Learning to Code ...... Needs more fun

Learning to code needs to be more exciting and involving

I've been an educator for over 30 years and been involved in computing and IT-related fields since I built my first ZX81. Back in those days you had to do your own coding if you wanted to get anything worth using on your computer. So I've programmed in BASIC, assembler, PASCAL, the wonderful LOGO and many more, including things like HTML, etc.

I've written small utilities, modified open source software to fit my purpose and even built a large web application that utilised Microsoft SQL Server at the back end and integrated tools such as JQuery, etc.

So I was interested to see what tools were being presented at the recent BETTShow 2015 that aimed to develop coders of the future. Having surveyed some of the tools I was overwhelmed by how potentially boring, and therefore harmful, they could be in the hands of a teacher who is not a coder and is either wary of coding or just 'not that in to it'. These teachers, and I am not being negative about them personally, tend to follow a script that is in a published lesson plan and rely heavily on a pre-determined route of lessons. But that's just not how coders are developed, or how computational thinking should be introduced and nurtured.

Most good coders develop software to scratch one or more 'itches'. They are incentivised by an internalised need to get something done for themselves.  The challenges inherent in programming are accepted as exciting hurdles on the way to a goal and it is this goal that helps them conquer the bugs, the need to learn new things and the requirement to break things down into smaller, easier to handle goals.

Many of the resources presented at BETT just did not support the inexperienced/time-constrained teacher in creating a classroom/teaching environment that was both exciting and involving. Whilst they may have taken teacher and pupil through the mechanics of coding and, in some cases, attempted to create some excitement through various 'challenges' they fundamentally failed in helping a teacher establish a 'hacker' culture.

Now don't get me wrong. I don't believe that this is easy. If it was we would not have 'dumped' computer science in the late 80's, early 90's.  But just because it is hard doesn't mean we can't aspire to provide it. There are obviously some great Computer Science teachers out there, creating some excellent resources for their pupils  but often, when these resources are transposed into the class setting of a less confident teacher their effectiveness is dulled.

Somehow we need to find a better way.