Is Coding With Kids on Chromebooks Worth the Cash in Sioux Falls?

Maybe a decade from now, people in Sioux Falls will be able to tell you how well the investment in code went at their elementary schools. If we could go back a decade, adding coding to elementary school lessons in kindergarten would be a no-brainer. The problem with adding it now is that maybe coding literally will require no human brainpower a decade from now. It's a gamble to spend $1.26 million on teaching code to K5, but the gamble makes more sense than getting them pee-wee tackle football uniforms and hoping they all go pro.

When I was studying at the School of Architecture at UW-Milwaukee, I was in the last class that learned how to draw by hand. The next year, every class would be on CAD. That's maybe the reverse of what we're talking about here, but it still makes sense as my general argument. Maybe ALMOST no one will be coding in a decade, but it can't really hurt to know it. Most of the students in my architecture classes, like me, never went on to be actual architects. But they all know how to draw. Even if all coding is automated in the future, it still might pay to know it.

As for right now, it would pay. I have been offered job opportunities that I could not take because my knowledge of coding is based on copying and pasting rather than studying. I know enough to get by with what I do, but I don't know enough to get hired. Instead, companies hire people with dubious degrees, often from overseas, because those people have the certificate that says they know more. Right now, coding is power in the workforce. In a decade, who knows, but it's still knowledge. While no one has ever asked me to draw a 3-D perspective since 1997, I can still do it.

If I was teaching a coding class or a CAD class, I'd want my students to use Chromebooks for their ease-of-use. That's assuming there's a web-based CAD program that would work on a Chromebook, but I know coding will work just fine. However, sometimes it pays to write or draw something. That's why I'd want each Chromebook to have a Cranium by Educabana . It's a cover, but it's also a whiteboard. A whiteboard is great for conceptual drawing or thinking. Jot it down and then work; revert back to it if you want. Start the class with images or equations or a code snippet. Write and learn--we still learn better with our hands and a writing utensil, so we should use those tools along with our Chromebooks and our coding programs.