We started an interesting conversation on LinkedIn recently. Our CTO polled members of the LinkedIn group International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE): \u201cHow early should computer programming skills be introduced to kids?\u201d <\/b><\/b><\/p>\n
This is a screenshot of the poll results.<\/p>\n
The general consensus \u2014 almost 75% of people polled \u2014 was that students should learn to code starting in elementary school. This makes sense as learning a programming language is very similar to learning an actual language: the earlier, the better.<\/p>\n
As with all good conversations however, there were some who fervently disagreed. A few educators said computer programming need not be introduced to everyone in K-12 education. They felt it should be optional.<\/p>\n
To some extent, they\u2019re right. Just as not everyone needs to be multi-lingual, not everyone needs to have advanced programming skills, or build a career as a programmer. That would defeat the purpose of the modern division of labor.<\/p>\n
What we are seeing here is a basic difference in the interpretation of \u2018computer programming\u2019. How should this be defined? Does it mean writing code in a core programming language? Does it mean the ability to make a cool web application?<\/p>\n
At Tynker, we don\u2019t think of programming skills as having the ability to write Ruby or Python with proper syntax. Rather, we believe that knowing how to program means having a basic understanding of a language\u2019s underlying computational logic.<\/p>\n
Seen from this perspective, programming is one of the most valued skills in the 21st century. In which case, no age is too early to learn programming.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We started an interesting conversation on LinkedIn recently. Our CTO polled members of the LinkedIn group International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE): \u201cHow early should computer programming skills be introduced to kids?\u201d This is a screenshot of the poll results. The general consensus \u2014 almost 75% of people polled \u2014 was that students should learn to code starting in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,124],"tags":[24,21,27,20,30,25,22,32,31,33,17,19,26,23,18,28,29],"class_list":["post-29","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coding-at-home","category-learn-to-code-resource","tag-build-games","tag-build-your-own-game","tag-code-games","tag-coding-for-kids","tag-coding-games","tag-create-games","tag-create-your-own-game","tag-kids-learn-programming","tag-kids-learn-to-code","tag-kids-learn-to-make-games","tag-learn-programming","tag-learn-to-code","tag-make-games","tag-make-your-own-game","tag-programming-for-kids-2","tag-programming-games","tag-programming-games-for-kids"],"yoast_head":"\n