Sometimes things annoy when perhaps the should not. Right now all of the tech types who have \u201cfound coding and making\u201d kind of annoy me. When you do what I do for a long time you develop a sense of history about things and this perspective includes the ideas that have come and gone and the topics various people have promoted. I would avoid \u00a0the promoters (those who want to come to your school and help teachers learn to promote coding) and consider those with actual experience – those who teach computer science or are experienced programmers (I like the 10,000 hour rule). It would be great if those experienced teaching such courses also had experiences solving applied problems by programming, but I would imagine this would be a small pool.<\/p>\n
What makes sense to me:<\/p>\n
Related issues – I have commented on these issues elsewhere, but allow me to summarize here:<\/p>\n
It has become popular to describe the goal of coding as \u201ccomputational thinking\u201d. Here is an extended discussion of what ISTE thinks this means<\/a>. A similar perspective was being advanced with LOGO was in vogue and considerable research activity was generated. I followed this research quite closely and included a chapter on programming in our textbook edition of the mid-90s. My review of this research is still what shapes my thinking regarding expectations and transfer<\/a> (see what makes to me). Connected limited programming experiences to the development of generalizable, higher order thinking skills is a significant stretch. I actually thinking writing to communicate is a better candidate for the development of higher order thinking skills (read my review of the requirements for transfer) – it is versatile and experience can be developed across the curriculum. Hence, I think you learn to program if you want to learn to program. Using programming to develop other skills would likely require more time than the K-12 setting can make available for most students.<\/p>\n