Moderator: Ladies and gentlemen your keynote
speaker, Hadi Partovi.
Hadi Partovi: Thank you so much.
Hi, everybody.
It’s great to be here and it’s amazing
to see all the folks in the audience who've
been wearing code.org hats and T-shirts.
And I saw many of you as I was walking in
standing in line.
For those of you who may have heard me speak
about this topic before I apologize in advance
if some of the things I say may be repetitive.
I am hoping at least half the audience hasn’t
heard my message yet already.
But I am here to talk about the importance
of Computer Science in America’s schools
and what all of you and all us can do to help
bring this field to more students in America’s
schools.
I like to start all of my talks with a story
This is a picture of me growing up as a child.
That’s actually me with my twin brother,
so this one is me on the left and so we actually
went at this point we were growing up in Tehran
Iran, which is where I was born and when I
around six years old the country broke out
into a war with a the neighboring country
of Iraq.
And I spent most of my childhood.
Actually our neighborhood was right next to
the Television Station which was actually
a bombing target.
So pretty much every evening of my childhood
was spent in a basement holding our ears as
our neighborhood was getting bombed and hoping
that it wouldn’t hit our house, which is
basically a really not good environment for
a kid to grow up.
But then things really changed one day when
my dad brought home a computer, which is that’s
what they looked like back then and this was
a Commodore 64 and he said this doesn’t
have any programs or games or apps on it but
here is a book on a programming language called
basic and you teach yourself to make your
own apps and games.
And curiously just about ten minutes or half
an hour ago I met a guy name Richard Wagner
in the crowd, who wrote one of the first books
on programming the Apple II which was also
the other computer on the time that we could
have had.
But like many, many others I started learning
how to code from a book not from a school
and by the time I came to this country and
I was a 12 or 13 year old.
I was already quite good at programming.
So when my best friends in school were getting
job as bus boys, in restaurant or in gas stations.
I manage to get job at tech companies and
start of a career in tech and now I am basically
living the American dream as immigrant.
The 
American dream has changed quite a bit.
It’s no longer about going out west and
building a log cabin or panning for gold or
any of those types of things.
The American dream this day is intertwined
very tightly with the idea of changing the
world through technology.
If you look at the leaders of technology in
this country or any country but especially
in America they represent the American dream
that anybody could grow up to become a Mark
Zuckerberg or a Kevin Systrom or a Bill Gates.
But if you actually look at how that’s working
out it isn’t really the picture we see.
And if I think back on my own childhood and
then look at some kids we have today.
Here is an example of Armand a fifth grader
in just North of Harlem in New York City in
Washington Heights and he lives in a neighborhood
that’s a low income neighborhood.
None of the schools in his neighborhood are
teaching computer science, none of the kids
near him can run to the same opportunity that.
I was lucky that my dad gave me when I was
growing up.
And there is a question of will he end up
having at all a chance of becoming effectively
to be the next Mark Zuckerberg.
Or this here is Rahel, she lives in Highline
just south of Seattle about two miles away
from where I live.
And again in the Highline school district
it’s a low income school district.
Again, will the kids in this district without
access to Computer Science ever have a chance
of participating in this new digital world,
in the new American dream?
So, when you think about these kids the question
I ask is, what does a career look like for
a student graduating in 2030?
If a student enters kindergarten today and
goes through 13 years of school and four years
of college by 2030, what are the jobs that
are going to be available?
I used to tell people that unless you plan
on getting a job driving a truck or flipping
burgers, pretty much anything else you want
to do is going to get changed by computers
and every industry is getting impacted.
It now turns out there’s robots that are
being designed that know how to flip burgers
and there's trucks that know how to drive
themselves.
And this is already happening today.
So by 2030 pretty much any job we think about
preparing our kids for, any career, any industry
we think of is getting overturned by technology.
It's not just about the tech industry.
Now since I wear a hat with the name code
on it and I represent code.org people assume
that my message is that our kids should be
learning to code.
And, of course, I think many people agree
that our kids should be learning to code.
But my message is actually very different
than that.
It's a nuanced difference.
My message is that our schools should be teaching
Computer Science.
And there is two important differences there.
One is that this should be taught in schools
because if kids like me learn how to code
when their dad brings, gives them home a computer
it will only be accessible to the kids who
have dads who are going to bring them home
a computer.
And then the second reason, the second difference
is that coding is a somewhat narrow field.
This isn't about just teaching kids Java script
or HTML.
It's about teaching them how the internet
works, how encryption works and the breadth
of how computers and technology are changing
society and changing industry.
Now there's this misconception that Computer
Science education is on the rise.
And in fact when I started looking at this
I had the same misconception.
The tech industry is booming.
You see Google and Facebook and Instagram
and YouTube and all these things growing.
So, of course, Computer Science education
has also been booming.
It actually turns out Computer Science education
has only recently started recovering after
10 years of going in the exact opposite direction
that what everybody would expect.
