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Code.org, Tech Giants Enlist Teachers To Sell Kids and Parents On 'CS Journeys' 89

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
theodp writes: On Monday, tech-bankrolled Code.org announced the CS Journeys program, which the nonprofit explains is designed to help teachers "excite, encourage, and empower your students to continue their CS journeys in and beyond your class." Besides live, virtual field trips to Amazon's Fulfillment Centers, kids aged 5-and-up will also participate in live, weekly classroom conversations with professionals from the likes of Google and Amazon, where they "will learn about a number of ways they can use computer science to have a positive impact, as well as different journeys that people have taken to get to meaningful careers and achieve their goals." A Googler will speak to kindergartners and other younger students about Developing responsible artificial intelligence on Sep. 22nd. Teachers are also being asked to show students inspiring Careers in Tech videos featuring employees from Facebook/Instagram, Microsoft, and Google.

Explaining that "students who hear from parents that they would be good at computer science are 2-3 times more likely to be interested in learning it," Code.org urges teachers to also "connect with parents and recruit their help in encouraging students to learn and continue on their computer science journey." Code.org even provides teachers with talking points to include in emails and letters home. A sample: "Computer science teaches students critical thinking and problem solving. In fact, studies show that students who learn computer science do better in other subjects, excel at problem solving, and are more likely to go to college. [...] Parent/guardian encouragement is critical to student success and interest in learning and success. So ask your student to see something they created in class."

The launch of CS Journeys comes less than a year after Google VP Maggie Johnson -- a long-time Code.org Board member -- reported that a Google-commissioned Gallup report showed that "students are generally unconvinced that computer science is important for them to learn," adding that "Interventions from parents, educators, community leaders, policymakers, nonprofits and the technology industry are needed to encourage girls, Black students and Hispanic students to take computer science courses. These students also need to be shown how CS knowledge can help them meet their goals in a variety of fields including the humanities, medicine and the arts." According to the report, only 22% of boys and 9% of girls "believe it is very important to learn CS."
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Code.org, Tech Giants Enlist Teachers To Sell Kids and Parents On 'CS Journeys' More

Code.org, Tech Giants Enlist Teachers To Sell Kids and Parents On 'CS Journeys'

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  • Oh God no (Score:2, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 )
    stay away from CS kids. If you're really, really good at math you can be a math major. But CS is dead. Too much cheap overseas labor imported in by your friendly neighborhood corporate politician. And voters don't seem to understand what primary elections are for. I've voted in them for 10 years now and there's been a pro corporate and a pro-employee candidate in every one. So far none of the pro-employee ones have won.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Amouth ( 879122 )

      This is the truth - getting a CS degree in this day in age is just aiming at the bottom of the tech job market.. All of the truly gifted programmers i've ever met where working in the field long before they even got to college .

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 )

        CS has higher starting salaries than any other 4-year degree.

        If you are competing on the same level as H1Bs, you're doing it wrong.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by glitch! ( 57276 )

          If you are competing on the same level as H1Bs, you're doing it wrong.

          Okay, I don't disagree. But there are still the worthless HR assholes that delight in tossing well-written letters that detail personal achievements. Because they are stupid. They are too stupid to evaluate the skills and experience of a programmer with decades of proven code. What the hell, some code is public on github. It's not my greatest example, but it's decent, and should be enough for a hiring manager to say, "This is pretty good code. Hire this guy!"

          • You need to do some networking. Do you know anyone at the target company? Any former co-workers? Classmates?

            Ask them for the name of the decisionmaker for tech hires. Email that person directly or ask your friend to make an introduction.

            If your main point of contact at a potential employer is the HR department, you're doing it wrong.

            • Getting a college degree was enough. Degree is in mathematics or medical it still is. You're kind of proving my point when you say that somebody with a CS degree needs to engage in networking just to get a job.

              • somebody with a CS degree needs to engage in networking just to get a job.

                That is true in most fields.

                Unemployment for programmers is way below the average.

                Claiming that we have extra difficulty in finding jobs is nonsense.

            • Speaks someone who has never worked at a Corporation. You can't get in the door at the corporation I work for without going through HR first. Sorry Charlie.
        • Hiring math majors that gets classified as CS majors. Like I said, you can get a degree in mathematics and make good money. But actual CS is a dead end
          • Yeah Wall Street is fixing the salary stats in order to cover for Reagan, right? I am starting to believe even you are not THAT stupid. Are you a troll? I mean, I am. I admit it. Are you? Even Bernie bros are not this stupid. Right?

