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Google-Funded Project Envisions Nation's Librarians Teaching Kids to Code (ala.org)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the overdue dept.

"We're excited to double down on the findings of Ready to Code 1," says one Google program manager, "by equipping librarians with the knowledge and skills to cultivate computational thinking and coding skills in our youth." theodp writes: Citing the need to fill "500,000 current job openings in the field of computer science," the American Library Association argues in a new whitepaper that "all 115,000 of the nation's school and public libraries are crucial community partners to guarantee youth have skills essential to future employment and civic participation"... The ALA's Google-funded "Libraries Ready to Code" project has entered Phase II, which aims to "equip Master's in Library Science students to deliver coding programs through public and school libraries and foster computational thinking skills among the nation's youth."

"Libraries play a vital role in our communities, and Google is proud to build on our partnership with ALA," added Hai Hong, who leads US outreach on Google's K-12 Education team... "Given the ubiquity of technology and the half-a-million unfilled tech jobs in the country, we need to ensure that all youth understand the world around them and have the opportunity to develop the essential skills that employers -- and our nation's economy -- require."

14 of 197 comments (clear)

  1. Better to spend on education than salaries by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Corporate America sees a problem: not enough computer programmers, and a solution: teach people programming.

    If salaries went up, along with job security, many self-starting adults would seek out the education they need to make that money. But we can't have THAT!

    But without that, it doesn't matter how much education you do...once people learn the reality of the industry they will jump right out of it.

    Them's the facts.

    1. Re:Better to spend on education than salaries by Nephandus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There ARE enough. They just don't want to hire, pay, or train (as in standard practices or specific house standards for full pro projects, NOT base coding abilities/knowledge we actually DO know) us. Instead, they hire false credentialed jargon spouters (who don't even own their own computers prior, much less are remotely computer geeks ever) from body shops called consultancies (an inserted, ironically costly layer to setup a racket), pay them less (paying through the consultancy has little to no rules, paying "consultants" junior level for intermediate or beyond level work is never prevented, captive labor doesn't want to get thrown back for rocking the boat), and half-assedly train them (Hell, have a local, with years of experience, train their own inexperienced replacements for his own higher level position in a few WEEKS) because they think it's a bargain to get shitty code on the cheap and don't comprehend how net costs actual work over time in the software industry, much less care about quality or security.

      --
      "A soft answer turneth away wrath. Once wrath is looking the other way, shoot it in the head."
    2. Re:Better to spend on education than salaries by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You are equating 'computer programmers' with 'people that can program'. A huge number of professions would benefit from people being able to script up something to reduce their work load.

      There are companies still doing books in Excel by hand (not relying on any of Excel's built in functions). I helped someone in the mid 2000s that didn't know you could Sort or Uniquify a list in Excel.

      It's not about making computer programmers it's about graduating engineers that can program, accountants that can program, MBAs that can program.

      A long time ago not everyone learned to type. There were typists that were employed to type in what someone else came up with. Along the way someone got the idea that you could teach people to type and that typists would no longer be needed outside of some specific jobs. The same thing is happening right now with coding.

      Source: I'm a Mechanical Engineer that mashes the keyboard to get my job done.

    3. Re:Better to spend on education than salaries by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I have at this point in my life worked on about 10 large projects. Thousands of man hours poured into them. All did decently and made the companies millions. Well over 300k people were using it at one point. Not one line of code is still in use. The only things that are still being used is by me because I do not need to re-write them at this time. But they probably will be at some point.

      Code is eferial. It is transient. It leaves like a ghost never to be seen again. I can see why companies want to minimize the cost of that.

      They will find however that just because everyone knows how to program does not mean everyone can do it. I am a very experienced at it and even I still have trouble with it. It takes time and solitude to do correctly. Instead we are trying to force creative art style bullpit design into it. So you get in the zone and are yanked out quickly because the dude 2 tables over has decided to have a conversation with 3 other people. Most people can do 1 thing at a time pretty well. Give them 2 things and they will do 2 things very badly. One thing that struck me when I first started doing this was how quiet most programming environments were. Its not like that anymore.

