What’s bugging me (get it…bugging?)
Gentle reader, I’ve been thinking of late about coding. Lots of hip young librarians seem to be doing it. But why?
I learned Basic when I was young. I created an adventure game on my Texas Instruments computer as a girl. I know my way around Unix. I can make a really bad SQL database. But that’s about it.
When I was a librarian at a prestigious university in the northern parts of Manhattan, a student was working on a research study. She wanted to show that students just starting out in computer science in college were at a disadvantage compared to students who already possessed some programming knowledge and skills. She seemed to be on to something.
Now my kid, who’s 8, is learning some coding principles in his library sessions at school.
There’s only so much time in the day. Is learning coding a worthwhile endeavor? What does it even mean? Let’s turn to some voices in the educational world to give us something to chew on.
What they’re saying about learning coding: a modest sample
I found some great examples on Edutopia about teachers who go to great lengths to teach students coding. But I also stumbled across The Future of Coding in Schools, an interesting article by Resnick, the creator of Scratch (a kid’s free coding platform developed by Resnick at MIT). Resnick would like all students to learn to program. However, not for the reasons you might think — not just to gain skills to get jobs, but to learn to “organize, express and share ideas in new ways.” We teach everyone to write for this reason — why not teach everyone to code for this reason.
On the other hand is it just another “silly fad” as Margaret Wente puts it in an opinion piece entitled Coding for Kids: Another Silly Fad in the Globe and Mail. We should not be teaching coding at the expense of math and science which help us to understand the real world. Digital literacy skills are far more important to stress because they are more useful to more people.
Derek Newton, in a Forbes article, says “The way we teach kids to code may be wrong.” Coding requires a certain mindset that should focus not just on the digital experience. Coding isn’t approached as a “skill” in the earlier grades. It’s about building a foundation that can be used to learn coding skills later on. Tactile learning with real objects may be a better way to teach the concepts that will be needed to build future learning.
Three perspectives — all interested in foundational learning — but with different approaches.
Magic and Technology and Consumers
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Arthur C. Clarke
At the very least, it is important for any citizen to have some understanding of what goes into making computers work, IMHO. Algorithms are increasingly shown to be biased. Technology is increasingly important for getting jobs. Conspiracy theories abound surrounding technologies. A well-informed citizenry should be able to evaluate and understand the tools they need to use every day at least from a consumer perspective. That’s my two cents worth. How to go about it and what everyone should know as a baseline…that’s a knotty question.
Final Thoughts and Questions
Librarians are definitely concerned with “data literacy.” Is coding important as well? As a higher education librarian, what can I do to support coding in college? Do we need to use digital tools to create or learn to create digital tools? What’s more important — digital literacy or coding?
It is so interesting that your son is learning coding through his library lessons. I am seeing a convergence of library and makerspaces, increasing the need for library staff to have the skills to teach this content. I started reading about how libraries are thinking about “Space as service” – this is one of the services taking place in our school and public libraries. https://er.educause.edu/articles/2022/4/moving-to-mobile-space-as-a-service-in-the-academic-library
Hi Jill,
Great post! You organized your thoughts well and supported them with great research. Your experience definitely pulled me into your post as well. Your final thoughts echo my own. While I think that there are great ways to integrate coding into education, I’m unsure how I can support my students in using coding, especially when I’m so new to the concept myself.
Hey Jill, you can really see the translation the technology experience you had early on, how its worked with your blog page. It really looks amazing and very professional. Coding is a very interesting topic that has a lot of layers to it. I like the use of play on words as well and how you grab the readers attention with your word play.
Going forward in the future I think this is something that should be taught in the basic form to students just so they can understand simple concepts. As they get older if their interest increases as they get older than that could be an opportunity to learn more.
Jill,
Your sharing of your research findings on the various perspectives on teaching coding was very much appreciated. I certainly vacillated a bit on this issue but Resnick’s idea of coding as a way to learn to organize and express ideas resonated with me. It certainly is an option for students who may need other ways of sharing ideas, especially those who want to make things come to life like magic! I do agree that a baseline is needed by all; now someone needs to agree somewhere on what that baseline knowledge and skill is.
And kudos to you on your SQL database skills! And I smiled when I saw that you wrote about learning Basic too!
Hi Jill,
I think you downplayed your experience a little :). Your early technology related accomplishments is quite impressive. I like how you laid out your opinion and yet highlighted popular opinions for and against the subject matter. I found your blog really organized and had a fun time reading through it!