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by tragedy ( 27079 )

              Just so everyone is clear, the troll in the parent post is rsillvergun with two l's. It's an account that first posted on Thursday and is obviously intended to try to create confusion with the account of the real rsilvergun.

          • Bullcrap.

            A typical starting salary for a BS in CS is significantly higher than for a BS in math.

            Employment rates for CS are also higher.

        • CS has higher starting salaries than any other 4-year degree.

          If you are competing on the same level as H1Bs, you're doing it wrong.

          They're not competing with H-1B's. They're competing with marketing and accounting departments that have convinced management that cheap foreign labor will cut costs. The result is lowered salaries. That "higher starting salary" is a example dangled to get the very best to Google, Apple, Microsoft, etc. Once that small number of Very Best is in place, the rest is often filled with H-1B contractors.

          It doesn't matter that there are endless cases of software projects that have essentially thrown money away bec

      • I disagree - the "gift" doesn't seem to have any negative correlation with education, if you are implying that being good would most likely get you a job w/o a diploma.
        The "gift" comes with caveats though, as most people I would consider "gifted" developers were very high on the anti-social scale - meaning they weren't working well in a team. And I don't mean this in the way that they didn't "take one for the team", I mean it as "lack basic communication skills or interest in working with others".

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Amouth ( 879122 )

          I was implying that the "gifted" programmers are going to be in the field doing the work regardless of their CS degree status. And most of the ones i know who have a CS degree where working in the field long before they graduated.

          The gifted/code savant end of the bell curve you are right, they tend to come with the anti social bits, but a CS degree isn't going to help them - they need people skills, that is a different topic of conversation..

    • Most "Computer Science" departments should be replaced with "Software Development" departments, since that's what most of the students are actually there for, and if they're lucky (?) what they end up actually doing.

      The percentage of Computer Science graduates who actually end up DOING Computer Science has got to be less than 10%.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Dareth ( 47614 )

        So the 10% doing Computer Science are writing STL (Standard Template Library) and the other 90% are using these STL in their code?

    • stay away from CS kids. If you're really, really good at math you can be a math major. But CS is dead. Too much cheap overseas labor imported in by your friendly neighborhood corporate politician. And voters don't seem to understand what primary elections are for. I've voted in them for 10 years now and there's been a pro corporate and a pro-employee candidate in every one. So far none of the pro-employee ones have won.

      Stay away and do what instead?

      I think all kids should have programming classes just like

  • Responsible AI is a lie (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    AI has not, is not and will never be used responsibly. It will continue to automate war, enforce censorship, own the masses, power surveillance state and centralize control aggregating unimaginable power into fewer and fewer hands the same as it is doing right now only far worse.

    Kids don't waste your time with CS. These companies don't care about what YOU want they are run by sociopaths who only care about themselves. All they want is cheap labor.

    When they see a demographic having zero interest in sittin

    • AI ... will continue to automate war, enforce censorship, own the masses, power surveillance state and centralize control aggregating unimaginable power into fewer and fewer hands

      Perhaps. But I'd rather be one of the few at the top than one of the many at the bottom.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Perhaps. But I'd rather be one of the few at the top than one of the many at the bottom.

        Keep telling yourself that. It helps to click your heels together three times first.

      • Perhaps. But I'd rather be one of the few at the top than one of the many at the bottom.

        If you aren't already (and you aren't) then you never will be. The best you can hope for in such a world is to be in the middle somewhere, still getting fucked but not as hard, but also necessarily helping to fuck over those below you. It's a meaningless, depressing kind of existence that will rob you of your joy.

  • amazon fulfillment centers? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by retchdog ( 1319261 ) on Thursday September 09, 2021 @08:14PM (#61781049) Journal

    How do they spin the virtual "field trips" to Amazon fulfillment centers? Is it "If you can't even program python, you'll end up here." or more like "Some day if you're very good at python, you can help us control these ants."

    Probably both.

    • Maybe they enlist Ubisoft doing the Assassins Creed treatment.

