Monday 3 September 2012

Can We Fix Computer Science Education in America?

Nice piece in Time on the lack of computing education in the United States. In particular, I like that Jane Margolis takes on the myth that students will just learn it on their own without support. That’s thinking that prevents broadening participation in computing

Not every kid has those advantages.
“There is this assumption that if you have this innate talent and you’re drawn to it, you’ll learn it on your own and you don’t really need it at school,” says Jane Margolis, senior researcher at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education and Information Studies and author of Stuck in the Shallow End: Education, Race, and Computing. “Kids that have a lot of resources at home, often with parents with a lot of technical know-how and access to software, people look at them and say ‘Oh, they just take to it.’”

In 2010, the San Jose Mercury News reported that the percentage of computer workers in Silicon Valley that were black or Latino stood at 1.5% and 4.7%, respectively. Girls Who Code, an organization that encourages teen girls to pursue opportunities in technology, points out that only 14% of undergraduate computer science degrees are earned by women.

Deepa Singh
Business Developer
Email Id:-deepa.singh@soarlogic.com

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