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Teachers Get 1 Week To Test Tech Giants' Hour of Code
theodp writes "In a move straight out of Healthcare.gov's playbook, teachers won't get to preview the final lessons they're being asked to roll out to 10 million U.S. students until a week before the Dec. 9th launch of the Hour of Code nation-wide learn-to-code initiative, according to a video explaining the project, which is backed by the nation's tech giants, including Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Google, and Amazon. The Hour of Code tutorial page showcased to the press sports Lorem Ipsum pseudo-Latin text instead of real content, promised tutorial software is still being developed by Microsoft and Google, and celebrity tutorials by Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg are still a work-in-progress. With their vast resources and deep pockets, the companies involved can still probably pull something off, but why risk disaster for such a high-stakes effort with a last-minute rush? One possible explanation is that CS Education Week, a heretofore little-recognized event, is coming up soon. Then again, tech immigration reform is back on the front burner, an initiative that's also near-and-dear to many of same players behind Hour of Code, including Microsoft Chief Counsel Brad Smith who, during the Hour of Code kickoff press conference, boasted that Microsoft's more-high-tech-visas-for-U.S.-kids-computer-science-education deal found its way into the Senate Immigration Bill, but minutes later joined his fellow FWD.us panelists to dismiss a questioner's suggestion that Hour of Code might somehow be part of a larger self-serving tech industry interest."
I doubt they have more than 10k even following the program. A high school lesson plan doesn't change because some tech giants are trying to score some political points.
Even if the kids won't get a lesson in computer science, they'll get a lesson in what happens when software development is rushed.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
The whole thing sounds like a gigantic boondoggle, the chance is 100% all the kids are going to snooze right through it.
The Hour of Code, dedicated to minimizing the tech giants' cost per Hour of Code.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
Hip, up-to-the-moment name? Check
Tutorials by industry legends? Check
Backed by the top companies in the IT business? Check
D-Day style simultaneous rollout to multiple millions of customers? Check
Nothing less than our nation's future may be at stake? Check
Uh oh.
Tutorial software by Microsoft in a tight timeline. What could possibly go wrong?
* Learn to habitually apply critical thinking. Why would Microsoft want "every American student to have the opportunity to learn computer science"--a somewhat advanced branch of mathematics? That's right: it doesn't. It wants an oversupply of employees in "computing occupations". (Quotes from the linked technet blog post).
BUT, don't apply critical thinking out loud at work. That's non-career-advancing. Use it in your meta-employment strategy.
* Learn persuasion and negotiation skills: applied (cod-) psychology topics such as body language, emotional intelligence, rhetoric. Join Toastmasters. Develop a wide circle of acquaintances in lots of different industries and occupations--it's the "weak connections" that get you jobs.
* Learn the elements of employment law.
* Learn how to cooperate effectively with your fellow employees. Which means doing the shit work, at least some of the time, especially at the start.
If you want to become one of the -l-i-z-a-r-d--p-e-o-p-l-e- 1%:-
* learn what it takes. Here's a very introductory primer: The Gervais Principle.
This can't be good. The kids are going to get a bad impression and will stay further away than they would have otherwise.
The sociopaths running many of the nation's tech corporations, whether they be software or hardware engineering, have no desire whatsoever to encourage a larger American workforce for those industries. The reason for that lack of motivation is simple: such a workforce educated here would expect higher salaries to pay off their enormous student loans (for institutions with massive tuitions used to subsidize profit-seeking research and not education) and would thus diminish their profit more than a similarly educated immigrant or outsourced workforce. They and their peers in other industries of course could sacrifice excess profit and reduce the prices of their goods, thus reducing inflation and the nationwide cost of living and allowing people to live on lower wages, but why would sociopaths do that?
I've spent the last 15 years at a college/university that doesn't recognize the importance of any level of computer science beyond vocational training for existing jobs. In my opinion, anything that reaches even slightly beyond this myopic view of education is a plus. At the very least it will increase the probabilities of future college administrators who aren't giving themselves perpetual colonoscopies.
"Learn Ruby & Java While Being Shot Out of a Cannon for Complete Over-Caffeinated Morons."
Table-ized A.I.
I got an hour to test our new helpdesk software. Needless to say, it sucks... and we're stuck with it. Yay management.
WebCt.
Assuming the material is actually available, one week is more than enough for preparation. Most teachers do not have time for the kind of preparation you probably think they ought to do. I worked as a teacher for 5 years. Generally speaking, If I had a 1 hour class, I spent 1-3 hours on preparation. This was a fair bit more than most other teachers at the school who had more responsibilities than I did. Usually I tried to have my lessons prepared a week in advance, but more often than not, they were prepared 1-2 days in advance. No matter how much lead time you give the teachers, I guarantee that virtually nobody will look at it until a few days before. There just isn't enough time to do so.
