Methods for introducing coding to K-12 students are varied. “Everyone should learn to code because it makes you a better learner.” Rising Student Interest “The ability to code should be one aspect of fluency in the 21st century,” he says. The lab has created Scratch, a free program for students that allows them to create interactive stories, digital games, and animations while learning the basics of computer coding.Ĭoding teaches problem-solving, communication, and collaboration, Resnick says. Matt Roth for Digital Directionsīut a majority of K-12 schools don’t offer computer science programs, and the number of computer science students in college has fallen, according to, even though coding experiences for K-12 students are important not just from a career perspective, but also from a purely educational perspective, says Mitchel Resnick, a professor of learning research at the MIT Media Lab. “If you major in computer science, your world is really open.”įreshman Darius Smith works on a project in Craddock’s computer science class at Monticello High School. “If we get the hook into them through gaming, then when they go to college they can see there’s a whole lot more offered in computer science,” Thomas says. Computer science wasn’t a popular course at the low-income school, which has struggled over the past few years to bring test scores up, but the digital-gaming elective has gone from 22 students its first year to 45 this school year, and 81 are projected for the next school year. The “marketing” ploy of labeling the course digital-game design has had an impact, she says.
Since the students in the Fort Worth, Texas, school are focused on digital-game creation, often they don’t even realize they’re learning computer coding, Thomas says.
But once students opt to take the class, they start learning computer coding through basic programs like Alice, then move on to Flash, JavaScript, ActionScript, and other coding languages. South Hills High School teacher Saleta Thomas bills her class as a digital game-design program for students.
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