“Hour of Code” Week – but what should children learn first?

Posted on December 9, 2013 Updated on December 9, 2013

This week is “Hour of Code” week, but what do we need to learn first.

Children learning to code is the next hot topic on the market. Whether your child will grow up to be the next Zuckerberg, programming is a highly useful skill for them to learn as it teaches them creativity, communication skills and vital problem-solving skills.

The foundations to coding should begin with learning how to type. I am not just talking about hunting and pecking at the keyboard, but proper touch typing. Did you know that there is a difference? If you look at your hands whilst typing, even when you are using

all of your fingers, you are not typing correctly. By learning to touch typing correctly you will never need to look at your hands again saving you time and increasing your productivity.The necessary knowledge of typing is a foundational skill that applies to all children and impacts across all curriculum area’s. 

Touch typing accesses your cerebellum, the part of your brain that uses your muscle memory and that never forgets. This allows your brain to concentrate on the task at hand without having to think about the process. It also increases speed, accuracy and creativity.

Did you know that some of the worlds fastest typists are computer programmers. Our 21st century digital learners are exposed to coding as young as 3 years old, through gaming technology. This is allows them to have amazing idea’s when it comes to coding.

Whilst creating our Touch Typing program “Qwertynomics”, we have cherished children (Age 7-17) on our development team. They have become part of our journey. This has allowed us to develop a program for children by children. We will be ready to release this program in the early part of 2014 and will have a website up and running in the new year. http://www.qwertynomics.ca. In just 10 hours children can learn to touch type in a fun way. We use brain training, fun gaming technology and teach children the importance of ergonomics and computer health related issues. 

Coding was always considered a solitary activity but that is changing. Children are encouraged to collaborate and share idea’s, often leading to very technical projects. They are the problem solvers of our future we can give them the skills and knowledge they need

to access their higher order skills.

Here is the article about “Hour of Code” week. 

Thousands of schools worldwide will participate next week in Hour of Code, an initiative from nonprofit group Code.org to introduce computer programming to K-12 students.

The effort, which coincides with Computer Science Education Week, is an outgrowth of the group’s goal to influence schools to squeeze in one hour of coding instruction on a weekly basis — including in the US.

“Estonia teaches it from third grade and up. Vietnam teaches it from third grade and up,” said Hadi Partovi, Code.org’s founder. “America is the leader in software and technology, and we are really lagging behind in terms of teaching our kids about it.”

Code.org is trying to make it as easy as possible to join the effort by offering a slew of tutorialsthat teachers can adopt into their lesson plans. Some don’t even require computer equipment.

After interviewing Partovi, he showed me a simple game called Light-Bot which I, in turn, showed my 6-year old daughter. Players drag and drop commands (turn, jump, etc.) to navigate a robot through an obstacle course. My daughter was quickly hooked, and her princess costumes went untouched all day. Maybe you don’t know many 6-year-old girls. But trust me when I say very little comes between them and their Snow White ensembles.

Whether Code.org can bring about a shift in education standards remains to be seen, but Partovi is committed.

“We’re increasingly getting the message out that learning to dissect an app is an important as learning to dissect a frog — or learning how the Internet works is as important as learning how electricity works,” he said.

House of Code has plenty of Silicon Valley starpower behind it from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to Dropbox CEO Drew Houston — as well as actual rock star Will.i.am.

Original article