Hour of Code Reaches Over 16 Million - What Next? |
Written by Sue Gee | |||
Monday, 16 December 2013 | |||
Computer Science Education Week is over and the statistics are impressive. Students are claimed to have written 537,083,202 lines of code and over a million people have signed up to support the idea that "every child in school should be given the opportunity to learn to program". According to Hadi Partovi who co-founded Code.org with his brother Ali, about two-third of the participating students were from the United States. This makes good on his aim of reaching 10 Million US Students with the Hour of Code. The Hour of Code campaign attracted high profile supporters - from Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates to President Obama - and lured volunteers into the classroom.
Can this momentum be maintained? After all an hour may be long enough to generate enthusiasm but it isn't going to produce programmers, let alone computer scientists. However there does appear to be something more lasting. Partovi has promised that the tutorials will remain available to the public, saying “If you did the first hour, there are 20 more hours of tutorials you can do." a reference to Code.org's K-8 Intro to Computer Science. The Partovi brothers have also been lobbying school districts to teach computer science and states to require computer science as a core subject. So far, six states have committed to requiring instruction in computer science. An another successful outcome during CSEd Week New York City announced a partnership with Code.org to hire 120 computer science teachers for its high schools, and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said that he would make computer science a core requirement for high school students and that his city would become the nation’s first urban system to offer computer courses for students in kindergarten through eighth grade.
More InformationRelated ArticlesComputer Science Education Week Starts Hour Of Code Aims To Reach 10 Million Students Zuckerberg, Gates And More Promoting Computing In Schools President Obama Says Teach Programming!To be informed about new articles on I Programmer, install the I Programmer Toolbar, subscribe to the RSS feed, follow us on, Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or Linkedin, or sign up for our weekly newsletter.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 16 December 2013 ) |