E-Learning And Code.org: Teaching Computer Science In Schools

What is e-learning and how is it changing education?

Discuss about the Application Of E-Learning In Engineering Education.

E-learning can be described as a computer based on the educational tool and this facilitates the student or the one who is trying to accessing the education remotely. The procedure is enabled through the usage of the internet, however in the past the same was delivered through the CD-ROM. The advancement in technology has increased at such a faster rate than the geographical boundaries and the locations no more pose as limitations and it makes the student feel that he or she is within a classroom. E-learning provides the ability so the material can be shared in all kinds of formats like the PDFs, word documents, slideshows and videos. There is another way which is called the webinars (live online classes) that helps in communicating with the professors via the message and the chat options that are available in the forum. There are different types of the E-learning system that are also called Learning Management Systems (LMS). The E-learning applications are the provide a wide range of options through the education can be delivered. The presence of right tools can be helpful in automating certain tasks like the marking of the tests and the creation of the educational content. One of the major benefits of having the E-learning system is that it comes with the ability to fit the learning style around the lifestyle of the student. This enable the student to gain knowledge and new qualification even if they have a busy schedule. This study depends on the analysis of an E-learning tool called the Code.org and the analysis will be based on: what does the application do? What the application is intended to? How can a person know that the e-learning tool is achieving its goal as an e-learning tool? The procedure through which the effectiveness of the e-learning tool can be evaluated; if the process cannot be identified then what is the process of evaluation? The educational approach based in the e-learning tool; The educational theory that will help in understanding and critiquing at the same time; does the tool work as an educational tool?

According to Alsadhan, Alhomod and Shafi (2014), the rapid and constant development of the information has led to the introduction of the introduction of the online e-learning systems and into the educational system. Thus, the e-learning system are implemented so that it can be introduced in the higher education and this has revolutionized the system of learning and has changed the way teaching was imparted in the earlier times. E-learning systems are used as distance learning education and this has enabled the students to obtain the degrees online. The importance of the online tools is that it has increased the flexibility and organization of the course contents. A review of the literature conducted by the authors has revealed that the interaction has played a major factor in enhancing the learning experience. It has also been pointed out by the authors that the introduction of the e-learning systems has led to the reduction of concentration in students. This has negative impact on the student and in turn restricts the student from gaining knowledge by research. There are other major issues like the failure of the e-learning systems if the copyright issues are not cleared. Thus, it is important to note that if the issues are not cleared properly, then there is a big chance that e-learning system might fail. The several factors that are highlighted by the student are: inadequate planning; insufficient support; lack of easy access; evaluation; lack of the standards. It has been mentioned by Banday, Ahmed and Jan (2014), that the implementation of the Information Communication and Technology (ICT) in the engineering studies has led to the delivery of the class lectures and course and class administration and management, conduct and demonstration of the laboratory experiments. Previously it was not easy to teach engineering through online because there was need for the equation manipulation and the laboratories. However, the advancement in the technology has resulted in representing the objects and the complex structures by computers. The resources are digitized and are made available through the eBooks, tutorials and the lecture notes. The other types of the online resources are the videos, animations, structured lessons and simulations. The third type of the resources are the interactive, dynamic and multi-user learning environments. According to Oye, Sallah and Iahad (2012), the three types of the e-learning tools are: curriculum tools, digital library tools, knowledge representation tools. The curriculum tools are widely used in the college and the high schools of education. Materials are organized and selected in order to facilitate class activities. The digital tool library supports the digital tools and the support class functions for the purpose of locating resources. The functions support the collection phases of information search and exploration. The knowledge representation tool assists the learners to visually develop, capture and review the knowledge. According to Miner-Romanoff, McCombs and Chongwony (2017), a study was conducted with the Comprehensive and Interactive Criminal Justice Computer Model Flowchart and the learning outcomes was assessed. Survey data was collected from an array of the criminal and learning justice professionals. The course satisfaction indicators and the student self-assessments were administered. The tools presented a holistic and authentic criminal justice opportunity that would not have been possible otherwise. Both the students and the professionals found that the e-learning tools increased the understanding and applied the new information for the purpose of solving the problems that existed within the complex criminal justice system.

