This document summarizes a workshop on teaching coding and computer science using open educational resources. It notes that while many advocate for teaching these subjects, there are challenges like a lack of agreed curriculum, equipment, and qualified teachers. Typical solutions attempt to retrain existing teachers or recruit from industry, but these have issues with costs and salary differences. However, open source software and support from tech companies provide some advantages. The workshop will discuss country experiences, whether these topics are well-suited to open resources given ties to industry, and how academia and industry can collaborate openly. It outlines introductory talks from various presenters and plans for questions and discussion between talks.

1. OEC-Global 2016
Workshop/session of Thursday 14th April
[Action Lab] Teaching coding and
computer science: a test case for
OER?

2. Starting point
Obama (and others) have been pushing for Coding/Computer
Science/IT to become taught at K12 age in all schools to all
students
In the coming years, we should build on that progress, by …
offering every student the hands-on computer science and
math classes that make them job-ready on day one.
President Obama in his 2016 State of the Union Address

3. But
Major difficulties:
• Everyone doesn’t agree on what the exact topic should be
• There seems to be an equipment issue (computers, software, access to
internet)
• There is one crucial issue : no one seems to have the teachers!
So:
• Absence of (tested) curriculum
• Absence of teachers

4. Usual Solutions (in a bundle)
• Use the teachers we already have and change the topic to « digital literacy »
• Actually corresponds to what has been done for the past 20 years and has been criticised (UK : Royal
Society Report, France: Académie des Sciences report)
• Recruit new teachers, for example from industry
• This has been tried eg in Israel, the Netherlands, but salary differences seem to be the problem (actually in
some cases, Governments are scared of losing good teachers who would become computer scientists and go
into industry!)
• Recruit new teachers, for example from « close » topics
• This is often done by imposing the conclusion that some subjects are « close »,
• Retrain teachers
• Seems to be expensive
• Do nothing
• Usually done by saying that « we shall launch experiments »

5. There are some assets, too
• Computers science, IT, Computational thinking, Coding are topics
related to software. And open/free software has been around for
some time. There has been time to understand its economy,
usages, advantages and sometimes disadvantages
• Computers science, IT, Computational thinking, Coding are topics
related to some of the most powerful companies in the world. And
(whatever the reason) they all want to help!
The exact name of the topic leads to endless debates (so, not here).

6. These issues raise the following
questions
(to be discussed today)
1. What is happening, really? (let’s see the situation in some countries)
2. Are these topics special? Are there specific issues here for which OER may help or
hinder progress? (for example, the strong relationship with economy, the sense of
urgency, the speed at which technology is moving?)
3. Is « open » an advantage (why?) or a disadvantage (why?) when discussing between
academia and industry?
4. Is « open » an advantage (why?) or a disadvantage (why?) when attempting to profit
from experiences from other countries?
5. Is open education ready to accept industry as partners? What is working? What is not?

7. Schedule for the session
• Short introductory talks
• Davor Orlic, Opening up Slovenia and Knowledge for All
• Towards making things international: Tiziana Margaria, from
Ireland
• How industrial material can be of help: Barry Floyd, USA
• One example: Camila Canellas, COCo and Class’Code projects,
in France
Organisation: between the talks, questions and discussions!

8. Thanks !