HILLS International College in Jimboomba has launched an innovative program to teach computer coding to children as young as four years old.
The program is taught hrough a range of unplugged experiences aimed at increasing digital literacy without the need for more screen time.
The college introduced the active program, which includes all students from kindergartento Year 12 in response to parent concerns that children spend too much time on iPads and other devices.
Hills International College Principal Kevin Lynch said the school adopted a screenless approach to equip students with key skills to prosper in today’s digital economy, without compromising a healthy lifestyle.
“As a society, we can observe a link between two childhood statistics which have both increased exponentially, and those are our use of technology and rates of obesity,” Mr Lynch said.
“Many parents are very concerned about the amount of screen time their children have access to, whether at home for recreational use, or at school as part of the learning environment.
“Conversely, as parents and educators, we know digital proficiency underpins many aspects of life and work in our online world, and learning the language of coding as early as possible develops understanding of how we are connected to this environment, and ultimately, to each other.
“This is the fundamental basis of the Hills program, which was devised by our highly skilled early learning team and balances both screen and screenless experiences to teach the language of coding by requiring children to use, explore, take risks and move, but most importantly, to think,” he said.
From the early years, teachers introduce children to the process of technological design through guided discussion and brainstorming, planning, creation and adjustments.
This knowledge is then transferred to devices, with cutting-edge robotics including BeeBot and Sphero used to provide immediate feedback to children on the efficiency of their coding commands.
For example, a Prep teacher may encourage students to develop code to solve the problem: “how can we make Sphero transport an object from one point to another in the classroom?”.
Children attending the Hills Kindergarten interact with a variety of screenless coding toys, including successful Kickstarter crowdfunding projects Cubetto and Kumiita, the latter of which is suited to children from birth.
“As the children explore and experiment with technology and begin to understand the syntax of coding, it is observable that this language is more than technical skills – it is a way to achieve literacy in the 21st century, like reading and writing,” Mr Lynch said.
“Our children are developing this style of computational thinking by first solving problems away from the screen, along the way building diverse skills including logical and abstract reasoning, pattern recognition, and creating algorithms.
“We want our young ones to be creative problem-solvers, not only to secure the jobs of the future, but to become knowledgeable and competitive in an ever-changing world,” he said.