    • Nothing says "pursue a career in CS" like watching a video of an Amazon fullfillment center in action. A more honest one would be interviewing the Amazon delivery drivers and asking them what they think of the tracking software they have to load on their personal cellphones to monitor their speed while driving. For safety ....of course. /sarcasm

      • And it's NOT in any way Computer Science. Computer Science is NOT coding! This is in the same way that Electrical Engineering is not about being an electrician, and Mechanical Engineering is not about auto repair. If they want to get kids interested in the grunt job of coding as a desk jockey (something that's been going on since at least 1980) then don't tie it to computer science.

        Computer Science is a cross between Mathematics and Engineering, while so many computer "professionals" really know neither.

        • Thing is, you can be a mechanical engineer without being a machinist, but you really can't be a computer scientist without being at least a decent programmer.

          • Oh? I spent a lot of time in a CS department as a grad student. Quite a few grads and profs could not program well, and a few could not program at all. CS includes computer hardware as well, though some will distinguish this as computer engineering, and a lot of it is mathematics. So, quite a lot of VLSI layout algorithms is mostly pure math; a lot of crypto security is pure math; and so forth.

    • Probably something like this: Amazon Fulfillment Center Tour with AWS [youtube.com]

      It's actually an entertaining video, if you find logistics/automation interesting. They go through the inner workings of one of their more automated fulfillment centers and occasionally plug some AWS offerings.

  • Sold! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 09, 2021 @08:39PM (#61781085)

    I don't know what the CS Journeys platform/website is, but please stop selling our kids on there.

    • Parents, are you scared that your kids will be unable to find a soul crushing job once they leave home? Don't worry, the future is Plastics! No, wait, wrong cue card. I mean the future is Computers! Wait, those jobs are now going overseas. The future of soul crushing for your kids is now Street Corner Drug Pushers! That's right, parents! In the future dystopia the purveyors of mental salves will be the true overpaid entrepreneurial gods! Come visit us at narcotics.org and get your kids hooked today!

  • The AP courses can be passed by 9/10 grade kids without too much bother. There is stuff all depth to them, so foundational knowledge/skills are very shallow. That and the universities have zero expectations of CS background from incoming students. CS is the only major at university where you are not expected to have 3/4 years experience at high school.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Hasaf ( 3744357 )
      I teach CS at a middle school and there is a framework that states where the kids are supposed to be at the end of each year. The reality is that they are nowhere near grade level. I am starting from zero. They have a basic knowledge of Google Docs and Google Slides. That is it.

      In Docs I am supposed to have them up to speed in making notes using an indented outline, in general, this is pretty easy, the other thing is very hard though, I am supposed to show them "EasyBib" in order to streamline essays. Th

      • Thanks for posting the requirements. They're interesting. How do you actually teach or assess some of these, though?

        8.AP.PD.01 Seek and incorporate feedback from team members and users to refine a solution to a problem that meets the needs of diverse users.(CSTA Practice - P2, P1)

        "8.IC.C.02 Evaluate and improve the design of existing technologies to meet the needs of diverse users and increase accessibility and usability. (CSTA Practice - P1)"

        8.DA.CVT.01 Develop, implement, and refine a process to make data more useful and reliable.(CSTA Practice - P6)

        I know teams of highly-paid software engineers who can't seem to manage these. Seems like a lot to ask of a 14 year old...

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Hasaf ( 3744357 )
          An example using code.ord App Lab. . . "pretty good so far, but is there anything that you could do to make this easier for a person with poor vision?"

          or possibly, "how would you make the button labels show in Spanish?" . . . things like that. . . for some students it is as simple as telling them to think in terms of a diverse user base and then see what they come up with.

          This is for Computer 2, or the second semester. App Lab uses a drag and group javascript

        • That stuff isn't even computer science really. Maybe if borders on software engineering. But mostly it's how to work in a team in any subject whatsoever even those that will never use computers.

          Even the phrasing of those sentences is just full of corporate-ese. Maybe the goal is "surive in a corporation", which is useful of course but still not CS. But I also think it will SCARE away school children. The sense of wonder is gone, and that's needed in so many fields otherwise it's just a stupid job! You

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Hasaf ( 3744357 )
            I am not "defending" the competencies. I am just sharing what the middle school teachers face. People like to say that the teachers are worthless because we don't treat their pet hobby-horses exactly the same as they would. Some people like to play "trivia got'ys" where they quiz the teacher on their hobby subject so that they can smugly say that the teachers don't know anything.

