Is it worth teaching our kids how to Code...?

revisesociology in #inleo • 2 months ago

A decade ago, there were several experts telling us that learning to code was a skill as vital as English and Maths.

And today many pupils are indeed taught how to code.

However, there is a problem: there is a glut of coders. Chat GPT among them!

Software developers are losing their jobs at a massive rate: last year there were over 250K lay offs in the global tech sector.

Screenshot 2024-08-21 at 19.23.24.png

Many businesses have gone through the process of building their digital infrastructure and are now left with massive software teams they don't need.

Elon Musk, for example, can now run Twitter with a fraction of its former staff.

But it's not all about jobs!

I'm no coder, it's not really my natural skills set, I'm more of a touchy-feely qualitative and not-so-touchy-feely critical kind of guy.

HOWEVER, I have in the past tried to teach myself coding. Mainly a bit of Python. And I've got nowhere, but as a result of just TRYING, I have an appreciation of what's involved with coding, what lies behind the front-ends we use.

That alone I think is worth the effort and time investment.

And when it come to teaching English and Maths, MOST students will not excel at both, many will hate one of them, very few will become literary experts or maths prodigies, but having an understanding of how language and maths (is maths a language...?) work does help with understanding.

I mean obviously being able to read and do basic calculations helps in day to day life.

When it comes to coding, the skill may not help one daily, but it has an obvious synergy with maths, showing one how maths can be applied practically, that alone is maybe worth keeping coding on the syllabus.

And then of course there will still be a need for coding skills going forwards, even if it's just co-creating with chat GPT, for most people probably over the next decades.

I would say that early coding lessons would help develop the experts we'll need to develop serious deep software going forwards, but possibly these kind of people will be so naturally gifted anyway, they'd be able to DIY their pathways...?

Just a few thoughts on the matter in hand!

Posted Using InLeo Alpha

#proofofbrain #neoxian #cent #oneup #education #code

2 months ago in #inleo by revisesociology

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justinmora 2 months ago

Still valid, but now learning to code using Artificial Intelligence

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revisesociology 2 months ago

I don't think there is any way around getting help!

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gadrian 2 months ago

I find that people who learned coding basics over time with complex data structures and algorithms (and not using prefabricated code snippets) have a more structured mind, which can be useful sometimes in other domains, if they want to. Maybe it's a bias. Otherwise, for the job market, this may not be a smart choice to start learning coding now.

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revisesociology 2 months ago

I think anything code related could be useful!

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dalz 2 months ago

Honeslty with this AI thing i strugle to find or predict any job or tech trends .... like in 5 to 10 years creating digital things will be easy peasy ... if I need to make a wild guess I would say there will probably be something like short hypes in everything ... like songs comes and goes...

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revisesociology 2 months ago

Therapy, of course there will be bots, but at the end of day people will pay to talk to a human just because of the connection!

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resiliencia 2 months ago

Hey buddy. Just wanted to say thank you for the support you give to my posts. Is very much appreciated.
Will not forget that when I undelegate my HP!

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revisesociology 2 months ago

Hey cheers, no worries!

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meesterboom 2 months ago

I do know in the Scottish IT sector and I presume, as there are a lot of banks headquartered up here that a lot of the development layoffs are due to outsourcing which is a bit kak. That and the new penchant within the industry to purchase off the shelf software and configure rather than develop their own which almost used to be the standard approach. I think this has been enabled by the adoption of cloud architecture and services.

Then chatgpt comes along and just exacerbates the whole shebang. I think it's a must have in this increasingly technical world but agree that fewer will become real coders

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revisesociology 2 months ago

The thought of working in lower level IT and co-creating with chat gpt sounds awful, I think it's a useful skill so you know what's behind the systems you use, even just a little bit of knowledge, but learning enough to be able to create stuff to deadlines, that's gonna get grimmer and grimmer!

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shainemata 2 months ago

Texas passed legislation that allows programming classes to substitute for higher maths to satisfy the requirements for graduation. Things are at least becoming interchangeable.

Personally, I found programming to be unhealthy for me. I would spend too many hours awake trying to get the damned things working. I decided to not pursue that line of work given that compulsion.

But in reality, it's a similar quality to learning maths. I found that there is a degree of meticulousness necessary to successfully solve problems. Any little error in notation throws you off, which taught me attention to detail. Fortunately for me, I was taking classes at a time when calculators (such as the TI-92) started to do algebra, trigonometry, and calculus. Now we have Wolfram Alpha. So, it's possible to get the answer so that you know what a successful solution looks like. Then it's just a matter of working until you arrive at the answer. More often than not, I had wrong answers due to sloppy work, which improved with time.

To this day, I could probably use some coding from time to time. I haven't needed to do any Algebra, Trigonometry, or Calculus. Fortunately, there are LLMs that can do basic coding. I know enough about coding that I can piece together something workable using an LLM the way I was able to cobble things together with my TI-92.

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revisesociology 2 months ago

I agree RE maths, probably better just sticking to that, a bit of coding could help with motivation - to show how logic can build something concrete!

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hivebuzz 2 months ago

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shmoogleosukami 2 months ago

Learning to code actually made it easier for me to solve problems and work things out.

It gave me an amazing creative outlet that let me build tangible things.

I think kids learning to code is great but only if they are actually interested in the subject.

^{I'm a hive witness supporting the blockchain please consider voting for me.}

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white-cloud-inc 2 months ago

School should focus on telling you multiple ways to make money not focus on a job just tell people how to make money the entire time bc that is all that matters from school why else go no one goes to not make money that really and a few essential things should be taught. Replacing the bs classes with money courses and how to make it various ways would end up with a lot more financially educated people not making mistakes that kill them.

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revisesociology 2 months ago

Oh I am all for teaching financial literacy, for sure!

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steevc 2 months ago

Things have changed so much from when I started programming. I didn't start until I was at upper school (at 13) and that was as a lunchtime 'club' thing dialling in from a single terminal to the local college. I didn't have my own computer for a while after that. I've managed to have a career around it anyway. I will probably retire in a few years and I wonder what changes will come by then.

I do think it is useful to have a little knowledge of how to program computers. There's lots of jobs where you can automate some of the work. I've done a fair bit of coding for fun, including around Hive stuff. We can access all this data to analyse the data.

I've not used 'AI' tools to actually write code for me, but I know others do. You have to understand what it is doing as it may get it wrong. Debugging is the really tricky part.

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revisesociology 2 months ago

That's an interesting potted history of how you got into it! Back in the day, I never had the option at school - books for spectrum to programme games.

AI I think is going to be essential - probably great at spotting those typos!

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