      Companies also think if we just put them all together and add in rock stars good code magically happens. Half the time you have to spend a year just to get them to commit on whatever stupid idea they are thinking of. I can not read your mind and come up with 'good things' when you can not even describe what you want. Its little wonder they do not even know what to pay someone. As they are not even sure what the job should be. They think they want to 'improve' things but sometimes adding in a overcomplex bit of software can make things even worse. So they want a bargain on top of it all. I can understand it. Do not like it much but understand it.

    4. Re:Better to spend on education than salaries by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The "500,000 job openings" is a lie. A complete, absolute lie whose sole purpose is to serve as an excuse to push for hiring more foreign workers.

      If there is a shortage of workers, then why are you firing hundreds of your employees and replacing them with the same number of foreign workers? At lower wages, of course. Because that's the only shortage that actually exists -- a shortage of people willing to be treated like shit and be paid the lowest possible wages.

    5. Re:Better to spend on education than salaries by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Tech's problem is that it doesn't have strong unions and advocacy groups. Medicine does, law does, and as a result conditions are much better.

      Having more people trained in programming will help, if only by removing some of the drudge work from the more talented ones so they can make better use of their skills. What we need to ensure is that they are unionized, otherwise they will be exploited and discarded just like the rest of us.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    6. Re: Better to spend on education than salaries by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why would anyone spend time and money to train for a low pay bullshit job? If you were a business, you wouldn't invest in projects that are low-income / no profit shit..

      --
      "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  2. Wrong skill set by QuietLagoon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ..."by equipping librarians with the knowledge and skills to cultivate computational thinking and coding skills in our youth."...

    Do librarians really have the appropriate innate skill set, and desires, to teach kids how to code? This sounds like Google was looking around for someone to do the teaching, and someone at the meeting said, "librarians!," to which everyone agreed (in typical meeting style).

    .
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

  3. 500,000 job openings by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm in my 50s, with 30 years of programming experience in many languages and fields. Can't get hired because of age and I guess I want too much money. This is reality in this field.

    So I suppose Google is really saying let's get kids to code so we can hire them at 20 and pay them peanuts. Then let them go when it's too expensive and do it all over again.

  4. Re:Who teaches the teachers? by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why do the librarians need to know how to code? Librarians have never been a jack of all trades but were instead a knowledgeable source as to where to find the information. They didn't have every book memorized but could assist people in finding the book so they could learn on their own.

    My local library has a 3D printer and while the librarians can answer basic questions they (in a much politer way) tell you to RTFM. "Equipping librarians" can be nothing more than introducing them to the fact that Code Academy exists.

  5. Girls only, again ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Are they funding teachers not to teach boys again, or have they apologised for that disgusting sexism ?

  6. Vocational training for young kids is a waste. by hey! · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Who knows what jobs will be available in twenty years, between AI and offshoring? Coding doesn't look like a sure thing at all.

    If you are going to focus on a skill, focus on ones that serve in that kind of future environment: being able to pick up on human context and nuance; to decode, no just the literal level of communication, but implicit levels of communication. Because even if AI and foreigners take our coding jobs, somebody is going to have to lay out specifications, and that take imagination and subtlety.

    And you know what would be really, really good for developing those kinds of skills? Reading and discussing books.

    --
    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  7. Because everyone needs to be able to code... by cshotton · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is silly. It's like saying the nation's librarians need to teach kids to perform appendectomies, or how to fly a jet airplane, or how to speak Swahili. There's no way that the majority of librarians are qualified to teach programming. If they were, they probably would be doing something related to writing software and not related to library science. And learning to code is no different than learning to engineer a bridge or learning to perform brain surgery. It requires aptitude in the student and competency in the teacher and years of hard work. Trivializing "coding" as if it were something like "typing" or "burger flipping" shows how out of touch the people proposing this actually are. Shame on them for wasting our time and money.

    --

    Shut up and eat your vegetables!!!
  8. I have a better idea by ooloorie · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The biggest problem with expensive professional services is in health care. So, instead of having librarians teach kids how to code, why don't we have them teach kids how to treat patients? Librarians are smart, aren't they? Surely the could teach anything from GP diagnosis to pathology, radiology, and brain surgery, right? They are librarians! And by increasing the supply of medically trained kids, we could then better satisfy the demand for doctors!