Abstract
There is a movement towards teaching children how to code. This is not a new idea. It has been promoted since the 1980s. It is only very recently, however, that the need to know how to code has become crucial. University-age students need to know how to code to achieve employment after graduation. Post-graduation jobs increasingly require some understanding of how programs work and are developed. Since the early 2000s there has been an increasing demand for graduating students with coding skills. They have attempted to meet this demand by teaching themselves some coding skills (such as for web apps). But, many report they struggle to get past the basics. The tool used in this study immersed students in code in a way that was both fun and leverage existing interests. An online 2D games editor was used for students to learn how to build an app for their mobile device. They interacted directly with the code base and created solutions to problems. Before and after questionnaires showed a shift in sentiment from a fear of coding to a better understanding of code.
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Wyeld, T., Nakayama, M. (2018). The K-12 Learn-to-Code Movement is Leaving Current Graduates Behind: Status and a Case Study. In: Cheung, S., Lam, J., Li, K., Au, O., Ma, W., Ho, W. (eds) Technology in Education. Innovative Solutions and Practices. ICTE 2018. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 843. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-0008-0_16
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