Why do elementary school students need to learn anything about computer coding? They can’t comprehend how to turn off a light switch until they are old enough to pay an electrical bill.

Kids these days probably know more about coding then most teachers and or politicians.

in the 70s I checked out books from my school and public library to learn how to write basic code. There were very few computers in school and most of my “coding” was done with flow charts and hand written code. The computer was used, in the limited time I had on it, to check if the code (program) worked. Heck we even built computers with Heath Kits back then to use in the actual class.

I am not sure what was said or if the NDP position is based on “filling in the blanks” or innuendo but most coding is done on paper or spreadsheet and a calculator with worn out keys. Noone sits down at the computer and decides today I am going to code a program… I would bet today most “coding” is done by the computer itself and people just tell it what they want like “coding” a web page in HTML, you don’t actually write the html lines the computer does. Most people except the eggheads who know how to code and compile write the actual machine code. Even Cobalt, HTML, Pascal, Java are languages, they are compiled from actual machine code to simplify programming and achieve the effect one wants. Fascinating field if ones brain can actually problem solve the varying strengths and limitations of the different languages.

What I am getting at is you have to train the student to come up with a concept and then build a model of the concept before they use computer time to test it on the language of the day in the lab. It is not an Oprah show “you get a computer, everyone gets a computer!”. More time is spent off the computer than actually on it. Where computer time is mandatory is while learning how each command within the language functions and its proper syntax.

The limitation in schools is the use of macs other than colleges and universities that mostly run Unix or other free source code based servers. I would bet most kids in school have a Windows based computer or tablet at home to play around with or even in their backpack at school.

Another great idea of double speak to hand out corporate welfare. Sure, taxpayers can pickup the training costs for multi-national conglomerates like Microsoft.

Christy gets her photo op telling us her government is creating jobs while behind the scenes they’re not telling us that they’re paving the way “for Microsoft to bring in temporary foreign workers through a federal-provincial annex agreement that exempts them from performing a labour market impact assessment (LMIA) to find Canadians who can fill the jobs….The freedom of information documents, given to CBC News by a third party who works in the industry, reveal Microsoft Canada initially promised that only 20 of those 400 new jobs — or five per cent — would go to Canadians…..Immigration lawyer Lorne Waldman “One wonders what’s the actual economic benefit to Canada of creating 400 jobs if the majority of those jobs are going to foreign workers and not to Canadians…By Louise Elliott, CBC News Posted: Mar 18, 2015 5:00 AM ET

“Minister of Education actually said, with a straight face, that students don’t need computers to learn computer coding.” If it’s that easy, why can’t the “tech sector” train these kids themselves?

Not sure what your point is other than to further support the governments position that we need more people to train into tech work in BC. Partnering public schools with universities and colleges is a way to attract some students into the field, but courses on theory are as equally important as actually hands on working on computers. This is just me but I think more computers will just turn it into a watch youtube all day exercise. I highly doubt the minister in charge said the classes need no computers at all, but rather stated they do not need more computers than they already have to achieve this goal.

As for your Microsoft argument, why are they interning 50 students from across Canada if they will only employ 20 Canadians? And what of the 300 Canadians that already work for Microsoft in Vancouver? Although initially 10% of the 200 core employees will be guaranteed to be Canadian the total number is not known as hiring is not completed and the amount of local talent will grow over time. Most of these core employees if they stay would apply for citizenship along with their families and are not TFWs. Rotational staff will be from all over the world, but as with any large company you will need specialized staff for periods of time, nothing new here. Maybe tell them to stay in Washington State a few kilometers away, the nerve of them opening a new location here…

I do believe our semester system in public school hurts our students. Why? First they do not learn year round, they learn a subject for half a year and then go on to 4 other subjects. With young minds it is better for retention, same as summer holidays a lot is lost. Secondly you also lose the ability to do 2 and 3 credit courses like automobile repair which is hard to cram into 1 block – by the time you do theory and start to turn a wrench the bell rings. Also it is harder to partner with a college or university as one block is too short a timeframe to bus there and back.

It seems there is some new wordsmithing going on with the apparent synonymous use of the terms “coding” and “programming”. I guess our language is a living one.

I am used to “programming” meaning the writing and entering instructions into a computer to execute commands. The writing started with defining a problem to be solved, solving the problem through algorithms displayed in a flowchart, then writing the code based on a specific program language such as BASIC, FORTRAN, COBOL, HTML, PHP, etc. which all have unique commands and command structures. The term was also encompassed by the term Computer Science which was/is the common term for educational purposes.

Hackers, the home educated computer programmers, also became known as coders. They could technically create code but may not have the knowledge and grace of the traditionalist who was educated and trained to write efficient programs and troubleshoot them.

It appears that we are now seeing the word coding emerging as referring to programming for beginners. There are programming tools for beginners such as Code Studio, Scratch and others available.

One does not need desk top computers at school. Anyone with a smart phone or a tablet using Android as the operating system, for example, would have access to at least 15 APPS which would allow someone to create their own APP from scratch.

Without know what is intended to for the course(s) instructional objectives I really do not know what the difference between an old computer science course for high schools and a proposed new coding course is, so I have no possible way of evaluating the difference between the two. I am not sure whether the NDP do either at this time.

As long as they increase the amount of teaching problem solving skills along with the associated logical thinking and troubleshooting, the students will be better off than they have been in the past.

“Minister of Education actually said, with a straight face, that students don’t need computers to learn computer coding”

The Minister is right for the initial part of programming and logical thinking and writing an algorithm, as well as then going on to using two or three modern programming languages to translate the algorithm into commands. When it comes to troubleshooting the algorithm, it would be helpful (in my mind) to do that manually at first as well just so that one understands how to troubleshoot and become accurate at that.

The problem then, of course, becomes that one needs to enter it into a computer. A smart phone is a computer, as is a tablet. So, not sure what the Minister means by “computer”.

Let us say we use a smart phone. The coding can be put into one of several APPS used for that purpose. The APP will likely do its own troubleshooting for internal logic of the program. However, one may still get gibberish out as an answer because while the command structures is acceptable to the computer program, the coder has made some mistakes in the logic of the program, often sitting in one or more of the iterative looping sequences.

The troubleshooting is the fun part. It can be very picky and endless work which may drop a significant number of students out of the class.

As far as students getting jobs due to the coding skills, I really do not know how many will. I do not know what the job market is for programmers/coders. I know that the bottom dropped out of that market for students from Computer Information Systems (CIS) programs at colleges some time ago.

If taught well, the problem solving skills and logical thinking skills, however, are almost universally applicable to most jobs.