Code.org: A nonprofit organization teaching computer science

Code.org15 is a nonprofit organization and is also a website which aims to encourage people especially the School students of United States so that they can learn computer science. The Code.org is a website that allows the coding of the lessons and it targets the school students. The initiative is to encourage the students to take computer science classes in the curriculum. Code.org is one of the famous coding sites that are suitable for all types of ages. The Code.org provides the curriculum for the computer science in all the schools of the United States. It also organizes annual campaign called the Hour of the Code and it engages 10 percent of all the students of the world. Code.org increases the diversity in the field of the computer science and inspires the student to keep on learning. Code.org lets the students to explore the computer programming via the game-like atmosphere and fun like Frozen, Star Wars and Minecraft. The tool allows a user to drag and drop the blocks or else the user can type their own pseudo-Javascript and can solve the puzzles and create an adventurous game like Minecraft. The user also has the freedom to choose to follow the video tutorials and the text tutorials or the combination of the both. When a user becomes more advanced, the user can go through the code.org course on the computer science fundamentals and can explore the next steps in javascript (Code.org 2018a).

Code.org teaches computer science and this is taught at the three different levels: elementary school, middle school and the high school. The CS fundamental is for the elementary school students and it is designed to be engaging and fun. The course blends the unplugged non-computer activities and the online activities that help the students to gain the digital citizenship, programming concepts, problems solving and computational thinking. The CS discoveries are targeted towards the middle school students and it empowers the students to engage with the computer science as a medium for the fun, problem-solving, communication and creativity. The CS principles are targeted towards the computer science principles and cover the topics that are related to the topics that include the algorithms, programming, privacy, big data and internet. The curriculum and a normal one and is taught like an AP course. The K2 grade Pre-reader express is a condensed 14 lesson course that includes the core concepts of the kindergarten. The CS fundamental express is targeted towards the K3-K12 grades and the course is integrated with the existing programming class and technology class. This course also includes the concepts that are included in the curriculum of the computer science fundamentals. It is imparted at an accelerated pace for the older students (Studio.code.org 2018).

Levels of computer science taught by Code.org

The evaluation of the Code.org is focused more on the students that are engaged in the curriculum. It does not emphasize on the students that are not included within the hour of the core activities. The code studio has a total of 11.5 million student accounts and 7 million of the school students are created by the students between the year 2015-2016 school year (figure 3). From the figure, it can be seen that the computer science fundamentals are seen to be having used maximally by the 66.7 percent of the user accounts and the computer science fundamental sessions of usage is 81.6 percentage (Code.org 2018c). The 2017 code of the hour report suggests that the significant changes have been noticed in the attitude of the student towards the computer science with just engaging for 40 minutes with the one code of the hour activity. It has been assumed that most of the engagement with the code of the hour for about 40 minutes. The results of the report suggested that a simple exposure to the computer course, it was found to be critical for engaging the students like the girls for the computer science education (Code.org 2018d).

The e-learning tool is evaluated based on the data provided by the number of students that have joined the course over the time and the improvements in the attitudes of the students. The study among the elementary school students has provided an insight that the there is a sign of the self-efficacy and positive attitude towards the computer science education. It has been believed that the without the global increase in the importance of the computer science education and the coding it would have been difficult to see the positive results. Data suggests that there is an increase in the number of the high school students of 40,500 school students and over the course of the computer science in algebra and computer science in science. It has been found that there is actually a 238 percent increase in the number of students in the middle school. For the year 2015-2016, there have been 21,000 students enrolling for the courses like the computer science principles and computer science. It has been seen that there is a 62 percent increase in the number of the students over the year 2013-14 (Code.org 2018c).

The code.org program on the computer science fundamentals consists of 5 major courses and are geared for the K8 students. The courses for the 1-4 are designed exclusively for the 20 hours long class. This particular class includes the unplugged activities which are the lessons that happen off the computer. Majority of the materials are designed so that they can be taught by the teachers in the classroom. Such classes are taken by the typically taken up by the teacher once or twice a week over the semester. The primary feature of the course includes the programming puzzles that serves to guide the students through the usage of the certain programming concepts like the loop for solving the small problems. The puzzles are similar to the what known as Parson’s Puzzles. In this puzzle a small challenge is set and the user has to solve it by using the coding blocks. The approach of learning programming is best as it will have zero chances of making mistakes by the beginners as it is related to the theory and syntax. This allows the user or the student have the cognitive focus based on each of the stages that comprised of the sequence levels. The course on the computer science fundamentals are broken into several stages and each of the stages are less than a class hour. And each of the stages is comprised of the sequence levels and are usually 10 -15 per stage. Majority of the coding levels are which are called the puzzles are not all coding levels. There are stages that emphasize on the unplugged activities and there are a few quiz style questions like the multiple choice or the matching questions (Code.org 2018e). The table below summarizes the course approach:

