CS4All (Reading14-lgrazios)

 After the readings, I believe that coding is the new literacy, but I wouldn’t go as far as to count it as a foreign language. What I mean with this is that coding or knowledge in computer science is something really important for people to know and understand because nowadays almost every single thing is being done with the help of a computer, and new technology is taking over. Like for example smart homes are becoming more popular every day, eventually changing a light bulb or fixing the thermostat will be done by coding, and people should know how it works so that they can at least recognize if something is wrong. Or as one of the readings mentioned in regards to Hilary Clinton’s emails, and how people might have seen and read the news about it but how many people really understood what really was going on. So going back to coding being a new literacy, yes I do think it is the new literacy it is something people need to be knowledgeable about in order to keep up with the changes the world is going through, but it should be considered a foreign language. Computer science, and coding isn’t a new language. Consider Physics, and how they use words that aren’t used else where, and they have their own formulas and symbols and so on, it is the same for Computer Science we have algorithms, and keywords and phrases but nobody is trying to claim that Physics is its own Foreign Language. So I believe everyone should be exposed, or at least have the opportunity to take a computer science course, even if it is just for basics. This would be useful not only so people are better prepared to a fast adapting tech world but also so students get an early exposure to CS and have an opportunity to see if it is something they would like to learn more about. The main arguments for CS4All revolve around the idea of how CS will make you think, and problem solving, but there are also other reasons like a “job skills”, “to use computers better” and so on. Which are all true and really useful. Some of the arguments against it are regarding the logistics of it, like who is going to teach it? Is it going to replace a class? And if so, which one? And these questions are all valid because even if it is a great idea if it can’t be done (logistically and effectively), it probably shouldn’t be done because it ends up with bad results. For example, in my high school I took an ICT course in which we “learned” to code with html, and after that I didn’t like coding at all. The teacher didn’t really know what she was doing and the assignments weren’t engaging at all. Luckily I learned some programming when I got here in the Intro to Engineering course I realized that I actually do like coding. So I believe that it is important who is teaching these courses, because otherwise students might lose interest in Computer science. I don’t really know how similar the K-12 curriculum is here in the US, but in my high school I took ICT almost every year, that is were I learned stuff from Typing to Word and even some Photoshop, but I was never really exposed to any coding (apart from the html I mention), now I think they have changed it up and they do offer some coding elective, which I think is better.