This is the chart of Computer Science graduates
over the last 15 years.
We are still not as where we were in 2003.
So it's been declining and the only recently
increasing.
And the number of women in the field is still
one half of what it was about 10 years ago.
So, that we have a lot of work to do literally
just to catch up to where we were 10 years
ago and let alone to make it forward to the
next level of where this country can be.
Now people assume since I come from the tech
industry and I don't actually live in California
but people assume I live in California.
People assume the tech industry is desperately
trying to hire computer programmers in California
and that's why we should be teaching people
Computer Science.
The reality is every single industry is desperately
trying to hire computer programmers everywhere.
Now if you look at the picture in California
it's a pretty interesting picture.
In California right now today there is 87,000
currently open jobs in computing in Computer
Science and for Computer Science graduates.
If you do the math this adds up to about 10
billion dollars a year of annual payroll that
companies would pay to students, to graduates
if they knew how to have these skills, 10
billion dollars a year for students that don't
have a chance to do that yet.
Now if you look at California universities
just last year 3,500 CS graduates graduated
from California universities.
So these are the students that have a chance
to enter these 87,000 jobs.
That's how many students our universities
are putting out.
If you look at what happens in high school,
the AP Computer Science class in high school
had less than 9,000 high school students take
that exam.
And this is an exam that has been growing
in popularity but it's still nowhere near
the level of opportunity that there is in
terms of the jobs.
And in that exam only 26 percent were female,
only less than a thousand of those kids were
Hispanic Americans, less than 150 were Black.
So if you consider the number of Hispanic
kids or African American kids vying for those
jobs, I mean those 1150 kids were going to
have a great career.
But all the other under-privileged kids, all
the other Black or Hispanic kids in this entire
state just don't even have the pathway to
get to these amazing jobs.
And now you may think this picture is just
in California because of course Silicon Valley
is where all these jobs are.
This actually is the same picture in every
single state in this country.
The numbers are smaller but the picture is
just as lopsided or even worse in many states.
If you look nationwide there is, the predictions
from the National Government is that there’s
going to be over 1 million computing jobs
in within 10 years in every single industry
and in every single state that are open and
basically unfilled because our schools aren't
graduating enough students in this field.
This is also a ridiculous graph.
This basically compares the lifetime earnings
or the value of a high school education versus
a college education, versus a college degree
in Computer Science.
The step up from a college degree to a Computer
Science college degree is almost as big as
a step up from a high school degree to a Computer
Science degree.
Now that's not going to last forever.
The reason that's happening is because not
enough kids are going to this field.
And the reason not enough kids are going to
this field is because of what happens in high
school and K to 12.
So now every time I talk about this people
say, Oh yes we know about the STEM problem.
You're talking about the STEM problem.
We need more kids in STEM.
And my message is that the STEM problem is
in Computer Science.
And I don't mean to demean the rest of STEM.
If you look at the totality of job availabilities
in STEM, 71 percent of all new jobs in STEM
are in computing fields.
For computer programmers, data analysis, cyber
security experts, systems engineers, et cetera.
If you look at graduates from universities
only eight percent of all the STEM graduates
in our universities are graduating in Computer
Science.
There is a huge mismatch in what we are doing
within STEM.
We are putting a lot of kids through STEM
fields.
But the STEM fields they are studying in university
are actually not the STEM fields that the
jobs are in and where the growth for this
country is and where the opportunity is.
Now, of course, Computer Science is about
technology and what we learn in Computer Science
class is all about technology.
But as teachers we don't want to just lead
kids down a vocational path of here is this
high paying job, go to school.
get this job.
Every kid has to become a software engineer.
But that's not what it's all about.
Computer Science is just as much about logic,
problem-solving and creativity.
And there is lots of ways you can give examples
of this but my favorite way of talking about
this is just with two pictures.
This is the picture of the first computer
technology ever.
It's the first computer from 1943 and back
then if you wanted to study technology you
would be learning about these very large devices
and vacuum tubes and things like that.
And the technology of then is completely irrelevant
today and if you were studying that technology
then it wouldn't actually be relevant today.
This picture by comparison is a picture of
the first computer programmer Ada Lovelace,
who wrote the first computer program a hundred
years before the first computer was actually
created.
And that's astonishing in multiple ways.
First of all most people don't know that the
first computer programmer was a woman.
So hats off to women.
And secondly that shows that computer programming
Computer Science is more than about technology.
What she was doing was solving theoretical
problems designing algorithms for a theoretical
machine that didn't even exist, but talking
about if you could give a machine instructions
here is what an algorithm would look like.
And as a mathematician, an applied mathematician,
she was exercising the same type of critical
thinking skills and logic and problem-solving
skills that we want students to learn no matter
what field they go into.
So, you know what, Computer Science is fantastically
vocational.
It leads to the absolutely best paying jobs
in the country, it's just as much foundational.
