Running head: LITERATURE REVIEW

Early Coding: Literature Review

Jorge Huerta Huerta
The University of Texas at El Paso
RWS 1302: Rhetoric and Composition 2
April 7th, 2015

LITERATURE REVIEW

Abstract
The exponential growth of different technologies demands more understanding from the users
and consumers in order to stay up to date. Computer science is increasing in popularity by the
demands of a more tech-savvy era, but can the demands be complied as of now? Is it worth it to
insert computer science courses in early education? This literature review explores the different
points of view of various authors that talk about the current state of CS in pre-college classrooms
and interconnects these views to offer a more informed opinion, while answering three research
questions: Should Computer Science courses be taught in early education?, What has been done
to introduce CS to children, teens and young adults? Is it sufficient? & How is UTEP helping to
promote CS locally?
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LITERATURE REVIEW

Early Coding: Literature Review

Computer Science is a fairly young career as compared to literature or even mechanical
engineering. Still, as the technology advances, careers that may be unrelated to Computer
Science take advantage of the knowledge that CS discovers. In college, Computer Science
courses require the student to learn another language entirely and also to think like a machine.
For many, this is a new and abstract way of thinking that discourages some, but considering the
exponential growth in technology through the years, shouldnt everyone receive at least an
introduction to Computer Science? Preferably at a young age, so people could develop a strong
interest for this field, because while young, a person absorbs more knowledge; this could be
basic programming knowledge. That way, college courses could be less redundant with the
basics of programming. An improved understanding of Computer Science could also lead to
more work opportunities and better ethics about the use of technology. Considering the previous
information, the knowledge required to know if computer science has a place in early education
comes from the following questions asked to the sources:
1. Should Computer Science courses be taught in early education?
2. What has been done to introduce CS to children, teens and young adults? Is it sufficient?
3. How is UTEP helping to promote CS locally?
By generating a better understanding of Computer Science, with the help of schools giving more
educational courses, people could develop better technologies in the future.
Should Computer Science courses be taught in early education?
Technology and software always progresses, thus a basic understanding of how software
or apps function might be inadequate in the future. According to Ajwa, the United States is at
risk of having citizens and students who do not know how to make decisions based on technical

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and scientific information (Ajwa, 2007). Ajwa also states that strengthening the quality of
teachers and teaching has been central to efforts to improve American education in recent
decades (Ajwa, 2007). Ajwa claims that the United States is lacking in teachers that teach
computer science and in the quality of the teachers. Another author, Wofford, further expresses
the importance of CS, saying that computer science will be as important as mathematics and
theoretical sciences by 2020 (Wofford, 2009). The benefits of learning how to code at a young
age outweigh the drawbacks. According to Oliveira, there has been a positive correlation
between children in primary schools that practice coding and their grades being better (Oliveira,
2014). While Guzdial argues that the United States does not have the resources yet to implement
mandatory computer science courses (Guzdial, 2014), there are teachers who instruct kids on
how to create computer games, and organizations that provide free of charge coding
demonstrations. Papastergiou argues that within high school CS, educational computer games
can be exploited as effective and motivational learning environments, regardless of students
gender (Papastergiou, 2009). Using games to teach children how coding works is a solution that
many people teaching CS consider clever and effective; author Jill Denner also made use of
videogames to teach concepts of CS to middle school girls (Denner, 2012). Certainly, using
games for teaching CS is attractive for the children and useful for teachers. There is potential for
computer science to become an obligatory course in early education. According to Guzdial, there
is an ever growing interest about CS classes in early education, along with a Bill that is being
considered by lawmakers in California which purpose is to introduce the CS courses in early
education (Guzdial, 2014). Even though Guzdial argues that the U.S. does not have the resources
to teach CS, he acknowledges the increased interest in the topic. Guzdial references Ashley
Gavin, who is the curriculum director at Girls Who Code, and says that making mandatory

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courses is the only option to introduce CS in schools (Guzdial, 2014). Gavin is implying that
students will not pick computer science courses if they are offered as an elective. Misconceptions
and very recent popularity are just two factors that contribute to not choosing the option of taking
a CS related course. Egoza says that in Iran mathematics are taught along with computer science
to aspiring teachers. The students develop interest in computer science once they get to
experience the contents of the course by themselves (Egoza, 2014). This shows that, when a
better system is implemented and there are more teachers in the U.S., computer science courses
could be implemented to different careers, like in other countries.
What has been done to introduce CS to children, teens and young adults? Is it sufficient?
There have been courses in primary schools around the U.S. but it is still not mainstream
enough. On Kafai and Burkes article, Kafai references her other article when remarking the
increasing popularity of CS: digitally based youth cultures, not schools, leading this revival
(Kafai, 2011). Kafai says that CS courses are making a comeback; he claims that the youth
possesses powerful devices capable of creating many things, from games to apps, but they are
mostly used on mass consumption of social media (Kafai, 2013). Kafai implies that, with
better training, children could develop for different platforms instead of just being clients. Kafai
proposes that teaching the concepts that the languages make use of is more important than
teaching various coding languages (Kafai, 2013). Because there are many coding languages,
from Alice to C++, instructors do not usually agree on a single best language. According to
Wofford, there is not enough interest in pursuing computer science as a degree (Wofford, 2009).
This refers back to what Guzdial meant when he said there are not enough teachers, or qualified
persons, to effectively teach computer science in early education. Wofford also finds troubling
that computer science is not a part of our national standard (Wofford, 2009). People like Iyad

