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Has The 'Hour of Code' Turned Into a Giant Corporate Infomercial? (theregister.co.uk)
It happens every December. During "Computer Science Education Week," schools around the world dedicate a special hour towards getting kids excited about programming. But theodp writes: With Microsoft, Apple, and Google vying for the opportunity to put their products in front of tens of millions of K-12 students, The Register's Andrew Orlowski opines that the Hour of Code is turning into a giant corporate infomercial for kids. "Parents, such as the late Steve Jobs, tend to ration their children's use of technology," notes Orlowski. "But would Jobs, who consistently praised the value of broad liberal arts, approve of an hour of [Microsoft] Minecraft? It's doubtful." Google, he adds, is keen on dishing out its VR headsets to students and, not to be undone, Apple is also muscling in with an hour of code [and offering free workshops at Apple Stores].
This year Microsoft is even introducing a special online 'Hour of Code' edition" of Minecraft, according to the article, which points out that last year 31 million schoolchildren just spent their "Hour of Code" playing Minecraft.
This year Microsoft is even introducing a special online 'Hour of Code' edition" of Minecraft, according to the article, which points out that last year 31 million schoolchildren just spent their "Hour of Code" playing Minecraft.
I don't see why it wouldn't. A lot of kids started off back in the 80's with type-in programs. A lot of the Hour of Code activities seem similar, but now augmented with helpful annotations. That seems like an improvement to me.
There's a strange belief here that learning to program ought be a painful rite of passage to weed out the undeserving. It used to just be a fun hobby the average kid could pick-up in a few days.
Required reading for internet skeptics
It's like having "book hour" or "music hour" once a year. At our school the kids get 2 periods per week for tech (straight coding, sure, or movie making, or web, or animation or embedding code into robotics, or Arduino or AR or etc...) and then can articulate that with other subjects. One hour is barely even inspiring, especially if there is not a structure to keep it going, and in this case history repeats: IIRC Seymour Papert said having a computer in every classroom back in the 80s was like having one piece of toilet paper in each room of your house. It's not hurting anything per se but it's a lot more useful if brought together in the right time and place.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
No, it's that it should be something a child is actually drawn to, not an activity forced down their throat to perform in lock-step with thirty other classmates.
But not in a scripted hour in a group activity led by a teacher with no idea what they are doing...
Ken
Companies like this have no idea how to educate your child. That's not what they are interested in. Participation in the hour of code stuff is pure brand building. Look, kids, you can play Minecraft on your school iPads thanks to Microsoft! Google it now!
As someone who's worked their entire professional career in school IT, a shocking number of companies have no idea what education actually is or how it works or what's needed. RPi was a great example. Throw the device at kids with absolutely no educational content ready, nothing to give to teachers to aid them along, and don't even bother to come to educational conferences, just let others sell it for you on the basis of a name.
I don't know a single school that has more than a couple of them, and they are rarely used for anything but the default image, "load up Scratch, wasn't that cool?, right back to work".
If you think you're going to teach teenagers coding by using Scratch and Minecraft (which, admittedly, has logic circuits etc.) then you're sadly failing a generation whose parents were using BBC BASIC on the ONE computer in their school when they were 8/9. Seriously, even something like TIS-100 or SpaceChem does more for problem solving, logic constraints and the coding mindset than Scratch and similar (which is basically drag-drop-flow-chart, which we used to call "Control", not programming).
My school have the Microsoft .NET Gadgeteer devices, same problem. The curriculum content covered is minimal, most of it is left in the hands of the teacher, so you get a single example project that they make themselves familiar with, every kid does it the same, builds it the same, loads up the same example code, and apart from the real outliers that tinker on their own, nobody learns anything.
As a coder, a mathematician, there is nothing scarier than how little of how the computer actually works is taught in schools. Because the teacher's don't know either. I've worked in dozens of schools over the years and met dozens of IT teachers and primary school teachers who are required to teach IT. I've met precisel three teachers I'd trust to write a program - one a mathematics teacher who programmed in COBOL in a previous one, one a former industrial control specialist who went into teaching, the other my brother who teaches physics but studied maths in uni and was taught FORTRAN.
With the exception of the industrial control guy, not ONE of the IT teachers I've met or worked with has a clue about programming or how to program or would even get an XKCD or Dilbert joke about coders or similar. I wouldn't trust any of them to build a machine, network a room, or anything else. And that's worrying because that means they are not "Computer Science", they are "Computing". An end-user, not a creator.
Sure, they can teach the kids to do silly things in Scratch and knock up an assessment sheet in Excel, but anything more than that and you wouldn't want them near it.
And those are the people TEACHING the specialist subject of IT that - in the UK - is required to be a part of teaching in all subjects.
My teachers, back in my day, had no IT equipment, experience, or knowledge. And they did a better job because they knew it was the future and knew it was vital and they learned it and made us.
Nowadays, everything is computing so as long as you're proficient with a bit of typing and know where the print button is in Word when the teacher loses you, you're a genius.
I help run after-school clubs targeting coding, in an exclusive private school. We've had hundreds of top-class pupils comes through our doors. I've met precisely one who stood a chance of being a half-decent coder. All the others think that pressing F12 in Chrome and changing the local cached HTML front page of BBC News to read "Fred Bloggs is a Wally" is "hacking".
People just don't code nowadays. And Microsoft et al have no intention to teach them, because it keeps them as MS's mercy. They will never understand how si
You dont spend 45 years teaching people to mindlessly consume technology and then suddenly expect them to become software engineers. These are the same multinational corporations that have fought hard against hacker culture with everything from the 'dont copy that floppy' campaign to DMCA takedowns and international raids against "suspected hackers." These are the same people that led a witch hunt against Aaron Schwartz for his 'hour of code.' The same corporations that insist their source is sacrosanct, their licenses indelible, and their "intellectual property" unquestionable. many would argue they are the least qualified, if at all capable, of ensuring a future america can write so much as a hello world.
Minecraft is slowly rearing its head as one of microsofts worst decisions. Yes it had a lot of users, but not a lot of new users. sure, you can create logic engines in it, but the average 11 year old on minecraft isnt doing that. Notch walked away with the bulk of minecrafts real profit, leaving microsoft to shepherd servers and find new ways to milk a cow he gave up on years ago after the food mechanic. the MS deal alienated a lot of hackers/coders who enjoyed writing mods for the platform and saw it as just another thing gobbled up by redmond to be slowly bled dry through incompetent mismanagement.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Did you know that in 1986, long before the Internet was at the home, and before programming was a popular profession, thousands of now grey-haired slashtards like me looked at a computer and thought "how do I make my own game?" And then picked up a book from the box or the library and made it happen. I didn't need my parents to shove it down my throat, and would have rebelled if they had. I didn't need a school to torture me with stupid boring bullshit. I rebelled against that too. However, a C64 and a book and I was in business. Even worse, I had a commodore, and the only magazine at the library was for the Apple II so I had to port the games. Somehow, it worked, though my code still looks like a flowchart instead of objects. Believe it or not, young one, children can learn how to code on their own, just fine.
Software architecture, however, must be learned though blood, tears, sweat, screaming and sadomasichism.
They last damn person on earth I want teaching programming is a K-12 teacher. Do you seriously want programming to fall under the umbrella of the same people who have embraced fuzzy math and other "new" educational concepts? Do you want programming degrading in quality at the accelerated rate that reading, writing, art, math, and everything else taught in school has been?