When I went to school and when pretty much
every student, everybody in this room went
to school and every student today goes to
school, every school teaches kids about the
digestive system.
If I ask people to raise their hands, how
many of you know what that is and did you
learn about it in school, everybody would
raise their hands.
Or if you said, how many of you learned about
the basics of how electricity works?
How a battery has high voltage and low voltage
and the circuit goes through when the light
bulb lights up?
Everyone of us has learned that in school.
Every one of us has learned about the Pythagorean
Theorem in school you know A squared plus
B squared is C squared.
Most of us aren't using that in our day-to-day
lives.
But it's something we learned, we memorized
and we had to do it in math class because
this is what we consider foundational education.
We are now in the 21st century, it's equally
foundational for every single kid to understand
what an algorithm is or how the internet works.
Today's top headlines include this battle
between Apple and the FBI about encryption,
where Apple is saying we can't make an encryption
backdoor just for the FBI without breaking
all of our encryption.
And the FBI is saying, yes you can.
And most Americans have no idea whose experts
to believe.
And part of this is a philosophical or political
battle but part of it is a technical battle
where literally Americans are like we don't
even really know what encryption means.
So who knows who you can believe.
These are the types of that schools can give
you a better understanding of.
Now Computer Science may also even help students
in other fields.
This is early research.
So it's not at the point where one can make
causal statements.
But there is extremely strong correlation
between teaching Computer Science and improvements
of Math scores.
What this chart shows you is the College Board
looked at students that were in the same level
of Math when they took the SAT or the PSAT.
So these kids in 10th grade or 9th grade were
equal as Math students.
And then some of them took the AP Computer
Science exam and some of them didn't.
And then if you look at the subsequent year
how do they do at Calculus or at Statistics
the students with Computer Science backgrounds
in between all showed an increase in their
Math scores.
Now does that mean the Computer Science helped
the Math or something else?
We don't know.
But at least there is a strong correlation
and anybody who studies this field knows in
their heart that Computer Science helps you
develop your logic skills and your analytical
thinking skills as well.
So this issue really begins in K to 12 whether
you care about the foundational learning that
every kid must have or the vocational pathway
of the best paying jobs in the country K to
12 is where we can, is the only place we can
solve this problem.
Surveys now have shown that nine out of ten
parents want their child to study Computer
Science.
So that's not just White parents or wealthy
parents or parents who get technology.
When I first started talking about this stuff,
people would tell me that there is neighborhoods
where those parents don't even know about
technology and they don't think their kids
can have a future.
They don't see their kids going into college
or anything.
It turns out nine out of ten parents want
schools to teach Computer Science.
They get that this is where the world is going.
They get that technology is changing faster
than they can keep up and the idea that their
school isn't even trying to prepare their
kids for what's going to happen in 15 years,
feels broken to all of the parents in this
country.
Meanwhile only one-fourth of our schools have
even a single course in Computer Science.
So if you're one of the parents in the other
75 percent of school districts or schools
in this country, you may be sending your kid
to a public education that will teach them
the same things that you learned when you
went to school but not the one thing that
leads to the best paying jobs in the country
and that is completely changing every industry
in every single region.
The gender gap in technology also starts in
K-12.
All of us have read about how Google is 90
percent male or Twitter is all White and so
on.
And if you look at it that these tech companies
and tech jobs are predominantly male.
They are predominantly White and that's not
just a problem in the software workforce.
It's a problem that happens at the university
level where the majority of university students
are White or Asian males in Computer Science.
And then if you look back in high school the
same thing is true there as well.
In fact studies have shown that a high school
girl who tries Computer Science is six times
more likely to major in it.
I'm sorry ten times more likely to major in
it.
Any student who tries Computer Science in
high school is six times more likely to major
in but especially so if they are female.
Now the other thing to consider is when the
majority of our schools, when three-fourths
of schools don't even teach this field.
If you look at that little high school box
this is really what it looks like.
Because three-quarters of those kids don't
even have access in high school, which means
if they go to college that's really what the
college, the university box looks like.
And this is really what the software workforce
looks like when 75 percent of our kids are
just simply being left behind without having
the access.
So, if the majority of kids taking this in
university are doing it because they learned
it in high school that's what the picture
looks like.
And in fact, if you look at what's happening
in America's universities today the best universities,
Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Yale, the number
one course in all of these universities is
Computer Science.
Because the students at those universities,
when they were in high school had exposure
to this field.
Computer Science literally just passed in
Harvard Ec 10, the introductory economics
classes the number one field.
And Stanford it’s been the most popular
major for years.
Whereas if you look at lower schools, community
colleges, schools where many of your students
may end up those schools don't see Computer
Science growing the same way, because those
kids didn't have the exposure when they were
in high school.
The other thing that has really changed very
recently is that, this point the education
system actually agrees.
Among K through 12 teachers more than half
believe not only that Computer Science should
be taught but that it should be required for
every single student to learn.
And that's a fascinating change.