Evaluation of Code.org as an e-learning tool

Table 1: Course structure, concepts and the target of the Code.org e-learning tool (Code.org 2018e)

CS fundamental course	Targeted for	Concepts taught
Course 1: levels of coding is 119/146 (contains 18 stages)	For the pre-readers (K1) It is important to note that the course is not meant to measure the proficiency of the student	Loops, instruction sequence
Course 2: levels of coding is 128/159 (contains 19 stages)	This is the starting point for the elementary school students and it is for the students in the 2nd to the 5th grade and for the students that already know computer science.	Loops and sequencing
Course 3: levels of coding is 148/177 (contains 21 stages)	This is designed for the elementary students and it is the starting point for the 3rd and the 5th grade and this course initiates just after the completion of the course 2.	Functions, events, conditions, loops and sequencing.
Course 4: levels of coding is 161/167 (contains 22 stages)	This course is designed for the elementary school students and it is for the 5th to the 6th-grade students. This course initiates just after the completion of the course 3.	Variables, parameters and functions, events, conditionals, lots of loops and sequencing.
Accelerated Course: levels of coding is 109/109 (contains 20 stages)	This course is designed for the high and the middle school students and that are new to the computer science. This cover most of the materials that are contained in the course 2, 3 and concepts from the course 4. The course is done in an accelerated format.	Functions, events, conditionals, loops and sequencing.

The three types of the learning theory are the theories of the connectivism, constructivism, behaviorism. The theory of the connectivism is promote by the George Siemens and Stephen Downes. The theory says that the learning occurs when through the connections that occurs within the networks. The model speaks of the concepts of the network that exists within the connections and nodes that define learning. The learners interpret and recognize the pattern and it is influenced by the diversity of the strength of the ties, diversity of the networks and their contexts. The transfer of the knowledge occurs through the connecting of the growing social networks and the growing of the nodes (Tschofen and Mackness 2012). Behaviorism is a learning theory which is based on the objectively observable behaviors and does not take into account the various independent activities. Behavior theorists describe the process of learning as nothing less than acquiring a new behavior that are based on the environmental conditions. In the behavior types of learning there are two different types of conditioning called the classic conditioning and behavior conditioning. The conditional conditioning happens when the natural reflex responds to the external stimulus. The behavior stimulus happens when the response to the stimulus is reinforced (Ertmer and Newby 2013). The theory of constructivism says that people are able to construct their own idea of understanding and gaining knowledge by experiencing things and reflecting on the experiences. When a person encounters some new experiences that person sometimes have to reconcile with the previous experience and the ideas. In the classrooms the theory of constructivism can be applied widely. The students can be encouraged by the teachers to use the active techniques like the real world problem solving and the experiments. In this learning the teacher ensures of the student’s existing conceptions and then guides the activity of the student so that the student can solve the problem and build upon that (Yoders 2014). The code.org also work on the constructivism theory and it takes into account the knowledge that are delivered to the student through the offline classes. Depending upon that knowledge of the offline classes further teaching is imparted on the e-learning platform.

The Code.org provides one of the best ways of imparting the knowledge of computer science through the online teaching tool. The Code.org through its offline and online teaching that are exclusively designed for the elementary, middle and the high school students impart one of the best ways of imparting knowledge. The core concept of the e-learning tool is to engage the student so that they can learn in a proper way. It has also found that the code.org provides the information that the student’s engagement also increases via the content presentation tools (Kigundu 2014). The Code.org is an initiative targeting the girl population and thus it can be said that the e-learning tools successfully reduce the cost of educating a large number of girls across a large area (See and Teetor 2014).

Conclusion

Thus, from the above study, it can be concluded that the e-learning has been acting as a revolution in the bringing advanced ways of imparting study both by teachers and also helps in self-tutoring. There are different types of e-learning tools and the Code.org provides imparts knowledge in the field of computer science and it has enabled gather student from all over the world and it is found to engage the students effectively and also letting them become literate in computer science and coding. The code.org is specially targeted towards educating the girls.

Reference

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