Our Saturday Starter Lab group taking a break to celebrate the occasion.

Thank you to all of our students and parents.  Start Code would not be possible without each and every one of you.

Education is meant to take us into a future we cannot grasp.

According to Mr. Robinson, our education system was originally founded to serve the industrial revolution and that systems around the world have a similar hierarchy of subjects. Math, Languages, and the Humanities in order are at the top with Arts is at the bottom. This structure was created to prepare students for the future job force (that we cannot grasp or anticipate, remember?) and that students will inevitably be steered away from certain subjects because “you will never get a job doing that”. His concern is that students will never discover what they are truly good at because we push them often in directions that are not right for them. He says we should make education more dynamic and personalized so that students have a greater chance to discover their talents and flourish.

I would propose that programming offers a unique opportunity to rekindle creativity for many students. “What does computer programming have to do with creativity?” you may ask. Programming involves taking ideas, breaking them down, and putting them down with whatever tool you are using. It’s about taking an idea out of thin air and making it tangible (or as tangible as anything digital is). How is this creatively any different than writing a book or creating a movie for example? This is why the Scratch and Alice software teams so often refer to “creative computing”. Programming is not simply somebody sitting in front of a computer screen writing incomprehensible computer code. It instead allows creative ideas to flourish and come to life in the mind of the programmer. Plus software spans math, languages, humanities and the arts so crosses all boundaries of any education hierarchy.

At Start Code we see kids coming up with creative ideas and then taking them in many directions. They are gaining the ability to see new possibilities and new paths for their future based on their unique interests and talents. They have spent time creatively to see what software tools can do and they may see new ways of putting them together. The time spent learning was also fun and social which made it even better. This is the very dynamic and personalized learning that Sir Ken Robinson wants us to create.

LiveCode was originally inspired by HyperCard for the Mac and has existed for over 10 years as a commercial company.  The tool would normally cost hundreds of dollars to license even at the educational level.  But the Kickstarter campaign has allowed the developers to take it open source.  Anyone will be able to download and use an easy to learn cross-platform software developement tool for free!  Students will be able to use it on a Windows, Mac, or Linux laptop and install it for free.  This is perfect for Start Code and perfect for schools across the U.S.

Needless to say we backed the Kickstarter campaign.  We supported at the level to get the High School Teacher Training webinar series.  Scott will also be looking at possibly bringing LiveCode to his high school class at Academe of the Oaks.  We can't wait to see the students create their first project to deploy to their iPhone, iPad, or Android phone.  That will be an exciting moment!  The kids will be motivated because they can make projects that will run on the platform of their choice.  And with a purchase of the LiveCode commercial license they also have the option of making it a paid app!  We hope to introduce it and try some projects at our upcoming summer camps.  This will be a great place to try it with time to play around and see what can be done.

Congratulations to RunRev, the developers of LiveCode.  They have a lot of work ahead of them but the blog posts have been fun to read and their enthusiasm shows.

Schools are facing budget cuts, a lack of computer science teachers, and no standard agreement on curriculum.  Any of these three challenges alone are daunting, but taken together they are disheartening.  There is no short term fix on the horizon.  Yet beyond high school there will be 120,000 new jobs next year requiring a bachelors degree in computer science according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.  And our universities and colleges will produce only 40,000 new bachelors degrees in computer science to fill them!  Something isn't adding up.  There is a disconnect somewhere between high school, college, and the labor market demand.  In an a time of high unemployment it seems like a slam dunk to get a computer science degree but not enough students are enrolling and doing so.  Whether it starts at the high school or college level or earlier there is a problem.

A recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal by Brad Smith of Microsoft shines a light on these facts.  He also points out that "too many Americans can't find jobs, yet too many companies can't fill open positions."  The national unemloyment rate has hovered around 8% for several years while the rate in computer-related occupations was only 3.4%.  The jobs are there for the kids who develop the right skills.  Mr. Smith writes that Microsoft has over 6000 job openings in the U.S. many of them for software developers and engineers.   He also laments the lack of computer science courses at the high school level.

Four decades after Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were teenagers, we still live in a country where you have to be one of the fortunate few to take computer science in high school.