This is definitely not how people felt two,
three years ago.
In fact, the only people that aren't fully
caught up to this because the kids are, the
parents are and the teachers are, the only
group that isn't fully aware of this is the
school administrators, not because they are
against Computer Science.
I'd like to apologize the school administrators
in this room.
The issue actually isn't that the school administrators
are clueless.
They also know that this is important.
They just don't realize that everybody else
wants it too.
So, they don't realize that their teaching
staff is on board and the parents want it
as well.
They, if you ask them, is it important?
They’d say, of course, it's important but
we have lots of things to do.
And then, lastly just six weeks ago, the President
of the United States said something incredible.
He said, in the new economy Computer Science
is no longer an optional skill.
It's a basic skill, right alongside reading,
writing, and arithmetic.
And I have to share by the way it's a pretty
special moment for me when I actually had
a chance to read that speech before it was
given a couple days before and was looking
at it and saying like, this is actually be
going to be said after having spent two-and-a-half
years of my life repeating this message.
It's a pretty neat moment.
But you also know that if the President is
saying that it's not because he just thinks
so.
It's because he's ran polls and done studies
and knows that by this moment saying this
it's not going to be this like groundbreaking
message that's nobody's thought of.
It's basically staying what the electorate
already believes and is showing America that
this is where we are now.
So, there's all these reasons to teach this
foundational and vocational field.
The real question is can the public K through
12 education system evolve?
And when I started code.org, initially I thought
we should run and create a network of after
school clubs because you can't change school
systems.
And people tell me don't even bother trying
to change school.
And then I realized that if we don't change
real school we won't get to all kids, to the
real kids, that need this the most.
And when you think about the school system,
most people don't think about this sort of
agile, innovative, high-tech kind of thing.
That's not the picture people have in mind
when they think of America's schools.
But when you think of America's school teachers,
those are actually people who can make change
happen.
And in fact we have made change happen.
If you think about some of the course like
Math.
Math used to be taught using an abacus.
Today every single Math teacher is teaching
Math using a device that looks like that.
That device didn't exist 70 ago.
It's only been around for about 40 years.
Every single student in this country has to
buy one of these devices.
Computers are almost as cheap as these devices
today and in fact, I wonder if we teach all
these kids how to use that calculator what
job will that lead them to?
There's only one job in this country that
requires knowing how to use that device, which
is Math teacher.
And obviously we need lots and lots of Math
teachers but maybe we could change Math class
to use some new devices, some new methodologies
that will also apply to other courses and
other fields as well.
And this is definitely possible.
We've already done it in the last 40 years,
once in math.
We could do it again.
There's another question that we need to answer
which is, can we change stereotypes?
This is a picture of a woman in Silicon Valley
who held up her photo just saying, I helped
build software, I look like an engineer.
And a whole bunch of software engineers posted
similar pictures on Twitter and Facebook saying,
I'm also an engineer.
Now, this was a great campaign.
The problem is roughly 20 percent of the women
and I’m sorry roughly 20 percent of our
tech workforce are women.
So, even though the women who are in the tech
workforce are saying, I exist.
Well, if you're a software engineer going
to work and there's like eight guys and one
girl.
That picture doesn't mean a lot to you.
It's hard to change stereotypes when the facts
on the ground actually say something else.
So you can point out the few women there are
in tech but when the facts on the ground are
so lopsided, the stereotype persists.
So, my question has been, can we evolve the
public education system and can we break a
stereotype by changing the facts on the ground?
The first step in doing this has been for
us the Hour of Code.
which let me just asks, I have a quick question.
How many people here have heard of the Hour
of Code?
All right, can you hold up your hand still
because I want to get a picture of that?
Hold up your hand.
All right, thank you.
The Hour of Code as you've obviously heard
about it is this now grassroots movement that
now has over 200,000 educators behind it.
It's the coolest thing ever to have thought
of this idea about two-and-a-half years ago
and when we thought of it, code.org was like
a four person team and we thought, this is
a big way we can get this exciting.
Let's get every teacher to do it.
And the first question the rest of my team
asked is like what army is going to do that.
And this was about five months before the
first Hour of Code.
Most teachers and schools don't even realize
that this is something that has only existed
for two-and-a-half years.
We just finished our third Hour of Code.
I wanted to play a short video for those of
you who haven't seen it and this video came
out about seven months ago as the lead up
to the most recent Hour of Code.
[Video]
The hour of code.
This is so cool.
Hour of code.
Your teacher says you guys are into it.
We are, it's very awesome.
Code.org has partnered with 30 public school
districts across the country including New
York, Chicago and Denver to provide lessons
in teacher training and writing the largest
education events in history.
Organizers are set what they called an ambitious
goal reaching ten million students this week
almost 15 million signed up.
This week, I'm proud to join the students,
teachers, businesses and non-profit organizations
taking new steps to support Computer Science
in America's schools.
I ran an Hour of Code that's easy to do.
I got it.