BTW, if you think this is ridiculous, you could probably vote to raise your taxes, have more money sent to the schools and insist that it is spent on hiring more teachers rather than on toys like iPads for every student. There is barely a subject in school that wouldn't benefit from ripping out all the technology in a classroom and replacing it with a blackboard and another teacher.
do this system too?
And how many will need to learn to read or do basic math before this class will make any difference???
How much of the content will actually be advertisements for the companies sponsoring it ?????
The summary accompanying this story is flamebait for all the "BIG GOVERNMENT" Fan Bois out there that believe the Federal Government is all knowing and all benevolent and should treat us as if we are their children to be protected and coddled. Everything the government is correct and for the good of all the people. In fact more things should be taken under the leadership of the federal government because we don't know what we are doing and will only hurt ourselves in anything we try to do. The government knows how to wisely spend money and will wisely and fairly distribute wealth to all it's children. They will educate us into, care for us, employ us, shelter us, bathe us and allow us recreation. The government will crush the evil rich and redistribute the money to all of us so that we all become equally rich. Amen.
We need to let the educators of Texas and South Carolina vet these lessons to make sure there's no pro-gay, pro-Darwin or pro-Marxist agenda.
I mean, what are we worried about here, that these lessons are going to make tech education in the US for K-12 worse?
You are welcome on my lawn.
I think people tend to forget that the heart of compromise is to find something that BOTH sides benefit from in a transaction. It's not just the 800lb gorilla compelling someone.
The schools/government want to promote computer education.
Yes, the industry wants some nebulous increase in worker-drones some vague time in the future, but are being asked to invest resources from some very short-term balance sheets so yeah, I can see them wanting a tit-for-tat benefit in legislation today.*
*and if the government is stupid enough to agree to a deal in which they don't get much, and the industry gets more, it just shows you who's got the better negotiators.
-Styopa
Where were these people back then when I was in high school. My pubil high schools had A.P. programs that came under under fire from some cikkeges because it was cutting into thier profits. We were basicly done with freshman year in college after graduating from high school. Thanks to a few top colleges and major engineering firms in NY that decided to fund the AP PROGRAMS, it was saved. To lazy to fix the capital keters in a smakk screen deal with it.
If all the kids can code you can get away with paying them minimum wage.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
You mean the site that opened two months early, and has an extended deadline for 2014, giving almost six months for people to get off their ass?
Yeah, that's a good lesson to learn. Unless you're the idiot media who has to make a story to get people's attention for 90 seconds rather than substance.
This is the top level of interesting comments provided at Slashdot today
I've never seen a more sinister move by those that would renounce their U.S. Citizenship for pieces of silver.
David Cameron and 99% of all UK politicians come from the Liberal arts tradition and in the UK there is a very high wall between us oily and greasy engineers and scientists and in Davids milieu there is a prejudice against "girly swots" which is why Boris Johnson plays the fool so much.
The last time the Torys had a scientist was Mrs T and the rest of the party dont really want to go back to being hand bagged - its also why dodgy schemes like free schools get so much traction there are no politicians who will analys the suggested schemes properly.
the corps are tired of paying top dollar for programmers. India generates all the .Net and SQL hacks they need, but guys that can write huge Big Data DB systems are still scarce enough they cost real money. Plus after 20 years of outsourcing as much as they can they're having a hard time getting people interested in a career that isn't there... So they're pouring money into making more programmers. They did the same with the Nursing industry and managed to drop wages there quite a bit.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
They won't even get that. Teachers who participate (it is optional, so no one is being forced to teach something with a week or less to prepare) can win prizes, and students who attend a follow-up course can win stuff for themselves. Sounds like bribery to me.
Besides, I don't think it is important that things are incomplete, since the week designated is December 9-15. Plenty of time, and I don't think this qualifies as rushed.
And, they probably won't do much in the way of actual code. "Designed as a game that teaches basic coding principles, it will feature guest lectures by technologists including Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg and artwork from popular games"
There is a blurb at the CS education week site http://csedweek.org/ "No math needed. No computers either."
"Weâ(TM)ll host a variety of hour-long tutorials
on the http://csedweek.orgwebsite/ for
students to doâ"some developed by
Code.org, others developed by partner
organizations. Many of the tutorials will be
compatible with tablets and smartphones,
and there will be some âoeunpluggedâ lessons
that require no computer at all. "
So you would have to at least preview each one to see which tutorial to show for that hour. Lots more time involved.
One actual demo, "Blockly", is putting code blocks together like legos, and it isn't completely terrible.
link
Bookend with some talking heads, and you got an hour without talking or touching code.