Connected Code ─ Why Children Need to Learn Programming

Coding, once considered an arcane craft practiced by solitary techies, is nowrecognized by educators and theorists as a crucial skill, even a new literacy, for all children.Programming is often promoted in K-12 schools as a way to encourage "computationalthinking" -- which has now become the umbrella term for understanding what computer science hasto contribute to reasoning and communicating in an ever-increasingly digitalworld.

In Connected Code, Yasmin Kafai and Quinn Burke arguethat although computational thinking represents an excellent starting point, the broader conceptionof "computational participation" better captures the twenty-first-century reality.Computational participation moves beyond the individual to focus on wider social networks and a DIYculture of digital "making." Kafai and Burke describe contemporary examples ofcomputational participation: students who code not for the sake of coding but to create games,stories, and animations to share; the emergence of youth programming communities; the practices andethical challenges of remixing (rather than starting from scratch); and the move beyond stationaryscreens to programmable toys, tools, and textiles.

Yasmin Kafai is Professor of Learning Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education. She is the coauthor of Connected Play: Tweens in a Virtual World and the lead editor of Beyond Barbie and Mortal Kombat: New Perspectives on Gender and Gaming, both published by the MIT Press, and The Computer Clubhouse: Constructionism and Creativity in Youth Communities. Quinn Burke is Assistant Professor in the Department of Teacher Education at the College of Charleston.