They've been so excited about it.
They don't even have to be a Computer Science
engineer.
Maybe they want to do something else but in
our world this is going to be the basis for
everything that we do.
When you're building a program you have to
think outside of the box.
If you can change technology, you can change
the world.
I’m telling guys in every single country
to learn one Hour of Code.
Every district should do, every district can
do it.
Please help us get the Hour of Code to every
school and every classroom and every child.
And our school’s doing it.
Thank you.
So, we set out the goal of reaching 200 million
students and I wanted to share some of the
feedback because so many of you have posted
an Hour of Code in your classroom.
I wanted to share and celebrate some of the
feedback from the actual students who participate
in this and tried coding for the first time.
This is from a middle school student in Idaho
saying, I loved it purely and wholly.
It was fun to do.
I want to just do that over and over again
because I really enjoyed what I could do with
it.
I enjoyed its interactivity and how it felt
to control what happened.
It felt really satisfying to me.
I wish we could do it every day.
Which is awesome but also when I read that
out it both first of all makes me feel good
about what we're bringing to students.
It also makes me wonder how can we make kids
feel like that about everything they're doing
in school.
So this is from Austin town in Ohio.
It’s a teacher saying, The highlight of
the week for me was seeing the pride and excitement
on the faces of my first graders when they
successfully created animations and drawings
by actually writing lines of code.
Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would
be teaching coding to first graders.
And there's over a 100,000 teachers like this
one that had the exact same experience of
realizing that this is something they can
do in their classroom with their kids.
In Panama city in Florida, this student said,
Silly to say it, but doing code is the funniest
thing I've ever done.
We're hoping he or she also does some grammar.
And then in Brooklyn, a teacher saying our
students have asked to have one hour every
week which is really what the Hour of Code
is about.
It’s not about just doing one hour.
It's about where it goes beyond that.
And my favorite as I was looking through these
things I was, as actually preparing them for
my staff first to show just the awesome words
and things we get from around the world.
So, I figured let me find one internationally.
And I clicked on our map and the very first
international thing I found was this.
In Namibia, somebody saying our event will
not only be part of the global Hour of Code
but it's an extended feasibility study to
put these materials incorporated into the
Namibian National Curriculum, which is awesome.
And, this actually makes a really important
point which is the Hour of Code started as
an idea in Seattle and spread to almost every
school in the United States.
But what we do in the United States, in technology
we lead the world.
We may not lead the world in education.
We may not lead the world in Physics or Math.
But this is a country that invented the computer,
invented the internet and invented the smartphone.
It invented social media.
It invented e-commerce.
We also, when we do this, the rest of the
world is following us.
And it’s why the Hour of Code has become
such a national phenomenon.
And in fact there's now seven countries not
just Namibia but Italy, Argentina, Saudi Arabia,
the UK, Australia, South Korea have all announced
national curriculum roll out plans before
the president made his ‘Computer Science
for all’ speech.
So this is thanks to your leadership that
this has happened.
And the last time I made these slides, the
Hour of Code had reached 200 million students.
That's actually slightly out of date.
We're now at 230 million.
It grows by about one or two million every
single week which is incredible.
More importantly, almost half of the students
participating in that further growth.
And so, when I spoke about changing the facts
on the ground, the reality is now the Computer
Science in America's schools especially when
you go to the lower grades which is where
most people have done the Hour of Code is
50-50.
Today's fourth graders if they've done the
Hour of Code they did it in a classroom with
equal number of boys and girls.
They don't have any stereotype about who's
better or worse among the genders.
And this is how, the way we break this gender
gap is in the K through 12 school system.
We had more girls try Computer Science in
just one week than in the entire history of
the field of computing, and which is also
kickass.
So, one thing by the way people ask me how
did this get so big.
And what people think is because the President
talked about the Hour of Code or because we
got celebrities to tweet about it or things
like that and those things helped and getting
to be on the homepage of Apple or Google also
helped.
But as a tech company, code.org actually has
analytics.
We measure where things come from and how
things spread.
And by far not just by like a little bit but
by far the largest reason the Hour of Code
has spread.
Can anybody guess?
It's because of teachers.
Thank you.
Yes, because of you.
So, thank you very much for your help in getting
us here.
Now, I get a 
lot of criticism about what can you learn
in one hour.
And I should be very clear that the goal of
the Hour of Code is not to teach people to
become computer scientists.
The goal of the Hour of Code is to realize
that coding can be fun and we of course as
you probably know have tutorials featuring
some of the coolest brand the kids like to
play with.
So at first just learning that this is fun
unlike many other things you do in school
is a big deal.
And the other thing for teachers and students
to learn is that the pictures you see of code
start with like semicolons and angle brackets
and so on but basic coding can start with
dragging and dropping and playing and that's
a much easier way to get eased into it.
And you don't need to worry about whether
you miss type the semicolon.
And then much more importantly it's a creative
act.
