Zuckerberg on CS education. Image from csedweek.org
Computer Science Education Week (CSEdWeek) is a week-long celebration occurring yearly to advocate computer science awareness and education. This year CSEdWeek is promoting a worldwide event called Hour of Code. Its goal is to introduce programming to 10 million students of all ages. All it takes is one hour, no computers necessary.
Celebrated the week of December 9th in honor of the late computer scientist Grace Hopper, this year CSEdWeek falls from Monday December 9th to Friday December 15th. To celebrate in Hour of Code, you can sign up online to participate and commit to completing one hour of code during CSEdWeek. Individuals are welcome to participate solo, employers are encouraged to host a company event for their employees, and there are even prizes for educators who turn Hour of Code into a school event. Every educator will receive 10GB of free DropBox storage, and organizing a school-wide event will put you in the running to win free laptops or the chance to chat with Bill Gates (Microsoft) and Jack Dorsey (Twitter, Square).
To help you achieve your one hour of code, CSEdWeek offers a variety of one-hour tutorials and even an “unplugged” tutorial for those schools who don’t have easy computer access. I think the unplugged tutorial may be my favorite idea, since most people don’t realize there’s more to programming than wildly tapping techno mumbo jumbo on a keyboard.
Not convinced that programming should be important part of the core education system? The following infographic may help shine some light on the situation. Every student introduced to computer science gets a chance to discover a career that offers tremendous growth potential.
Infographic about computer science education, image from Code.org
CSEdWeek and Hour of Code is organized by Code.org and the Computing in the Core coalition.
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