Computer Science Week 2014 - 8th to 14th December - Why?

One of the questions that has come back to me repeatedly this year is why have a Computer Science week. Why is there so much importance being placed on this subject at the moment?

After scouting the Internet for answers and finding little in the way of discussion that digs deeper than the obvious employment-related ones, I set about to articulate just why everybody should be studying Computer Science and in particular coding.

In my mind, these are the reasons:-

• To come to know of the role computational thinking plays in our everyday lives
• To become aware of the aspects that make up computational thinking thought processes 
• To understand Computer Science as a discipline in its own right but also see it as an interdisciplinary subject that affects all other subjects
• To debunk the myth that Computer Science is only a Science discipline and realise that it has an equally inherent role in Humanistic Studies and the Arts
• To address gender under-representation in the uptake of the subject 
• To dispel the fears that the subject seems to have generated among people regardless of their cultural upbringing, persuasions, walks of life, education and socio-economic backgrounds
• To raise awareness among our tertiary leaders and decision-makers of the effect of computational thinking in academia and the growth and development of individuals. This would be enabled by continuing the work being done during the educational lives of students from 6 to 19 years of age and emphasising the importance of this subject's uptake at tertiary level.

In 2013, Lesly Chilcott made a short YouTube movie,  Code Stars, that presents many of the industry's greats including  Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, Dropbox CEO Drew Houston, will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas, Valve's CEO, Gabe Newell and others. One of the most memorable messages from the movie is Bronwyn's question that goes something like this,

"You don't have to be a genius to code. Do you need to be a genius to read and write?'

These words speak to me because they establish the right frame of mind required for individuals to feel comfortable with the idea of being able to create something that is doable and potentially marvellous. One aspect of Computing that makes it so exciting is that it plays an important role in the growing 'Maker Movement' which is increasingly becoming prevalent among professionals and 'garage'-tinkerers as tools, technologies and techniques become accessible to anybody who has an electronic device and a penchant for exploring ideas, expressing themselves and/or creating outcomes.

And this is what makes this discipline so special. To try to box the study of Computer Science, is something akin to framing a star in a camera's viewfnder and ignoring all its dimensions - the one of time, it's trail, the composition of it's core and relying only on what we see in a given moment. And so I say to all individuals who are unsure of the nature of this discipline, to pause and think not only outside of the box but to throw away the box, What use are boxes when their contents are as unlimited, infinite and abundant as the individuals who create them?

I use the box or more aptly perhaps, the no-box metaphor, as I feel this is what this subject is all about - that of unlocking creative thinking with technology just being another tool, another extension of ourselves not unlike a paintbrush, a pen, or an instrument.

Now of course, academics need to pick out tools and techniques, the activity of which, innately likes to box things and therefore as educators it is our role to identify the key components that make this discipline worthy of study at all ages of our lives. Throughout my discussions and attempts at answering my own questions above about the nature of Computer Science and how it helps to unlock creative thought, I shall try to identify what these key components are and / or should be.

Code.org, ""Code Stars" - Short Film" (2013). Zuckerberg Transcripts. Paper 111.
http://dc.uwm.edu/zuckerberg_files_transcripts/111