the machines: why coding is the skill you have to learn (2018),? researchers have identified two simple statistics as prompting this move. “Not only do 90% of jobs require IT skills today, by 2020 there will be a predicted skills shortfall representing 800,000 skilled IT jobs across the EU”. The Future of Jobs Report by the World Economic Forum (2020),? predicts that 65% of children entering primary school today will ultimately end up working in completely new job types that do not even exist yet. The world is changing at such a fast pace that the high-paying jobs of today did not even exist five years ago. However, this is easier said than done. The director of the OECD Directorate for Education and Skills Andreas Schleicher (2019) summons the challenge. “Adding new subject material is an easy way for education systems to show that they are responding to emerging demands, but it is always harder to remove older material”. She further illustrates that “teachers plow through a large amount of content, leaving students with a limited depth of understanding – one that is a mile wide and an inch deep”.?
?In addition to teaching kids how to code, DNA also wants to introduce these kids to all the ways in which their creative and innovative potential could be realized in ways that fit their own interests and ambitions. Additionally, this can drastically contribute to modernizing our society. Advocates argue that learning computer programming skills will benefit children in other ways whatever their ultimate career – it’s comparable to the reading of giving children the chance to learn a musical instrument or foreign language. Sophie Deen, head of Code Club Pro, which has been running training sessions for teachers in the United Kingdom mentions, “We’re not just trying to encourage people to become developers. We’re trying to encourage children to become creative. At the primary level, it helps children to be articulate and think logically: when they start breaking down what’s happening, they can start predicting what’s going to happen. It’s about looking around you almost like an engineer at how things are constructed". Furthermore, Bill Mitchell, director of education at BCS, “If you teach computing and do it right, you can help children develop their learning in literacy and numeracy". The basic idea of computing is to have a computer to solve a problem by creating an algorithm, a set of instructions. If you can do that, this will be a valuable skill whenever working in a team for any kind of project. For example, when one learns physics, they think about physics. However,? when one learns computing, they are thinking about thinking. Rather more about how thinking works.?
?DNA hopes that students and graduates will also realize the economic potential offered by the island for entrepreneurs to set up business and attract foreign investment through their marketable innovations. Graduate retention will contribute to technological and economical development here on the Island. As mentioned by the World Economic Forum (202), skills gaps continue to be high. The top skills they see as rising in the future include; critical thinking and analysis as well as problem-solving, and skills in self-management such as active learning, resilience, stress tolerance, and flexibility. Therefore, coding is about much more than teaching technology. It incorporates logic, problem-solving, and creativity in an engaging way for children of all ages. The non-cognitive skills that children develop through coding lessons are even more beneficial to young learners than the technical skills they acquire. Coding allows students to be creative without being wrong. If something doesn’t work, students must figure out why and determine how to fix it. Coding is the process of continually making mistakes, learning from them, and correcting them. Coding requires creativity and critical thinking – future-ready skills that, along with collaboration and communication, are essential. Best of all, coding allows students to create content, rather than simply consume it – and that’s a must-have skill for functioning in today’s tech-driven world. Ultimately, this non-material innovation through the power of coding can help lead to modern, eco-friendly diversification of Aruba’s economy, lessening the dependence on the much less eco-friendly source of income for the Island, tourism.??
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