When your students make something that looks
like this it's actually something they want
to show home to their mom or dad.
Unlike a multiple choice problem set that
they, the answer was C or D. And they like
to show their grades too, but that's a lot
more fun to show.
And in fact when you're calculating the angles
to do something like that you're learning
about angles, you might be learning about
the Pythagorean Theorem as part of trying
to create some art rather than just answering
a multiple choice question.
One thing I'd like to do right now is to actually
give a quick demo.
How many people here by the way already done
the Hour of Code?
I'm guessing it's a lot.
Yes.
How many of you have seen our Star Wars tutorial?
Alright so less than half the room did that.
So, I'm going to quickly go into our Star
Wars tutorial.
But then I'm going to show some stuff that
you probably haven't seen.
And this may not work because I'm on the Wi-Fi
for the conference which has been spotty.
But I tested it before you were all in this
room and it worked back then.
So we'll give it a shot.
Alright, so this is our Star Wars tutorial.
I'm going to pause the video.
So as you know for many of our tutorials there’s
instructions helping you get the, telling
you what to do.
So we're going to try to get BB-8, the little
droid to get the scrap metal.
So here's little BB-8 and he's trying to get
there.
And he has one command telling him to move
right.
Can anybody tell me what else he needs to
do?
He needs to move right again and run and for
a student who's done that, that's basically
the very first experience in coding and we
tell them you wrote two lines of code.
And this, these type of puzzles aren't very,
very hard but I want to show you if you haven't
seen it.
This tutorial lets you do something very different
than most of the rest of the code.org tutorials
or Hour of Code tutorials that you can see.
So here BB-8 wants to move right and move
down but you can click this button.
I can put some of the move right commands
but then you can click to show text and then
the commands you type actually just change
to Java script.
And then you can actually type the commands.
So for kids or teachers who want to learn
sort of how real coding is done by the professionals
you could do this.
This way and in fact you can switch back and
forth between blocks and texts seamlessly
and in fact you can drag blocks into here.
So, whether you are dragging or dropping or
typing you can write code that way which is
really cool.
And then if you haven’t seen somewhere tutorials
that let you build games you can get interactive
in these things, it’s not just about solving
puzzles.
So in this level we need to teach R2D2 how
them do we act to the keys on the keyboard.
So it says what should R2D2 when you hit an
up arrow and then tell them to go down when
you hit an up row.
And when I hit the down arrow I mean I have
to go up because I’m messing around and
when I hit the left over I’m going to go
right.
And I when I hit the right arrow, he is going
to go left.
And now he gets, needs to get all these rubble
pilots said to go up.
Oops, okay that’s up.
That’s down.
This is so much harder than it looks by the
way.
So once you learn very basic interactivity,
you can start building your own game, and
this very short fifteen-step tutorial, if
you haven’t done with your kids, it starts
with this, these things went up, went down,
went left four night just those keys to get
R2D2 removed but then you can do other things
saying when the game starts lets set the background
to being at the Pops Ice Planets and will
set to draw it R2D2 and give him a super fast
speed and then you can say let’s put some
characters on the screen.
So I mean I add a stormtrooper.
For those of you who aren’t Star Wars fans,
that’s a bad guy.
And in fact I’m going to put two stormtroopers
on here.
And so now really the question is what should
happen if R2D2 runs into a stormtrooper?
So you can say when you, when you run into
a stormtrooper then you can say, for example,
when you get the stormtrooper let’s first
play a sound.
It’s because this is Star Wars sounds are
really cool.
And so we are going play a random R2D2 sound.
And then, of course, we need to get points.
This is probably my favorite thing to see
kids do because there’s choices and can
have R2D2 get points and kids almost always
like to get a 1000 points.
But then one thing you could do to make this
much were interesting is every time we get
a stormtrooper, we can add more stormtroopers.
And this is a nice way of teaching really
basic math like exponents.
So every time we get one stormtrooper we are
going to put two stormtroopers added on to
the field.
So every time R2D2, he has got super fast
skills.
He is set to super fast speed.
Every time he gets a stormtrooper, he is going
to get a 1000 points but then two more stormtroopers
will appear.
So now we can try this game and he is moving
super fast and new stormtroopers are showing
up.
R2D2 has almost 40,000 points by now which
is really important.
So this can go quite a bit until the computer
crashes.
But what’s exciting about that?
What’s most exciting about this is after
you’ve done this is you can hit Finish and
then Share this somewhere or you can even
Send the game to your phone and then you can
type a phone number and just for those of
you who haven’t already done this, this
is about same game now running on my phone.
And you probably can’t see the phone but
you can hear the sounds I think through my
speaker.
Okay, so they’ve build or get a game but
you just made like that automatically on your
phone within five seconds is the magic of
what computing teaches you which is that’s
the power of creating things doesn’t need
to be limited to super geniuses.
They could be done in something like ten minutes
and get things on your phone.
