How can we teach how to code when we don’t know how to do it ourselves?

We just had a great meetup to discuss the launch of the Digital Afterschool Club at Elm Grove School in May. Vicky, Helen, Esther and I reviewed various elements of the workshop plan that Esther has prepared – more about that in another post.

This post is about whether and how we can include coding in the workshops, which is prompted by a provacative article by John Naughton  in the Observer newspaper this week called Why All Our Kids Should be Taught to Code

At the end of productive meeting we had identified a pretty outline of a ten-week programme of work for a group of ten year olds in an afterschool club – that’s the bit I’ll post separately.

But as I dashed out the door I innocently enquired whether anyone thought we could get some coding into the sessions. Teaching coding skills had been mentioned as a definite goal at the previous meeting and the Naughton article had been mentioned at the start of the meeting, but we hadn’t mentioned coding at all in the hour long meeting.

Despite the fact that the four of us had offered a range of expert insight in the planning of the sessions none of us felt we could roll any coding into the workshops. We just felt a lack of confidence, and maybe a lack of motivation compared to what we’d plotted out?

What we had focused on was a fun, creative activity, within which computers in various forms could be embedded as an enabler. We were keen to help children elarn how to use them as tools to create and collaborate, to produce a finished product which could be shown to parents and help grow social and creative skills.

My guess is that none of that relating to coding. We aren’t interested in it, we don’t understand it, we can’t contemplate doing it [I may be exaggerating for effect _ I’ll let Esther, Helen and Vicky respond to that].

Looking at the comments on Naughton’s article I came across this post, which I think sums up how much further we would have to go to be on the same page as Naughton:

As a teacher, ICT subject leader and LA ICT Advisor I have worked in Primary schools for over 20 years to champion ICT. Control Technology has always been an area that schools lacked confidence in, but were interested in developing, with help from specialists. They appreciated the opportunities if offered for problem solving, logical thinking, sequencing, team work and motivation for disaffected pupils.

Over the last ten tears my colleagues and I supported schools to offer the statutory entitlement to this kind of ICT using (among others) Pips and Pixies, BeeBots and Roamers, Unit the Robot, BotBlox (from Seymour Papert) Flowol, Junior Control Insight, MSW Logo, Lego Mindstorms, 2DIY and Scratch.

At my local City Learning Centre, programming and making computer games using Scratch and creating control systems using Lego were always our most popular workshops and INSET sessions. (The CLC was named after Tommy Flowers, who built Colossus, arguably the first programmable computer, at Bletchley Park during the 1940s. It was closed due to budget cuts in March 2011 and our entire team made redundant.)

Three things strike me about this sad but insightful post:

1. If we’re serious about introducing coding into the sessions we would need to learn how to implement these learning tools ourselves, or find someone comfortable with them.
2. That means we’re in danger of ending up in the same position as the school and its teachers. So how can we can respond to this challenge using our apparent strengths ie outside the system, volunteer support, no constraints of curriculum, nimble/agile, etc?
3. There’s a hard enough case to be made to open the classroom door to these skills. How are things ever going to change if we close down the support systems which exist to encourage and nurture the skills we [and teachers] need once the door is open?

So, my questions are:

• Can we contribute to Naughton’s vision?
• If so, where do we start?
• How can we bring coding into a creative afterschool workshop?
• Who can we learn from?
• Where do we look for help?

Answers on an iPad to the usual address [or in the comments below]