            The reality is that we have a lot to cover. At this level, we are not trying to make the kids experts. We are focusing on making

            • Oh I agree. My dad was a teacher. It's just that the whole "we must teach CS to middle schoolers because Jobs!" thing is weird.

              • It's not up to you to decide what the phrase "Computer Science" means.
                CS classes in high school are designed
                to prepare the students for further study.

      • 8.NI.C.02 Compare the advantages and disadvantages of multiple methods of encryption to model the secure transmission of information.(CSTA Practice - P4)

        Who the fuck writes these requirements? CS sophomores in college would have trouble with that. Unless it's a multiple choice question with toy answers artificially rigged to have one and only one answer, which is utterly useless.

        This curriculum seems designed to get 80% of boys and 90% of girls to absolutely hate computers. And that's among the ones who even sign up for the class. Unbelievable.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Hasaf ( 3744357 )
          Keep in mind, I am dealing with middle school students who have very little, or no, real background. This is covered, at this level, in a unit that discusses what encryption is and why it is useful. It then gives a couple of simple examples. I will also babble for a few minutes about how one of the first computers was built to crack the enigma code, then what it was and why it was important.

          I am very aware of the risk of scarring students off.

    • You need depth for programming, you cannot ever just be a programmer. You need to understand the domain. Ie, if you write programs for science, you need to understand science. If you write medical programs, you need to know science and medicine. If you write networking programs, you need to understand networking.

      Srsly, I am amazed at how in the 2000s a team can develop a new protocol and repeat every single networking mistake since the 70s). I am baffled that programmers still don't understand how floa

  • Lies, damned lies, and statistics (Score:5, Insightful)

    by kmoser ( 1469707 ) on Thursday September 09, 2021 @11:59PM (#61781331)

    According to the report, only 22% of boys and 9% of girls "believe it is very important to learn CS."

    Big Tech frets and wrings its hands at numbers like this, assuming that we should live in a world where 100% of children will want to learn CS. The reality is that CS, like any other occupation, not only isn't appealing to a large number of children, but many children who aspire to become programmers simply don't have the chops and will fail. If somebody complained that "only 22% of boys believe it is very important to become a plumber," we'd laugh at them. Yes, the world needs plumbers. The world may even have a plumber shortage. But that doesn't mean we need to convince every child that it's important for them to learn to become a plumber.

    • 22% sounds pretty good. That's just over one standard deviation above average intelligence. Which also explains many of the claims on the website about CS students doing better in math and science as well as being more likely to graduate college - they have above average intelligence. The sex discrepancy is easily enough explained by diverging interests.

    • According to the report, only 22% of boys and 9% of girls "believe it is very important to learn CS."

      Big Tech frets and wrings its hands at numbers like this, assuming that we should live in a world where 100% of children will want to learn CS. The reality is that CS, like any other occupation, not only isn't appealing to a large number of children, but many children who aspire to become programmers simply don't have the chops and will fail.

      If somebody complained that "only 22% of boys believe it is very important to become a plumber," we'd laugh at them. Yes, the world needs plumbers. The world may even have a plumber shortage. But that doesn't mean we need to convince every child that it's important for them to learn to become a plumber.

      These are probably the same people that have been telling us for 30 years that if our kids don't all become mathematicians, they have no future. First, like programming, it's a faulty assumption that anyone is capable of multivariable calculus, linear algebra, etc. People have talents and abilities. They're not blank slates that can be programmed to be whatever you wish. If everyone were capable of coding in C and doing advanced equations, then there'd be more people writing C programs and doing calculus. S

  • Setting the wrong expectations (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Morpeth ( 577066 ) on Friday September 10, 2021 @12:23AM (#61781355)

    20 yr+ developer and (former) HS teacher here -- one of the biggest problems is that many of these programs 'sell' CS with a lot of flashy / gimmicky stuff, and don't talk about CS / programming completely honestly.

    Maybe they're told "look! you can make awesome games" -- but if you REALLY want to make a decent game using something like Unreal or Unity, then you need to understand classes/methods, and C++ and C# respectively (Yes, you can get by with some of their blueprints/templates, etc. but to really do anything of substance you need more).

