Computer Science Education Week (CSEdWeek) is an annual program dedicated to showing K-12 students the importance of computer science education. It’s being organized by Computing in the Core and Code.org, held in recognition of the birthday of computing pioneer Admiral Grace Murray Hopper (December 9, 1906).
Computing in the Core (CinC) is a non-partisan advocacy coalition of associations, corporations, scientific societies, and other non-profits that strive to elevate computer science education to a core academic subject in K-12 education, giving young people the college- and career-readiness knowledge and skills necessary in a technology-focused society.
Code.org is a non-profit dedicated to the growing computer programming education with a vision that computer science should be part of the core curriculum in every school, alongside other science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses, such as biology, physics, chemistry and algebra.
Program Schedule:
This December, they’re recruiting 10 Million students from across the United States to participate in an Hour of Code, a one-hour introduction to computer programming, designed to demystify code and show that anyone can learn. CSEdWeek aims to have 10 Million students take Hour of Code anytime between 9th December and 15th December, 2013.
About the program “Hour of Code”:
The Hour of Code is a one-hour introduction to computer programming, designed to help students easily understand how to code and show that anyone can learn. Students can participate in Hour of Code anytime during Computer Science Education Week (9-15 Dec, 2013).
Hour of Code modules and tools are self-directed, empowering students to learn at their own pace and learners do not necessarily need to have prior knowledge of Computer Science. All you have to do is choose the tutorial you want and pick an hour, the concerned team will take care of the rest.
They enable existing computer science teachers to create their own Hour of Code lesson, if they want. For everyone else, they provide self-guided tutorials that anybody can do. Participants don’t need any prior experience or even a computer. Computer Science tutorials are being curated to work on PC’s, smartphones, and tablets. Learners can join wherever you are, with whatever device you have. If you have more than one device, research shows that students learn best when they are pair programming, sharing a computer. So encourage your students to double up.
Classrooms with only one Internet connection can also participate in Hour of Code using a projector screen and enable students to interactively shout out the answers while they’re going through a tutorial.
About Tutorials:
CSEdWeek offers a variety of one hour tutorials which educators, students and lifelong learners can choose between.
All tutorials will share these factors in common:
- Self-guided lessons require little or no involvement from the teacher.
- Requires no previous experience on behalf of the student or the teacher.
- Can be completed in one hour or less.
You may read the full info about Tutorials here.
How to get started:
Students can participate in Hour of Code anytime during Dec 9-15, educators can host it as an activity in their classroom and organizers or employers can also host it as a team building exercise. You can either participate or host Hour of Code here by giving your details at the respective section.
Hour of Code for Computer Science Teachers:
If you’re already a computer teacher, you can use the existing tutorials or develop your own for your students. Even better, with your credibility, you can organize large-scale computer science activities at your school. You may visit guide for CS teachers for more details.
We hope this information is useful for you to know about a great learning program CSEdWeek. Help them achieve their goal of 10 million students by participating, inviting, hosting Hour of Code. We’d like to have your views on the role of computer science in today’s education. Please feel free to share your views in the comment box.
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