Games and Coding

Games and Coding

            A question facing a modern education is how do we get students to invest in more time coding. The first and most obvious manner has been to create games in which makes learning fun. After playing with programs like hopscotch and Scratch I am inclined to wonder if programmers know what fun is. While I do give them credit for trying there is still a major hurdle in which these programs face. Unless a student has a natural preference towards simple logic based games then those who do not have desire to learn programming will not.

            In today’s society children are constantly being bombarded with new and stimulating information. While most kids love to play games the question becomes, how do coding games compete with the gaming consoles that are more exciting and easier to use? In most cases in which I’ve seen young students work with Hopscotch and Scratch, they spend 5-10 minutes playing the game before the search the web to find a easier game.

            I understand the importance of coding games. They are naturally problem-solving tasks that would enrich the students lives. I get it. It’s computational thinking, which is the direction that the school system would like to go. The biggest challenge I see is a society that craves instant gratification. Unless the kids prefers coding like another student would prefer baseball it will always be an uphill struggle. To have any young person to sit in front of a computer working on it for long periods of time when other options are available is setting that student up for failure.

            The biggest area I do see in change is actually for females more than males. I recently heard a fact that only .3% of women applied to college declaring a degree in the STEM field. Young boys tend to be more energetic and slightly behind on the cognitive development scale. Thus find it hard to sit down for extended periods of time, time that is needed to develop the proper coding skills. Young females will actually be the wave of the future. They tend to be more patient and have less physical influence tugging at them. The biggest hurdle being the math and logic sides of coding will also improve as their inclination towards math grows as common core solidifies.