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Ajwa develop programs to prepare teachers to be more willing when it comes to teaching
computer science (Ajwa, 2007). Vic Grout also proposed a programme called The Turing
Project and its purpose is to use an innovative combination of Lego NXT Mindstorm robots,
Raspberry Pi computers and PicoBoard hardware together with the Robot C and Scratch
programming platforms (Grout, 2014). Grout developed his article by claiming that teachers
were insufficiently qualified and experienced, so he made a more attractive introduction to
computer science to Welsh high-school students and staff (Grout, 2014). Again, relating back to
other authors, the lack of teachers that know computer science is noticeable. According to
Denner, a group of teachers have implemented a system in which their young students develop a
simple video game. That introduces them to computer science at a young age (Denner, 2012).
Having in mind that children have to generate interest for CS, the method that Denner talks about
sounds very plausible. Code.org also makes use of a similar method to push computer science
interest in people of all ages. At their website, they publish programs and instructions for the
yearly Hour of Code, in which schools inside the United States can participate if they wish to.
Code.orgs video What Most Schools Dont Teach features celebrities such as Bill Gates and
Mark Zuckerberg, and the video aims to create interest to the most people that it can (Chilcott,
2013). The video was successful in being noticed and has reached around 12 million views
worldwide.
How is UTEP helping to promote CS locally?
Recently UTEP had an event in which many students from elementary and middle
schools had to program a robot made out of Legos to solve simple challenges. Similar to the
program developed by Grout, UTEP also makes use of Legos to explore the concepts of
computer science. UTEPs ACM student chapter has expressed interest in informing elementary

LITERATURE REVIEW
schools about computer science or giving free demonstrations. As a member of their student
chapter at UTEP, ACM has organized workshops for all CS UTEP students to develop on an
affordable smartwatch called Pebble.

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8
Image 1

Taken by a fellow UTEP student that assisted to the workshops, we can see all the people that
were interested enough to go to the event. Link to the Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/pebbleutep/

Image 2
A watchface that I developed after the workshops. On the right side, the image is
zoomed in to show the watchface itself. On the middle of the image there is sample code that I
wrote.

After the workshops, the people involved in them published code and questions for the
Facebook group. Most of the participants had to adapt quickly and learn C, a coding language,
because Pebble works in that language. Some people showed their work and others, like me,
continued working on ideas to implement on their digital watches. Thanks to ACM@UTEP and
Pebble showing interest in students, the smartwatches were completely free for UTEP students.

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9
Conclusion

Many authors, even those who see a complicated future for CS in early education, seem
to agree that more capable persons are needed to efficiently teach computer science to children,
and that, eventually, CS will play a bigger role. The models and proposed programs are already
there, the curricula used by others is available to instructors, the demand and the popularity are
only increasing with the passing of time, as well as the technology. The United States needs more
citizens and students able to understand the current trends in tech around the world in order for
the U.S. to remain relevant in this newer matter. That understanding that could be formed when
being young could lead to people expressing their interest and developing for solving their
problems that could potentially be others problems. Todays apps often are made with hopes to
make profit, because they do work properly and are made by people who know how to code. Not
many people know how to make an app that could potentially be less expensive to make than to
buy. Computer science related knowledge, in this ever expanding world of computers, is not only
useful now, but will be useful for years to come, because the future looks more and more
computationally-oriented.

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10

References
Ajwa, I. (2007). Preparing future secondary computer science educators. American Secondary
Education, 35(3), 54-62. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41406089
Chilcott, L. (February 26, 2013). What most schools don't teach. Retrieved from:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKIu9yen5nc
Denner, J., Werner, L., & Ortiz, E. (2012). Computer games created by middle school girls: Can
they be used to measure understanding of computer science concepts? Computers &
Education, 58(1), 240-249. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2011.08.006
Egoza, W. (2014). How computer science students view their studies? Procedia - Social and
Behavioral Sciences, 143(0), 204-206. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.07.388
Grout, V., & Houlden, N. (2014). Taking computer science and programming into schools: The
Glyndr/BCS turing project. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 141(0), 680685. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.05.119
Guzdial, M. (2014). Why the U.S. is not ready for mandatory CS education. Communications of
the ACM, 57(8), 8-9. doi: 10.1145/2632036
Kafai, Y. B., & Burke, Q. (2013). Computer programming goes back to school. The Phi Delta
Kappan, 95(1), 61-65. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23617761
Kafai, Y. Peppier, K.A. (2011). Youth, technology, and DIY: Developing participatory
competencies in creative media production. Review of Research in Education, 35, 89-119

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Oliveira, O. (2014). Quantitative correlation between ability to compute and student performance
in a primary school. Proceedings of the 45th ACM technical symposium on Computer
science education. (505,510). doi:10.1145/2538862.2538890

Orchard, R. A. (1975). One approach to computer science education as a form of general

education. The American Mathematical Monthly, 82(3), 290-299. Retrieved from
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2319862
Papastergiou, M. (2009). Digital game-based learning in high school computer science
education: Impact on educational effectiveness and student motivation. Computers &
Education, 52(1), 1-12. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2008.06.004
Towards 2020 Science (2006) Microsoft Research: Cambridge
UTEP to Host FIRST Lego League Championship. (2015, February 4). Retrieved April 8, 2015,
from http://news.utep.edu/?p=28938
Wofford, J. (2009). K-16 computationally rich science education: A ten-year review of the
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and Technology, 18(1), 29-36. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23036163