There are smart people working on these problems at the high school and college level and hopefully there will be significant breakthroughs in the next few years.  

But we can't wait around.  We need to rekindle a sense of curiousity, wonder, and play around technology and computer programming.  Instead of making the kids listen to a lecture about sorting algorithms and search strees, they need to be working hands-on creating something that sparks their interest.  They need to be getting together with their peers having fun and seeing what's possible.  At Start Code we are doing this now. We are doing it every week with our many groups of elementary, middle, and high school kids and we are having fun along with them.  It's a great time to learn about programming and technology with wonderful tools like Scratch, Python, Alice, Greenfoot, Java and more.   We are thrilled to be doing it and hope you will join us.

Source: How to Reduce America's Talent Deficit (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443675404578058163640361032.html)
Source: High Schools not meeting STEM demand (http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/high-school-notes/2012/10/01/high-schools-not-meeting-stem-demand)

It was inspiring and fun to hear what life is like as a professional software developer, how they got there, and what suggestions they have for the kids who wish to pursue programming careers.  Curt explained how Python is used to make scripting new objects like spaceships in the game world easier.  Our students begin programming in Python and to learn that it is used in a massive online game was exciting.  He also encouraged the students to give a little bit extra with their projects and really finish out any ideas that they have because it shows passion for what they are doing.  And passion is what shows when they go out into the professional world looking to be hired, says Curt.

Joel talked about how making big budget games is a team effort of programmers, artists, designers, and more.  He showed us how a team might be structured and explained what roles each person has.  He also showed some game screenshots and then asked the students what they saw.  Whether it was characters, action, environmental elements and effects, backgrounds,  or anything else you can imagine in a game, Joel explained that someone had to put it there and that everything was purposeful.  This challenged the students to think about the work involved in what they often take for granted in their games.

Finally, both Curt and Joel jumped in with the kids and tackled some Scratch challenges.  It was fun to see professional programmers sit down with our students and learn about Scratch just like the kids.  Curt even took home instuctions to make his favorite arcade game, Asteroids.

Thank you, guys!  We really appreciate your time and enthusiasm and look forward to having you back next year to inspire a whole new group of kids to learn programming.  

"We're Psyched about Math" is a free event for parents and students on Oct. 25th at 6:30pm. It is hosted by the South Dekalb Parent Council and promises to be a fun evening of free workshops. Come on out to Redan Middle School for a variety of workshops promoting math.

We will demonstrate to kids interested in computer programming that math and computer science complement each other and that, while it isn't necessary to be great at math to learn programming, the two help each other by both practicing structured thinking, algorithms, and problem solving. It's cross training for your brain and it's fun!

See this AJC article for the school address. 

Our theory is that kids are saying yes to technology, just not necessarily to PCs.  The historical use of a PC can instead today be done by a PC, tablet, smartphone, iPod touch, or even game console.  What used to require a PC or laptop no longer does.  It doesn't matter to kids.  They will just use what is cool, convenient, and just works.  Computer hardware is also lasting longer as the upgrade cycles get longer so people are buying fewer computers in general.  You don't really need a new computer just to get online, check Facebook, read email, and maybe play a Flash game.  This blog post was written on a four-year-old Macbook Pro that still runs like a champ.  No need for new hardware quite yet (but it would be nice!).

The good news is that no matter what form factor the future PC takes, we will still need creators who can use them as tools!  Someone has to write the software for all of these devices.  Someone has to create all the artwork, sounds, and music.  Someone has to code all the new ideas for programs that will spring up as we figure out what all these devices can do, how they all fit together, and what is possible.  This is a great opportunity for today's students to take advantage of the trend and learn about technology and computer programming.  By developing programming skills now, they will be ahead of the curve and already 'get it' and will be prepared by the time they are entering college and the work force.

Wired Article - PC Sales Slump as Kids Say No to Computers

"The spread of computers and the Internet will put jobs in two categories," Andreessen says. "People who tell computers what to do, and people who are told by computers what to do."

Read the Dekalb Neighbor interview here.

(Photo courtesy of the Dekalb Neighbor newspaper.)