Our Itch
By Miguel Mejia, Justen Yergo, and Cristian Rubio
Today we as a society have never been so interconnected with technology than ever before. Because computers are easily able to share information and perform a repetitive task, they have revolutionized many industries so much so that industries are dependent on computers.
The dependency does not stop there, individuals use computers and smartphones today to interconnect with one another. Computers are everywhere and in everything, we can find computers in the home, business, school, inside of TVs, cars, planes, and inside of most people’s pockets. The smartphone that most people carry today in their pockets, has more computer power than the computers that took man to the moon. Even though computers have become a major part of modern society, the general public does not really understand how computers work. Some people think that they are magical devices that can do anything, while others think they are powerful monsters that will one day take over the world and get rid of all humans.
This general misunderstanding can come from many different scores such as Hollywood. Which has created movies such as WarGames (1983 John Badhan) where it depicts a young man that hacks into a military mainframe and almost starts World War 3 with his computer. Then there is the movie Weird Science (1985 John Hughes), where teenagers create the perfect woman with a computer. Then there are the Terminator series (1984 -2019) films that depict the downfall of man from a computer system called Skynet. All of these films were created to entertain and not to be taken seriously, but unfortunately by creating these movies Hollywood inadvertently spread some microsection of the capabilities of computers. It is easy to understand why Hollywood makes these types of films because making films about the fundamentals of computing and programming would not be all that entertaining.
Hollywood is not the only one to blame when it comes to the general public misunderstanding of computers. The United States Education System has failed to implement in its school systems a circular of basic fundamentals of computing and programming. Some schools across the United States have implemented some courses but they are limited and are only introduced to high school students late in their high school careers. While other students have to wait until they entered college to be introduced to the basic courses of computing.
These just might be some of the reasons why the public does not have a basic understanding of computers and programming. In order to dispel some of the misconceptions, our group came up with an amalgamation of existing computing and programming games. This is all in an effort to help better inform the general public about computing. These collections by no means will make one an expert programmer, but it will allow someone to have a firm grasp on the basic fundamentals of programming and computing. To us it seems frankly embarrassing the general public does not understand basic technology principles even though surrounded by technology in our everyday lives.
What we like to see is more students have access to basic fundamentals of computing and programming, and we will not just limit this access to high school and college students we want to see younger students have access to this information. We have reached out to teachers at elementary schools, and many of them have said that their schools do not have any class on computing classes whatsoever. That means most students are not able to take a class in computing until they reach high school. To be able to be more inclusive for any level of student we have a collaboration of games that introduce students to the basics fundamentals of computing and programming.
When talking to educators, we found that high schools are looking towards implementing more computer science courses. When it came to elementary school, on the other hand, only a select few schools had a computer science program. Those were typically found in areas that had a high level of income. My conversation with Charlie N, who was a teacher in the Colorado public school system, and now teaches in the Texas Public School had only ever noted one school that had a computer science course for students in elementary school. Another teacher Angela W. who has been teaching in the California Public School for over 20 years, noted that her school did not have a program, and there are no plans in the future for implementing one. What this then creates is another form of inequality in education due to the inequality of income. What we hope to accomplish is to allow students to have access to this learning regardless of their level of income or regardless of what school they go to.
When it comes to learning the basic fundamentals of computing and coding, the learning process can be boring. Learning coding in school consists of listening to lectures and reading textbooks. For the majority of students, this does not seem appealing. Our approach is to have a collection of preexisting games, that teaches the students the fundamentals of computing and the basics of coding with games. By taking this approach it does two things, this opens up our demographic from high school students and college students to much younger students like students that are still in elementary schools. It also takes away the traditional learning format that has plagued much of our school system.
We wanted to lean more toward game-based learning, since when it comes to game-based learning or even gamification learning that. Students seem to retain the information better as well as keeping students more involved and engaged. Our collection of games spans a wide variety of skill levels. From the most novice of programmers to the more advanced of programmers. We also did not simply focus on one language of programming. We understand in today’s society that one must not only know one language but know multiple languages in order to be an effective programmer.
We also reached out to other educators that teach the basics of computing and programming at high school. We wanted to find out the learning outcomes that they are looking for especially in first-year students. So that we can better tailor our collection of games to best suite students that are new to programming. Teachers want their students to know the basic structures of programming such as for & while loops, being able to input functions, and assign variables. Some Teachers are not so much worried about syntax, because when you go from language to language syntax will always change. Now if you do not understand what that means then you should probably play some of the games. There is a link below and above if you would like to learn more.