And once the kids start down that path, it’s
a path they pretty much want to stay on not
just because of the opportunity and not just
because the foundational learning but just
because it’s truly fun.
So, obviously the Hour of Code has been a
big success.
My most important messages is really about
what comes after the Hour of Code.
I think everybody in this room is already
believers in the basics of teaching Computer
Science.
Every one of you has probably chalked multiple
hours of Computer Science for your students
and children.
The real question is what more could we do?
First of all I want to go back to the kids
that I spoke about of the very beginning.
I kind of did this thing where I told the
story but the story is actually changed.
Rahel, her entire school district of Highline
has made a partnership with code.org every
single high school in her school district
now actually teaches Computer Science.
And in fact that’s a picture of her in her
Computer Science class.
She wants to become a doctor when she grows
up but she knows that by the time she graduates
from Med school everything in technology is
going to be changing all of medicines.
So she wants to be a doctor who is up to speed
with the changes in medicine.
Armand is in fifth grade in Washington Heights
in New York.
Actually not only his classroom did the Hour
of Code, the teacher then did twenty hours
longer using our curriculum and trained every
teacher and her entire elementary school and
the surrounding schools were all trained by
the same teacher to teach Computers Science.
He just finished our third course.
When he grows up he wants to become a Navy
SEAL but if that doesn’t work out he wants
to become a computer programmer.
In the last two-and-a-half years since the
Hour of Code started and code.org started
we’ve now had over a hundred school districts
embrace Computer Science as a district-wide
effort including all of the largest school
districts in the country, in New York, Los
Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Las Vegas, Houston,
San Francisco.
We just recently announced Oakland and just
a few days ago we announced the entire England
the entire region of California.
Besides the 200,000 teachers who have done
this, 25,000 teachers have been trained to
teach CS.
And we are now at the rate of training about
30,000 teachers every 12 months, which is
an incredible pace of teacher training.
And the majority of these are women, which
is a big difference because before we started
56 percent of Computer Science teachers were
male and White which then just reinforces
the stereotype for their students.
When you look at what most teachers are, most
teachers happen to be female and today I think
we can squarely say most Computer Science
teachers have become female as well.
We are already at the point where not only
10 percent of the students in grades K-8 but
10 percent of all students in this country
have begun coding, which is not just for one
hour for creating accounts on our platform
and going well beyond one hour.
And almost majority of them are girls which
is also a huge accomplishment.
Nineteen states have changed their graduation
policies.
Five states have already begun funding computer
science.
Literally every month we hear about some state
that is working with us to do something.
Virginia just changed its state standards
to require Computer Science.
Idaho’s legislature just passed the funding
goal for Computer Science that’s going to
the governor’s desk.
The news on this stuff is now happening almost
every week.
And as I mentioned earlier seven countries
have changed their curriculum.
So, Computer Science has now become the fastest
spreading course in public education and by
far.
And in the schools that do offer it, they
see record enrollment by students because
students want this.
This is a graph of the AP Computer Science
course.
It shows road in the AP course which has been
after a normal progress in the last three
years.
But well that chart looks great there’s
two really big problems with the charts.
One problem is because is if you look at the
numbers which you probably can’t read at
the top of that chart is 50,000 students.
So that’s 50,000 students a year taking
AP Computer Science.
There’s over a million students a year taking
AP Calculus or Biology or English.
We have roughly 16 million students in our
high schools.
Only 50,000 of them are taking AP Computer
Science.
The reason that’s happening is this chart
shows the growth of enrollment in a course
that’s only offered in 7 percent of our
schools.
In the schools that are teaching it, they’ve
seen enrollment more than double in just three
years.
And the schools that aren’t teaching it
enrollment is still at zero, of course.
Because when you are not teaching it enrollment
stays at zero.
So the only nice thing is diversity is actually
improving in AP Computer Science.
But with 93 percent of school is not even
teaching it we have a very long way to go.
So and again I want to remind you this picture
that the majority of parents want their kids
to study Computer Science and our schools
don’t teach it.
And I want to end with a couple of comments
and some specific ways.
If in your school whether you are a teacher
whether you are a district administrator or
principal how you can go beyond one Hour of
Code to integrate Computer Science into your
curriculum.
So first of all the only URL you need to know
for this is code.org and if you visit code.org
and click on the Teach button there’s a
lot of resources there.
So please when you get home do that, if you
aren’t already doing this.
If you are an elementary school teacher or
if you are a principal in that elementary
school or district administrator we offer
one day PD workshops free of cost.
We’ve had 25,000 teachers go through these
and of the majority rate it not only as a
good PD but they actually say it was the best
PD they have ever had.
How many people here have actually gone to
one of our PD workshop so far?
Awesome.
So these PD workshops are one-day only and
if you visit the website clearly said you
can find the workshop on the left and just
registered, not pay anything.
You got free T-shirts and slag and actually
even the classroom supplies for doing the
courses.
This is where we have workshops currently
planned in California.
