Will.i.am: I want to write code!
December 19, 2012 at 9:00 am 3 comments
Will.i.am of Black Eyed Peas makes an impassioned plea for kids to learn to write code.
STEM education has become one of his great passions, to such an extent that hes said that he wants to do a college course himself next year. He wants to learn how to write code. “We all rely on technology to communicate, to survive, to do our banking, to shop, to get informed, but none of us knows how to read and write the code.” Its like the middle ages, he says, when only the clergy could read and write.So, youre going to do a course? “Yeah! I want to learn to read and write code! I want to be one of the clergy. I want to be one of the folks who contribute. Everyone should want to be.” I did an introductory course on coding, I tell him. And it made my brain ache. “I want brain ache!”
via Will.i.am: I want to write code! | Music | The Observer.
Entry filed under: Uncategorized. Tags: computing education, computing for everyone.
Computing Ed Research - Guzdial's Take 
1.
alfredtwo | December 19, 2012 at 9:57 am
He really is a big supporter of getting kids excited about STEM. He’s been promoting FIRST Robotics a lot for example. At one FIRST championship he brought the whole Black Eyed Peas group to do the “half time show.” Put up his own money to fund a TV special and then got his corporate friends to advertise on it in support. I don’t know if he’ll actually take the course but he does seems supportive of the idea.
2.
Suroor Wijdan | December 26, 2012 at 4:48 am
Will i am is really a nice person. But learning to write code is not the way to go fwd, the important thing should be building strong logic that can solve complex problems, writing efficient code comes with time.
3.
Mark Guzdial | December 26, 2012 at 6:33 am
I’m not understanding, Suroor. Are you suggesting that students should learn logic first, and then later to code?