Code Ninjas

The statistics about the changing work place are clear, in the next decade automation is going to radically change the type of jobs that will be available to today’s primary school children. We need to prepare them now and it is never too early to start.

Over the last two or three years a growing movement of educators have been calling for a more formal approach to teaching our children computational skills and understanding. In the UK, the teaching of coding is now part of the curriculum!

There are calls for Australia to follow the UK’s lead and New Zealand risks being left behind if we don’t start making some strides in this area. Many New Zealand schools, including Fendalton, are now running code clubs to help expose students to the skills of coding. Whilst this is a great start, it should not rely on the passion and interests of individual teachers in schools to set up code clubs, we need all our children to be exposed to this.

Many online tools exist to make the teaching of coding easy and to reduce the stress on teachers. My experience of running Code Club at Fendalton is that the children do not initially need too much teacher support and it is often their peers who help them out well before they need me. Genuine peer teaching and collaborative problem solving is a wonderful outcome of giving children time to code.

Coding is fun because it is based on problem solving and creation, two of the key skills that we need our children to learn. In fact, coding fits neatly with each of our Fendalton Open-Air School's Key Competencies; Team Player (collaborative problem solving and support), Dream Maker (the need to keep going when the going gets tough), Thinker (Solve complex problems that often require rethinking the whole scheme), Communicator (sharing the learning and communicating ideas) and Sparkle and belong (coding gives all children a chance to sparkle and feel a sense of pride when they complete a project).

My challenge as a school leader is to move coding from a ‘club’ for the few interested children into something that can permeate the curriculum.

What are the barriers to coding in schools?

There are three main barriers to regular coding:

1. Teacher understanding

2. Resources

3. Finding the time in a busy curriculum

None of these are insurmountable and I have some ideas about how we will tackle these at Fendalton.

In many ways teacher understanding is a moot point, as the students will inevitably self direct their learning in this regard and teachers just need to be willing to let go of control and let the children go for it! Of course, the teachers need to place a structure around this learning and there is a myriad of tools online to help with this. Teachers still need to develop their own understanding and learn alongside the students so that they can provide guidance and facilitate progression. As a leader I must ensure that I support the teachers with this new learning.

Resourcing is always an issue in schools especially when looking at technology. One interesting solution that has many extra problem solving benefits is the Raspberry Pi. The Raspberry Pi has been around for a while but EduTech was my first opportunity to get my hands on one. This is a very cheap computing solution, the one I purchased at EduTech was only $50 and when coupled with a cheap keyboard, mouse and TV screen we have a tiny yet powerful computer that can run most of the coding environments that we are likely to use at school.

As with money, time is another scarce resource in schools. However coding can fit neatly into most learning that already takes place in schools, it just requires a little creative thinking and commitment!

Paul Sibson - Principal at Fendalton Open-Air Primary School

All principals should be digitally connected

All principals should be digitally connected and tech savvy!

Paul Sibson, Principal, Fendalton Open-Air Primary School
@sibsonp, +PaulSibson, Professional Learning Blog

There I've said it. That may appear to be a challenging opening gambit and I have no doubt that some will try to debate that there are many highly effective principals who are neither connected or tech savvy and that is true...for now. However not only are our children forging ahead and disappearing over the horizon many of our teachers are not too far behind them. If principals do not have an understanding of the power of social media and the possibilities of technology then we risk becoming irrelevant. It is easy for leaders to stick their heads in the sand and say that leading e-learning is not their job, that they can employ someone to do that. However the reality is that setting expectations for and driving the use of technology in schools comes from the top. We have to 'walk the talk' and actually engage with the tools that we are asking our teachers to use.

In her 2011 book Student-Centered Leadership, Viviane Robinson shows that the biggest impact that principals can have on student achievement is through Leading Teacher Learning and Development. The use of technology is now a central part of teacher learning and development and if principals are to effectively lead they must be willing to learn themselves.

It was with this in mind that I set up the 14 Day Twitter Challenge for Principals earlier this year. I wanted to encourage as many principals as possible to give twitter a go, to understand how it works and hopefully use it to grow rich connections.

I believe that it is part of my role as a principal to model to the teachers at my school how I use technology. I use twitter, google plus, our internal blog and my personal blog to share learning and to encourage others to share. Now, I except that I am somewhat of a geek and that I have a natural fascination with all things digital, I am an early adopter. However these tools are so easy to use, it is no longer an excuse to say that it is too hard. If you can use email then you can use twitter, facebook, google docs, calendars, google plus, pinterest etc...

I am seeing more and more teachers jump on board with tools like twitter and the runaway success of the #edchatnz hashtag illustrates the point. Teachers are using twitter to set their own agenda and find their own PD, the 'twitterarti' of education are the ones who are leading many of our teachers. As Annemarie Hyde (@mrs_hyde) says "#edchatnz is the staffroom of choice". I think that this is wonderful and an exciting development that is giving our teachers rich learning and connections way beyond their schools. However it is also a threat to the traditional model of schools and to Professional Development. As a principal do you know how your staff are connected, do you know who is influencing their thinking? Are you part of the conversation?

I suspect that as more teachers become connected and form their own communities the more they will want to work with like minded teachers and principals. When I am looking for new teachers, I google them to see if they have a presence online. Are they sharing via a blog, twitter, google plus? Are the engaged in an online community? I wonder how long it will be until teachers are googling school principals with a similar set of questions before deciding to apply for a job!