Prof. Ken Kahn highlights importance of coding culture for youngsters
View(s):Create Lab’s Academic Board Member, Prof. Ken Kahn from Oxford, was in Colombo recently conducting special computational thinking, artificial intelligence and technology enhanced learning workshops for students at Create Lab.
Prof. Kahn, after earning a doctorate in computer science from MIT, spent over 30 years as a researcher in programming languages, artificial intelligence, computer animation, and programming systems for children. He designed and built ToonTalk – a programming language for children – and holds the patent covering the underlying technology, a media release by Create Lab said.
In Colombo during his recent visit, he noted that apart from companies in the technology sector, there are an increasing number of businesses relying on computer code and as a result, coding has become a core skill that bolsters a candidate’s chances of commanding a high salary, the release added. “Unfortunately, computer skills that are being taught in schools and pre-schools are outdated and have limited applications in the real world.”
He noted that Create Lab’s curriculums are designed especially to solve this problem so that students with no prior experience in coding can go on to develop an interest in technology and gain valuable 21st Century skills that schools don’t teach.”
“Why is it so vital that we teach our children to code? We are already living in a world dominated by software. Software is becoming a critical layer of all our lives. It is the language of our world. In the future, not knowing the language of computers will be as challenging as being illiterate or innumerate today,” the release said.
In this context, Create Lab’s classes are designed to appeal to girls as well as boys through an age-appropriate curriculum written with academics from Oxford, MIT and Singapore’s top universities. “Students will build a solid foundation in computational thinking and acquire skills to become innovators. At the end of the programme students will be able to independently build their own computer games, digital stories and learning tools,” the Professor was quoted as saying.
“Given that Create Lab works with pre and primary school students, he explained that a large part of the curriculum deals with what children experience in the real world and how to put that in to context using technology tools. For example, children will design and develop computer programme to learn to identify colours, geometrical shapes, parts of an animal, the features of each season, the origin of each kind of food, etc. By doing this, children train their minds away from traditional rote learning (memorizing) to inquiry based learning. Research has shown that inquiry based learning leads to stronger problem solving abilities, creativity and critical thinking,” the release said.
At an ensuing discussion with principals and decision makers at leading schools in Colombo, Prof. Kahn noted that Sri Lanka’s children are excellent learners and are unafraid to experiment with new technologies and concepts. He said that during his workshops with Create Lab, he had observed that once the students have grasped the concepts and tools, their creativity and problem solving abilities were on par with those in the West.