Students Take Part in A Grass-Roots Computer Education Movement

The next great social-media site or video-game software could one day come from the Central Coast; it’s the dream of many elementary school students who are learning how to code.

Tens of millions of students all over the world are taking part in the grass root computer education campaign called “Hour Of Code” this week.

The movement is aimed at teaching students computer science.

In Santa Barbara County 72 schools, and 20 out of 20 districts are participating in the grass roots movement.

Children at Adam elementary school in Santa Maria participated in the campaign this morning and went away excited.

Student Maria Reyes, said in the future many students can create their own programs. Reyes said, “You choose the game you want to play and you tell the character what to do.”

Third-grade teacher Amy Asistin said, “It’s really important for kids this age to get used to computer programming, because in the future there are going to be so many jobs in computer science and technology. This will help them to be prepared.”

According to code.org, there are 81,083 jobs in computer technology in California but only 5,127 graduates.

Code.org statistics show, nationwide, the job growth in this field is so fast there will be about one million more computer science jobs than students by the year 2020. That is a $500 billion opportunity.

That’s a $500 billion dollar opportunity.