So if you are near any of those red dots you
can go to one of these workshops and you can
see that the clothes from of the teachers
attending one of these workshops and if you’d
asked me if we could go whether I could or
should or would teach Computer Science in
kindergarten, I would have just rolled my
eyes.
And now I think I mean introduce it tomorrow
and start getting frequency of lessons.
This isn’t just about an Hour of Code, it’s
about integrating Computer Science throughout
elementary school.
These are the three facilitators that do our,
that host our workshops in California and
they are out here hosting a session today
at 12:30 in the Tapestry Room at the Hilton
Hotel.
So apologies in advance if more people want
to go to this than the Tapestry Room can fit.
But they are going to do a short one-hour
version about PD to introduce you to our Computer
Science fundamentals course for elementary
school students.
And I want to actually quickly ask for a big
round of applause for Steve, Kathy and Liz
who’ve been fantastic facilitators for us.
Now adding Computer Science to middle school
or high school is not as easy because the
right level of dosage isn’t just 20 hours
and it’s also not just learning the ABC’s.
The third graders, the fifth graders they
are learning much easier stuff so as teachers
it’s also much easier.
If you are a middle school or high school
teacher adding Computer Science to the true
curriculum means changing the school’s schedule.
You can’t, as a teacher just decide, I’m
going to start doing Computer Science at 10
o’clock now-a-days.
Forget my English class, we now have Computer
Science.
You need the principal to be on board, the
master schedule needs to change.
So the way to start is if you haven’t done
an Hour of Code introducing it so your school
and your teachers, the students get abroad
and then getting the administration to switch
over.
But it really requires the school system to
change and that’s not an easy thing to do.
Now in California we’ve actually worked
with the school districts in many of this,
throughout the state to actually get the district
at the district level on board.
So and in fact around the country almost a
150 school districts work with us.
So this is the list inside California.
So if you could please take a second and look
and see if you are in any of these school
districts and this is the, there’s two pages
worth of school districts just in California
that we are working with.
So I’m going to wait a little bit longer
so you can see if you are on that list if
you are a teacher.
And this is the rest of the list including
the Nevada and Arizona.
So all the people out there who just clapped
their hands, I’m assuming you are clapping
for your home district, not somebody else’s
district.
If you are in one of these districts we are
currently recruiting teachers who want to
say I am a Math teacher or I am a Tech Ed
teacher or I am a Physics teacher or English
teacher or History teacher, but I want to
go through a year-round program of PD to become
a Computer Science teacher.
And that doesn’t mean changing your job.
That means being able to teach at least one
section of Computer Science along the rest
of your schedule.
And at the district level the district is
already on board with this and we are not
trying to get the teachers recruited to do
this.
So I am going to show once more that the previous
page again so if you didn’t find yourself
over there and then the second page and David
at code.org is the guy in charge of this.
He is somewhere in the audience and the reason
I put in David’s picture up there is basically
if you are at a district that’s not on this
list, your district can reach out to David
for all of California and the South West and
if you’re not in California or the South
West you can email, you could probably email
David anyway and he can drive you to the right
person.
But I wanted to thank David for firstly managing
all of those relationships with those school
districts.
Because relationships with school districts
and administrations are not easy and we have
one guy doing it with two pages with the districts
which, thank you David for your incredibly
hard work.
So I’ve just two more slides to show.
I started of by showing the picture in California
where we have 87,000 currently open jobs and
9,000 high school students just took the AP
exam last year.
Thanks to the teachers that we have been trained,
ignoring the Hour of Code.
The Hour of Code is just the first step.
The real step is teaching Computer Science
in school.
What we’ve done the last two-and-a-half
years in just California is now 3,000 new
Computer Science teachers across K to 12.
And in their classrooms there’s 500,000
new computer science students.
Now most of them are in elementary school
but that’s a very different picture.
500,000 students are not going to be hopefully
some of them becoming Computer Science students
in high schools if the teachers in the high
school here actually sign up for that.
And then hopefully some of them getting degrees
and hopefully some of them, big getting a
chance of entering the best-paying jobs in
the country.
And again these numbers are all because of
the teachers here who have adopted the Hour
of Code or gone through our PD curriculum
and so on.
And again if you want to participate in that,
that’s where you do it.
Lastly I just want to say this has been an
amazing, amazing ride.
I’m sure for all the teachers who have been
part of this but for me personally the chance
of getting to start something I just started
out of an idea to then hear that people in
Namibia are thinking of adding it the curriculum
and I have, if you had to ask me where Namibia
is I just would know it is somewhere in Africa,
but not exactly where.
But they are actually looking and adopting
our curriculum not only in Namibia but throughout
the world to know that there’s now been
literally 300,000 teachers engaging with our
stuff and millions of parents and students.
I just wanted to thank everybody in this room
and really all the educators in the world
that have basically adopted our vision that
every student in every school should have
the opportunity to learn Computer Science.
Thank you very much.