    Robotics is big in HS too, and it's great, and it's fun -- but again, you need still some OOP basics for coding side, typically something like Java or Python. Then there's the electrical engineering side of it, I think it's cool - but it's not as slick as they expected, voltage and circuits aren't 'flashy' enough.

    And then there's the less 'glamorous' bread and butter stuff - don't hear much about databases, web services, business web apps, cloud computing/services, etc.

    I get the idea of trying to drum interest and excitement, but a lot of it is just fluff and non-substantive in my experience and doesn't paint the complete or real picture.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Serif ( 87265 )

      > voltage and circuits aren't 'flashy' enough.

      This is usually a "good thing" :)

    • ...voltage and circuits aren't 'flashy' enough.

      Show them how to place a screwdriver over the right leads, and the flash happens all by itself.

      I get the idea of trying to drum interest and excitement...

      The real point behind code.org is to flood the market with cheap programmers in order to depress salaries and wages. That's the only reason large companies are behind it. They want to finish the conversion of the already-shrinking middle class into the same low class as Amazon warehouse workers or Walmart door greeters. It's a long term strategy to reduce operating costs.

      • I don't think it is. I think they're probably being entirely sincere, but also a bit blind and boneheaded. They seem to have it in their minds that they can create programmers and STEM students through marketing, but that ignores the inescapable force of ability and the effect it has on interest.

        So, it won't work, but if it did it would probably backfire and produce the result you expect.

    • Has interest actually changed that much over the last 20 years? Persistent interest that is, not a momentary, "Oh that looks cool... but hard".

    • Kids need to have their own excitement. You cannot force a child to become enthused in something they're not interested in. Sure you can force a child to eventually go into a field they hate. But if you don't like your career you'll never really be better than average at it. If the kid loves electronics then you don't need to force them into it. It's ok if the kid wants to be a musician instead, or an accountant, or repair cars.

      Code.org is fundamentally misguided I think. Even computer science in high s

  • WHAT??? (Score:5, Funny)

    by war4peace ( 1628283 ) on Friday September 10, 2021 @01:14AM (#61781411)

    Selling items on Ebay was a thing for quite some time now, but selling kids AND parents on "CS Journeys" (is that a website?) is too much.
    Do they sell them as bundles, or are customers able to "mix and match" as they wish?
    Think of the children... /joke

  • Boycott the Feminaz1 sexists of code.org

  • White baby fetch on the adoption market and why does selling it on a CS journey fetch a premium?

  • They attract on their own. You only need to put a spotlight on them, and make sure the natural curiosity of your children wasn't ruined.

    And they certainly don't need any sleazy tech giant used car salesman "selling".

    • Hey, we agree! And as I recall, the outcomes have not really been that impressive. I'm having trouble tracking it down, but I could swear we had a story here about how interest has changed since code.org started, and interest among boys had slightly decreased and slightly increased among girls.

      And let's face it - it's ridiculous that they think 22% and 9% are low. CS isn't for everyone, and there's a good reason that CS students do better in math, science and college - they're smarter than average.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Morpeth ( 577066 )

        " The sex discrepancy is easily explained by natural inclinations"

        Wow, just wow. This is wrong on so many fronts.

        • The sex discrepancy is easily explained by natural inclinations

          Wow, just wow. This is wrong on so many fronts.

          You say that like it's some sort of natural law. It isn't. sabbede is correct, it's natural inclination and there's global data to back it up. In societies with the most freedom of choice for women and girls, enrollment in such programs is lower than it is in less free societies where parental or governmental pressure to go into such fields is high. We have already done this experiment, on a global scale, with millions of unwitting participants. The results are in. Girls choose other fields besides CS

  • No. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by groobly ( 6155920 ) on Friday September 10, 2021 @12:37PM (#61782635)

    We don't need more programmers. What we need is more COMPETENT programmers.

  • Does anyone know of a code.org alternative for curious adults who want to learn a bit of programming, especially in spanish?
    I often get asked by people how to get into programming, or at least understand what it's about. Code.org's offering seems targetted to kids, and their spanish offering is even more limited.
    Does anyone know a similiar resource/website I ca send people to, especially in spanish?

  • Benjamin: Yes, sir.
    Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
    Benjamin: Yes, I am.
    Mr. McGuire: Plastics.
    Benjamin: Exactly how do you mean?
    Mr. McGuire: There's a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it?

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